4 ms·

My tentative view: In heavily regulated environments (banks, airlines, healthcare, etc) it's a feature. Elsewhere it's a bug. I also think that's why the reall

• undreren 4y ago
  Bureaucracy is foremost a tool for control, and the cost is time, friction and/or autonomy. Sometimes this control is great, as it can streamline processes, which can make employee training and automation cheaper. The problem is that the extra work created by bureaucracy is rarely executed by those that demand it, and is often only desired due to a lack of trust in those working on the floor. A good bureaucracy requires very little active work (by humans) and has tangible benefits. It has to be of greater measureable value than the loss of productivity it incurs on the employees tasked with running it.
  • dcminter 4y ago
    I think you're right. Bureaucracy has become a term of abuse so we tend not to realise that the good stuff can also be bureaucratic (code reviews being an example that springs to mind).
• gumby 4y ago
  > I also think that's why the really huge companies tend to be in heavily regulated environments. Because the burden of regulation becomes a barrier to new entrants, ass opposed to the entrenched players who adopted them incrementally over the years. In general I’m a fan of regulation, but I do understand it’s concomitant limitations and downsides.