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A lot of things that we categorize as bureaucracy were created as a reaction to something bad happening. Someone shipped the product with an obvious security fl

A lot of things that we categorize as bureaucracy were created as a reaction to something bad happening. Someone shipped the product with an obvious security flaw -> every new product needs security review; some product had a name that violated someone else's trademark -> making committee gets created; someone kept expensing insane meals -> let's create clear expense guidelines; managers keep approving things that violated the expense policy -> let's higher auditors who review every expense report. This will keep happening to even the most incompetent person cannot do anymore harm. Meanwhile top performers leave. AFAIK the best way out of this has been Netflix's "freedom and responsibility". You expense crazy meals, you get a warning. You do it again, you are fired.

lll-o-lll 4y ago
Tell me more about this Netflix “freedom and responsibility”. The natural trend towards inefficient “process for all the things” hits hard as a really deep insight. Security for example. Every new things needs security review. How does this fit into the Netflix “freedom and responsibility” concept?
naasking 4y ago
> bureaucracy were created as a reaction to something bad happening Probably, but not every bad thing happening requires a response. Sometimes mistakes or bad things happen, and you just say, "use better sense next time", and then you move on.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Most people have been taught to do a Root Cause Analysis and improvement plan for everything.
  - gerash 4y ago
    that's still good. The missing piece is taking into account the cost of these "processes" throughout their lifetime when deciding whether or not to add yet another procedure.
yummypaint 4y ago
This is a good way of explaining how the iron law of beurocracy appears to those on the ground as creep sets in. The first series of changes (security, legal, expense guidelines) seem to be reasonable solutions because they directly effect the output of the business and could expose huge liability. The pernicious part happens when those ancillary functions become conflated with the business itself, at which point it is far too tempting to further expand the beurocracy to service those functions (i.e. auditors). My sense is that the most despised rules in most organizations are such second-order attempts to service the beurocracy. An common example might be the procurement department, whose purpose was originally to facilitate and track purchases for the business. Maybe at first they managed and distributed credit cards to employees. However, this is still inconvenient when employees make innevitable mistakes. Instead of dealing with this inconvenience, credit cards are eventually taken away from employees and an online procurement portal is set up and/or people are expected to file reimbursement paperwork after trips. Now the beurocracy has effectively shifted its own burdens onto individual employees while making the process slower, more complex, and more expensive. Despite all of this procurement will now be considered a core pillar of the business because executives look at all that sunk cost and fallaciously conclude that the procurement beurocrats are indespensible. Meanwhile, there isn't really a similar mechanism at play to protect people doing the actual work.

lll-o-lll 4y ago

Tell me more about this Netflix “freedom and responsibility”. The natural trend towards inefficient “process for all the things” hits hard as a really deep insight. Security for example. Every new things needs security review. How does this fit into the Netflix “freedom and responsibility” concept?

naasking 4y ago

> bureaucracy were created as a reaction to something bad happening Probably, but not every bad thing happening requires a response. Sometimes mistakes or bad things happen, and you just say, "use better sense next time", and then you move on.

Aeolun 4y ago
Most people have been taught to do a Root Cause Analysis and improvement plan for everything.
- gerash 4y ago
  that's still good. The missing piece is taking into account the cost of these "processes" throughout their lifetime when deciding whether or not to add yet another procedure.

yummypaint 4y ago

This is a good way of explaining how the iron law of beurocracy appears to those on the ground as creep sets in. The first series of changes (security, legal, expense guidelines) seem to be reasonable solutions because they directly effect the output of the business and could expose huge liability. The pernicious part happens when those ancillary functions become conflated with the business itself, at which point it is far too tempting to further expand the beurocracy to service those functions (i.e. auditors). My sense is that the most despised rules in most organizations are such second-order attempts to service the beurocracy. An common example might be the procurement department, whose purpose was originally to facilitate and track purchases for the business. Maybe at first they managed and distributed credit cards to employees. However, this is still inconvenient when employees make innevitable mistakes. Instead of dealing with this inconvenience, credit cards are eventually taken away from employees and an online procurement portal is set up and/or people are expected to file reimbursement paperwork after trips. Now the beurocracy has effectively shifted its own burdens onto individual employees while making the process slower, more complex, and more expensive. Despite all of this procurement will now be considered a core pillar of the business because executives look at all that sunk cost and fallaciously conclude that the procurement beurocrats are indespensible. Meanwhile, there isn't really a similar mechanism at play to protect people doing the actual work.