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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: 0s | source
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sevensor ◴[19 Oct 24 18:31 UTC] No.41889622[source]▶
When you treat every negative outcome as a system failure, the answer is more systems. This is the cost of a blameless culture. There are places where that’s the right answer, especially where a skilled operator is required to operate in an environment beyond their control and deal with emergent problems in short order. Aviation, surgery. Different situations where the cost of failure is lower can afford to operate without the cost of bureaucratic compliance, but often they don’t even nudge the slider towards personal responsibility and it stays at “fully blameless.”
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1. poulsbohemian ◴[19 Oct 24 20:33 UTC] No.41890571[source]▶
But there's also an element where this isn't due to system failure, but rather design. Companies want to make their processes bureaucratic so that you won't cost them money in support and so you won't cancel your subscription - making the process painful is the point. Likewise in government - it isn't that government can't be efficient, it's that there are people and organizations who want it to be encumbered so that they can prove their political point that government is inept. One side wants to create funding for a program, the other side puts in place a ton of controls to make spending the money for the program challenging so they can make sure that the money isn't wasted - which costs more money and we get more bureaucracy.