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Understanding how bureaucracy develops

(dhruvmethi.substack.com)
192 points dhruvmethi | 1 comments | 17 Oct 24 14:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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nine_zeros ◴[18 Oct 24 19:20 UTC] No.41882581[source]▶
This is a very well written article. And I firmly agree with this from first-hand experience.

Organizational malleability is key. But it wouldn't work in FAANG style standardized performance review style of work.

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dhruvmethi ◴[19 Oct 24 10:29 UTC] No.41886968[source]▶
Agreed - as organizations scale, it's like some kind of fundamental law of thermodynamics that says they must become more bureaucratic in order to remain competitive. I think it's because organizations can only work at scale if they minimize the variance of each individual business unit, and malleability threatens that. I still think that good enough leadership and communication should allow for malleable units to coexist well together, but that may be a naive ideal.
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marcosdumay ◴[19 Oct 24 18:15 UTC] No.41889505[source]▶
> I think it's because organizations can only work at scale if they minimize the variance of each individual business unit, and malleability threatens that.

It's because of the principal agent problem.

As organizations grow, people inside it become less and less oriented towards the organizational goal. The rigidity appears to fight that.

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1. toomuchtodo ◴[19 Oct 24 20:19 UTC] No.41890465[source]▶
Very insightful. When an organization is small, the individuals protect the org, and are incentivized to. The org cannot survive without strong alignment between individuals. At some point, when sufficient scale has been achieved, the org crystallizes to protect itself from certain actors that prioritize the individual over the org. The rigidity is a defense mechanism, an immune system of sorts.