Process Vs Prejudice
I recently read an interesting article about Accountability Sinks. In it, the author argues that part of the reason for having business processes is that they diffuse accountability.
Every one of us has tried to have an argument with an employee of a big company, and it always goes like this:
the human being you are speaking to is only allowed to follow a set of processes and rules that pass on decisions made at a higher level of the corporate hierarchy. It’s often a frustrating experience; you want to get angry, but you can’t really blame the person you’re talking to.
So should we give people more discretion in which processes they follow?
In some cases, yes! The article contains some compelling examples of when "breaking the rules" is the preferable outcome.
But there are some unacknowledged downsides to letting people decide which rules are applicable - and that's people's personal prejudices.
The article say some of the discontent with the modern world can be blamed on over-adherence to rules. For example:
The skepticism toward judges? It fits. They often seem more devoted to procedure than to justice.
Imagine a world without sentencing guidelines. Perhaps the judge is from a different tribe to the accused and punishes them much more harshly than a clan-member. Would that seem fair?
The customer service agent just doesn't like people of your gender, and refuses to process your refund.
You give the bank manager a firm handshake and he approves your loan - even though you don't technically qualify you look like a decent sort of chap.
And on it goes.
Look, there's no doubt plenty of bias encoded within processes. All processes should be regularly reviewed and updated. Breaking a process in extremis can be a good idea. When confronted with an inflexible policy, you may feel like a mere cog in a machine - but at least the machine is prevented from discriminating against your type of cogs.
A well-defined process dehumanises both sides.
@Edent There was a thread I remember by @garius@me.uk back on Twitter about governance, and the stand-out post was this one:
https://x.com/garius/status/1289127361884168192
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@Edent @garius@me.uk Yes, the more discretion you allow, the more space there is for bias and prejudice and corruption and so on - but somewhere up the chain of command someone has to be empowered to make exceptions to the rules, or else your system might as well have been explicitly designed to occasionally inflict brutal, unfair, squirrel-shredding outcomes whilst everyone stands around and shrugs their shoulders.
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@Edent @garius I do recommend reading the whole of The Unaccountability Machine if you haven't already. Even if the middle bit is mostly about management cybernetics and is quite boring.
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@Edent New Institutional Economics!
The Japanese Commons ban harvest outside of specified times. During the Yamanaka 1930 defection, people would readily pilfer the Commons land, but it was in 1930, during one of the worse financial crisis that Japan experienced, and the infractions were overlooked with a nod. The crisis was seen as exceptional, and the community was ready to accept lower yields if it meant that the poorest (which were the defectors in this case) would not die of starvation.
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@Edent You need to convince the people supposed to follow the rules that they are fair and that compliance benefit them ultimately.
Generally, the rules are here to solve a collective action problem: "I only follow the rule because it compels you to do the same". If the ruled don't see what problem it solves, or they think others don't follow the rules, it's over.
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HO says:
I think rules are generally a good thing. Especially dealing with the general public, external or internal. Rules are a problem, when you, as a worker, cannot at least have a discussion with management about the rules.
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