I think there's a conflation happening here, turning bureaucracy into a noun and then overfitting it to all instances of bureaucracy. There are highly bureaucratic teams/organizations among the Fortune 500, and there are more agile government agencies.
1. I contend that bureaucracy develops to minimize downside risk. Organizations create rules, processes and structures with the goal of making sure tasks are constantly done the same way, and importantly, limiting (ideally preventing) the chance of something going wrong (e.g., missing critical data on a form, not looping in all of the appropriate people.)
1.a What I find most interesting is the trade-off that this implies... de-risking/limiting downside potential almost tautologically implies a restriction on upside potential. Organizations... (read 464 more words →)
I think there's a conflation happening here, turning bureaucracy into a noun and then overfitting it to all instances of bureaucracy. There are highly bureaucratic teams/organizations among the Fortune 500, and there are more agile government agencies.
1.
I contend that bureaucracy develops to minimize downside risk. Organizations create rules, processes and structures with the goal of making sure tasks are constantly done the same way, and importantly, limiting (ideally preventing) the chance of something going wrong (e.g., missing critical data on a form, not looping in all of the appropriate people.)
1.a
What I find most interesting is the trade-off that this implies... de-risking/limiting downside potential almost tautologically implies a restriction on upside potential. Organizations... (read 464 more words →)