The Tantric
Theory of HR
Rory Sutherland coined the term with surgical precision. Much of what passes for HR practice today is an elaborate exercise in prolonged process — endless build-up, no conclusion.
“A legal-financial-HR-procurement commissariat has eliminated the autonomy and judgment that once came with professional ability — so that regardless of your experience, every action now requires sign-off from people who understand nothing of your job.”Rory Sutherland — paraphrased
When process becomes the product
Rory Sutherland has a gift for naming things we all recognise but couldn’t quite articulate. His description of HR as “tantric” is one such gift.
Tantric practice — in its popular Western caricature — is famous for one thing: elaborate, prolonged build-up that perpetually defers its conclusion. Apply this to organisational life and you have a precise portrait of bureaucratic HR. The 14-stage recruitment process. The policy review that generates a framework for reviewing policies. The risk assessment of the risk assessment. The committee formed to decide whether to form a committee.
None of this is accidental. When an institution’s survival depends on being seen to manage risk rather than to resolve it, delay becomes a rational strategy — for the function, if not for the organisation it supposedly serves.
Sutherland’s sharpest point: these functions are rarely asked to audit themselves. You will never hear: “we have identified unusually high levels of needless bureaucracy and have decided to downsize HR.” The asymmetry is structural — and self-reinforcing.
The problem isn’t HR. It’s HR that has confused process compliance with value creation — and built an institution around protecting the confusion.
Six signs your HR function has gone tantric
The Infinite Approval Loop
Hiring decisions requiring five stakeholders, each requiring five meetings. Every stage generates new requirements that push the conclusion further away.
The Self-Referential Policy
Policies written to govern the management of policies. Frameworks for developing frameworks. The paperwork about the paperwork.
Risk Theatre
Elaborate processes designed not to reduce risk but to distribute blame if things go wrong. The process exists to protect the process, not the people.
The Redefined Problem
Business problems reframed as HR problems — requiring HR solutions. The function solves problems it helped create. The answer is always more HR.
Measurement Displacement
Activity metrics substituted for outcome metrics: completion rates, training hours, survey scores — easy to move, disconnected from business value.
The Asymmetric Audit
Every other function faces scrutiny and headcount justification. HR, uniquely, is rarely asked to measure its own cost-to-value ratio.
What good HR actually looks like
The problem isn’t HR. The problem is HR that has confused process compliance with value creation. The antidote isn’t less HR — it’s HR with a different objective function: one measured by outcomes, not activity.
Meliorem works with organisations to strip out the ceremonial and rebuild around what demonstrably moves the needle. People infrastructure built for pressure — not performance art built for appearances.
- Recruitment measured in weeks, not quarters — with hiring manager accountability, not HR ownership
- Policies proportionate to actual risk, not theoretical worst-case liability
- HR metrics tied to business outcomes: revenue per head, retention of high performers, time-to-productivity
- Decision rights returned to managers — HR as strategic adviser, not compliance gatekeeper
- An honest audit of which HR activities have measurable ROI and which are performance art
- The confidence to say: we don’t need a policy for that
Ready to reach
a conclusion?
If your HR function has more process than outcomes, Meliorem can help. We work with bold businesses to cut the ceremony and build people infrastructure that actually performs.
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