> How can a company learn how to find better and better ways to deal with things if it takes all of the intelligence of its people and diverts them from those big problems.
This is an argument for HR and IT, not against. If everyone in your organisation has to go out shopping for their own computer and set up their own sharepoint etc, they're all wasting their time doing something that should've been taken care of for them.
The problem isn't the existence of HR and IT, it's the dynamic of HR and IT as a set of interest groups - putting processes in place that make IT or HR's lives easier at the cost of productivity the other employees.
I work for an enterprise company. The motherboard on one of my staff's macbooks died during the lockdown and it needed to be repaired. Do you know what the Enterprise IT told us to do?
"Take it to the Apple store".
Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to send my staff out during the lockdown to get a piece of YOUR hardware fixed? No option to ship it, no drop off desk at our office or something.
You're absolutely right that when you setup a department called "IT" they are now a group of people that need to be catered to as much as the other staff.
"We don't want to expose IT staff to risk, so send your own staff to get the computers repaired. Then it's your fault if they get sick and die." was the message I got.
> How can a company learn how to find better and better ways to deal with things if it takes all of the intelligence of its people and diverts them from those big problems.
This is an argument for HR and IT, not against. If everyone in your organisation has to go out shopping for their own computer and set up their own sharepoint etc, they're all wasting their time doing something that should've been taken care of for them.
The problem isn't the existence of HR and IT, it's the dynamic of HR and IT as a set of interest groups - putting processes in place that make IT or HR's lives easier at the cost of productivity the other employees.