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Comment by a_c | Hacker News Reader

I am always curious whether the bureaucracy ubiquitous to big corps a feature or a bug. If the big corp in your experience is doing fine nowadays, then perhaps it is more of a feature?

In my experience, the existence of bureaucracy always started from someone wanting to bring process in place. Either the process was not necessary in the first place, or somewhere down the road the reason for process no longer valid. Instead of removing the useless process, it lingers on. But the existence of bureaucracy never directly impact the business that there is no incentive to refactor it out of operation

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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 really huge companies tend to be in heavily regulated environments.

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.

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).

> 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.

> Either the process was not necessary in the first place, or somewhere down the road the reason for process no longer valid. Instead of removing the useless process, it lingers on.

Internally, companies suffer from the Chesterton’s Fence problem. At least democratic governments typically have to go through a long enough discussion process that someone can look back later.

It’s why companies to reorgs, “new initiatives”, acquisitions and the like, tossing both baby and bathwater out.

Also why there is a culture of “best practices” — often a cover for laziness, but also often with a kernel of good idea in it somewhere.

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