Process Sediment
Each approval was added for a reason: a past mistake, an audit finding, a compliance requirement. Each layer made sense when it was added. Together, they form a geological record of organizational fear.
Even accumulated hardships cannot destroy one who stands firm. Valluvar celebrates resilience through hardship. But your team’s hardship is bureaucratic, not heroic. Four approvals for one purchase order. Three sign-offs for one hire. Two committees for one decision. The blueprint says efficiency. Reality says sediment. Each approval was added for a reason: a past mistake, an audit finding, a compliance requirement. Each layer made sense when it was added. Together, they form a geological record of organizational fear.
Philips’ matrix structure became a case study in confusion. I found internal reports showing that a product decision required sign-off from the country manager, the product division head, the regional president, the technology officer, the supply chain lead, the finance controller, and the CEO’s office. Seven signatures across three axes. A consumer health product that should have launched in six months took twenty-two. Engineers described the matrix as ‘the system where everyone can say no and nobody can say yes.’ Philips eventually abandoned the matrix. The matrix nearly abandoned Philips first.
Sediment accumulates but never self-removes. In geology, sedimentation is a one-way process: material deposits in layers over time. Each layer is thin. Over thousands of years, the accumulated weight compresses earlier layers into rock. Organizational process sediment works identically: each new approval, each new form, each new review step deposits a thin layer. Over years, the accumulated bureaucracy compresses into organizational bedrock. Nobody removes old layers because nobody remembers why they were added. And removing a control feels riskier than adding one.
Pick one process that takes more than three approvals. Ask each approver: ‘What would happen if your approval was removed?’ If the honest answer is ‘nothing,’ remove it. One less layer. One less year of sediment. One more hour for actual work.
That compressed bureaucracy has a name. Process Sediment. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Untie The Knot
Uproot
Process accumulated because adding a control was easier and safer than removing one. Each layer addressed a past incident. Nobody audited whether the incident was still relevant.
Navigate
An annual process audit removes any approval step that cannot justify its continued existence with a current risk.
Tool
DMG / Process Audit: the protocol that requires every approval step to defend its existence annually. When controls can’t justify themselves, they’re removed.
Implement
Pick one process with more than three approvals. Ask each approver what would happen if their step was removed. If nothing, remove it.
Emerge
When processes are audited for relevance, bureaucracy shrinks, speed returns, and teams spend their energy on work instead of on navigating approvals.