However, even the insiders continually complain about the byzantine and top-heavy management which has led to more and more expenditure for less and less visible result for many years. Shier knew when he came into the place that he had to strike fast and hard. Shier clearly decided that he would not be overlaid. So he started where any fundamental reform of a bureaucracy has to start, at the top. Unless he could break the power of the mandarins there was no hope of any significant change.
Power structures depend on a network of alliances and implicit deals which grow up over time.
The notion of putting existing management positions up for grabs, requiring incumbents to reapply for their own jobs against new applicants, is a familiar, and very blunt management tool. It can often do enormous unnecessary harm. However, when an organisation is so entrenched in its own unproductive ways as the ABC, with a staff which sees it as primarily the property of themselves and their cronies in the community, fairly drastic measures are called for. As a result, the ABC is undoubtedly losing some very able and experienced people. But it has also by now crossed the Rubicon - it will never be the same again.