“But I do think it that it [sic] is very important that you not deviate too far from the department norms.”
Yep.
Bureaucracies chew up and spit out people who deviate from norms. You apparently think that you are a better teacher. How relevant is that to your success in the bureaucracy? Is it necessarily beneficial? Do your students get a vote on whether you get tenure? Get a raise? Get a lab?
Some people at work work on the purported purpose of the bureaucracy Others work the bureaucratic reward and punishment system.
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.
It’s also worth pointing out that conflicting institutional loyalties are a huge source of conflict. The “standard” practice in organizations is to collude with your direct management against their management—do things that favor your boss over your boss’s boss. Coward is doing things the ‘honest’ way, favoring his boss’s boss (i.e. the university as a whole) instead of his boss (the math department), which leads to both the conflict and his expectation that he’ll get support by making an ‘internal affair’ public.
But, of course, that also means he has lots of ready-made allies, regardless of the facts on the ground. We’ll see how this shakes out when more voices and details are added.
favoring his boss’s boss (i.e. the university as a whole) instead of his boss (the math department)
Favoring the “goals” of the organization as an abstraction over the actual punishment/reward structure of the living, breathing, and interacting cogs of the organization.
I’ve come to look at bureaucracies as parasites on the host organization.
Aligning the goals of the bureaucracy with the goals of the org is actually a very hard, very interesting, and very important problem.
Yep.
Bureaucracies chew up and spit out people who deviate from norms. You apparently think that you are a better teacher. How relevant is that to your success in the bureaucracy? Is it necessarily beneficial? Do your students get a vote on whether you get tenure? Get a raise? Get a lab?
Some people at work work on the purported purpose of the bureaucracy Others work the bureaucratic reward and punishment system.
It’s also worth pointing out that conflicting institutional loyalties are a huge source of conflict. The “standard” practice in organizations is to collude with your direct management against their management—do things that favor your boss over your boss’s boss. Coward is doing things the ‘honest’ way, favoring his boss’s boss (i.e. the university as a whole) instead of his boss (the math department), which leads to both the conflict and his expectation that he’ll get support by making an ‘internal affair’ public.
But, of course, that also means he has lots of ready-made allies, regardless of the facts on the ground. We’ll see how this shakes out when more voices and details are added.
Favoring the “goals” of the organization as an abstraction over the actual punishment/reward structure of the living, breathing, and interacting cogs of the organization.
I’ve come to look at bureaucracies as parasites on the host organization.
Aligning the goals of the bureaucracy with the goals of the org is actually a very hard, very interesting, and very important problem.