#149: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, Putt's Law & Putt's Corrolary
#149: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, Putt's Law & Putt's Corrolary
3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on Misguided Management
I. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
As you may have noticed, I’m fascinated by the absurdity of the modern workplace. With Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, science-fiction writer Jerry Pournelle describes why bureaucracies in particular are so prone to mismanagement.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
👉 In case you missed it, I wrote a whole essay about Pournelle’s law and government dysfunction, applying it to the hilarious Australian political satire Utopia, aka Dreamland.
II. Putt's Law
Similar dynamics aren’t limited to the public sector. According to Archibald Putt (a pseudonym), the technology sector is governed by Putt’s Law.
Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.
—Archibald Putt, Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat
The adage speaks to the division between technical experts and managerial roles. It highlights the challenge of bridging the gap between understanding the intricacies of technology and leading teams or projects within that domain.
If this challenge is not met, Putt’s Law can lead to fascinating coping strategies by those who comprehend what they do not manage; such as Atwood’s Duck.
III. Putt's Corollary
Putt’s Corrolary follows from Archibald’s initial law and states:
Every technical hierarchy, in time, develops a competence inversion.
—Archibald Putt, Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat
Similar to the Peter Principle and Dilbert Principle, Archie foresaw that competence would concentrate in the lower ranks of tech firms. Here, Putt says, competent people would continue to handle the operational side of the technology while the incompetent ones would be promoted up the technocratic hierarchy. 🐘
Have a great week,
Chris
themindcollection.com