>> so nobody is directly on the hook for blame when things go wrong >Usually the poor guy who broke the unspoken rules is to blame Sure. I could have phrased

>> so nobody is directly on the hook for blame when things go wrong >Usually the poor guy who broke the unspoken rules is to blame Sure. I could have phrased my point better as, "Even if someone is blamed, nobody in leadership will be blamed for 'bad process' decisions." >the people informally "in the know" do gain the undue influence I could argue that this is a feature and not a bug. The inefficiency of the null process means that the "informally in the know" group will need to be much larger, on average, than the feasible power groups in efficient organizations. A group composed of 25% of the employees would probably be less likely to end up making radical decisions than a group of <4% of the employees. >This also lowers the bus factor of the organization By the same measure, having a larger power group and the null process would seem to me to greatly increase the bus factor. There would be more people each specifically focused on smaller areas, and/or possibly also overlapping in knowledge due to inefficiencies/redundancies in the null process.