All in all, once an organization gets big enough, power does what power wants, and power wants what is good for them in the short term, regardless of what is good for the organization. That's how most large companies end up spending very large amounts of money on things that wouldn't actually pass muster to anyone aiming for the organization's best interest and with actual knowledge of what is being accomplished.
You see new, wide eyed PMs approaching budgeting processes as if the goal really was profitability, or customer satisfaction, or something reasonable. But if they are going to stay as PMs for long, they better realize quick that the vast majority of project proposals have only a passing interest in what will be accomplished, and are mainly about making sure every sub-organization gets fed sufficient money to not lose people, or possibly even grow if the manager is well liked. All the efforts in documentation and justification are just theater.
This has the ring of truth.
Has anyone solved this problem?
Is anyone trying to solve this problem? (Or is everyone in a position to work on the problem just playing the game?)
This all seems like a failure of incentives - the hard truth is that organisations that survive long enough all end up valuing only the survival of the organisation itself - and structure incentives accordingly. But maybe there is a way to modify these incentives somewhat?
Humanity all thought that monarchies are the only way of ruling successful states for _thousands_ of years … but now they are almost gone, and people live much more happy and productive lives.
Maybe we can figure out a way to shape institutions to not only have an “executive branch” but some other institutions that can also govern it.
We kinda have the idea of CEO and “board” which share power, maybe there is one or two more power centers that we can add that will ultimately prolong the life of an org?