Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

All bureaucracies, in my experience, stop the flow of information at each level of the hierachy. About half the important information is stopped at each level. There is hope, but people at the top have to work hard at getting the information they are being denied.

The title of this post is not original to me. I have read about it here and there in the past. Here is a link to one such mention of it.

Definition: The information thermocline is what happens in multi-level bureaucracies. Information does not pass freely through layers. About half the useful information is stopped at every level in both directions. I have seen this information thermocline in every bureaucracy in my life.

The Metaphor: This metaphor comes from the thermocline that exists in bodies of water.

The Thermocline: (one definition)

The thermocline is the transition layer between the mixed layer at the surface and the deep water layer. The definitions of these layers are based on temperature.

Some things don’t move up and down through the thermocline. Light is one, sound is another, and various life forms are another.

Information in the Bureaucracy: Now to complete the metaphor, we consider the flow of information through a bureaucracy.

Information flows up and down one level in a bureaucratic hierarchy. For example, I can tell my boss anything I want. No one is stopping me.

Information doesn’t flow through the hierarchical layers of the bureaucracy. In my experience, each layer of bureaucracy has about 3dB of attenuation. This means that half of the necessary information that should flow through is stopped. For example, I tell my boss ten things that are important for my boss’s boss to know, but only five things make it to my boss’s boss. This also happens in with information flow in the downwards direction. For example, my boss’s boss tells my boss ten important things. My boss tells me five of those things.

Universal Application: I have seen the information thermocline at work in every bureaucracy I have had the displeasure to be in during my life. I spent 25-plus years in government. Yuck. I have also seen the information thermocline (not) work in private industry and in volunteer organizations as well.

A Reminder: If you have created an organization that has a hierarchy, you have created information thermoclines. You are not an exception.

A Remedy: There is some hope for bureaucracies. First, people at the top have to admit that they have a thermocline and are not receiving all the necessary information through the layers below them no matter how smart and caring and well-meaning the people who work for you.

Second, you have to poke your head down through the levels of bureaucracy to learn the information that is being stopped at each level. Don’t ask the managers at each level as you already know what they are passing to you. Ask the workers at each level what they have given to their bosses. Compare that to what is being passed to you and discuss the filtering of information, a.k.a., stopping of information that is occurring.

Third, do not pretend that you can tell people “I have an open door policy” and they will poke upwards through the levels. Forget all those movies you saw as a kid where a Private pokes his head into the General’s tent and all is well. Those were movies, not real life. In real life, those people are smashed by the bureaucracy.