Scientific Definition
Bureaucracies tend to expand and protect themselves, regardless of their original purpose.
Plain-English Definition
Bureaucracies tend to expand and protect themselves, regardless of their original purpose.
Feynman Explanation
The department exists to serve the department.
Core Principle
Bureaucracies tend to expand and protect themselves, regardless of their original purpose.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Bureaucracies tend to expand and protect themselves, regardless of their original purpose.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Organizations become self-serving over time.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The department exists to serve the department.
Examples
- A compliance team grows even as compliance outcomes plateau.
- Organizations become self-serving over time.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Tie survival and growth to measurable mission outcomes.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Tie survival and growth to measurable mission outcomes.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
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Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Combining substances to create a new material stronger than its parts.
A single constraint limits the throughput of an entire system.
A system's throughput is constrained by its single slowest step.
Small visible disorders signal that bigger ones will be tolerated.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Adding people to a late project makes it later.
A substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed.
Nonlinear systems are highly sensitive to initial conditions.
Inputs combine under conditions to produce new outputs — sometimes irreversibly.
Software architecture mirrors org structure.
Working together has a cost that scales with the number of people.
The threshold at which a system becomes self-sustaining.