I recently had a discussion with a business leader about quality management systems (QMS), their purpose, and importance to the core business infrastructure. Inevitably these types of discussions leads to whether a QMS is a “bureaucracy.” Today, bureaucracy often has negative connotations for being complex, inefficient, and inflexible. This is what business leaders fear. However, bureaucracy was not always viewed in this light.
German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) believed a bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way to organize human activity and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies are necessary to maintain order, maximize efficiency, and eliminate favoritism. However, Weber saw uncontrolled and unmaintained bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom. Let’s compare Weber’s view of bureaucracy with a new model, ISO 9001:2015.