A Sentence to Ponder

Arnold:

I agree with the comment about the entrepreneurial personality type. I'd characterize the typical bureaucratic personality as avoiding embarrassment. This more often than not translates into 'VP of No', but not in all situations.

FWIW,
Jim Manzi

At least some large organizations find ways to suppress the tendency towards bureaucratic leadership - Google has "20% time", for instance. Ideas there rise to the top via a systematic process (Google Labs); unsuccessful ideas get quietly disposed of every now and then.

On the other hand, many large organizations are insufficiently bureaucratic and procedure-driven. Research in hospitals suggests that many human errors can be reduced by simply enforcing checklists. So there may be benefits in either direction.

Hmm. Both of these seem more controllable by organizational practices rather than the size of an organization per se.

The bureaucrat wants to say "no" a priori. Large organizations need bureaucrats, because otherwise they would waste too much organizational capital (human as well as financial) trying out bad ideas.

Completely false. It doesn't matter if the idea is good or bad. Any idea that will permanently increase the size of a government bureau's budget and the scope of its responsibilities is a "yes" a priori.