The strange bureaucratic concern with "process"

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The people of Newtown, Connecticut are considering what to do about Sandy Hook Elementary School. They have had a group studying the issue: should the school be repaired and reopened where it is? Should it be moved? If so, to where?
The study group has reached some preliminary conclusions.

Some locals have objected. The head of the study group responded (I quote from memory): "I am worried that these objections are coming from people who haven't gone through the process that we have."

If he just means these people don't know what they are talking about, why not just say that, if perhaps more diplomatically? What does "the process" have to do with it? Could not someone outside of the study group have gone through their own process of, say, living in the town for 50 years, and have reached a different conclusion than did the study group after they went through their process? Why is her conclusion worse than that of the study group simply because it emerged from a different process?

No, I think that this talk of "the process"is a way for bureacrats to tell non-bureaucrats "piss off, hey?"

Comments

  1. Ken B2:03 PM

    Yup.

    Part of standard organizational bafflegab, like "best practice." You can get everyone in a meeting to agree to boil their first born if you tell them it's a "best practice" recommended by the relevant "centre of excellence" in accordance with the "process".

    ReplyDelete

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