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The clue is right there - they don't care about the org, they care about their own personal power and status within the org. Not least because that often transl

The clue is right there - they don't care about the org, they care about their own personal power and status within the org. Not least because that often translates directly to earnings. But also not exclusively. Because for some people the point of work isn't to do a good job, it's to be superior to others. I'm increasingly convinced bureaucracy is a power flex. Making it difficult/impossible for some people to do their jobs is a way of keeping them in their place. They're not a threat while they're tied up in frustration. But it's also a way of confirming the status of those who removed their personal agency. It's similar to cost structures. It would be insane to consider the engine room of a military vessel as a cost centre, because it literally makes it possible for the vessel to do its job. But ops are considered a cost centre because "ops doesn't generate a profit." Of course it generates it profit. In fact it generates most of the profit. Remove ops and most of the profit disappears. But it also usually has low political status. Getting labelled a "cost centre" is a way to force the rest of the power structure to think of it like that.

vkou 4y ago
> I'm increasingly convinced bureaucracy is a power flex. Making it difficult/impossible for some people to do their jobs is a way of keeping them in their place. They're not a threat while they're tied up in frustration. There's a few sociopaths who create some fraction of bureaucracy with that purpose, but it doesn't sufficiently explain the sheer volumes of it. The more plausible explanation, to me, is that people create bureaucracy for two reasons: 1. To protect the firm from bad outcomes. Someone, at some point, screwed up, and burnt the firm, or allowed an external third party to burn the firm, and bureaucracy developed as institutional scar tissue to protect against this happening again. 2. To protect their jobs. If they aren't involved in something important, there's no reason for the firm to employ them. If they can wedge themselves into a business-critical workflow, they can increase their importance to the firm, without actually having to do anything useful.

vkou 4y ago

> I'm increasingly convinced bureaucracy is a power flex. Making it difficult/impossible for some people to do their jobs is a way of keeping them in their place. They're not a threat while they're tied up in frustration. There's a few sociopaths who create some fraction of bureaucracy with that purpose, but it doesn't sufficiently explain the sheer volumes of it. The more plausible explanation, to me, is that people create bureaucracy for two reasons: 1. To protect the firm from bad outcomes. Someone, at some point, screwed up, and burnt the firm, or allowed an external third party to burn the firm, and bureaucracy developed as institutional scar tissue to protect against this happening again. 2. To protect their jobs. If they aren't involved in something important, there's no reason for the firm to employ them. If they can wedge themselves into a business-critical workflow, they can increase their importance to the firm, without actually having to do anything useful.