Entropy is in everything - seen it,, been there, threw away the T'shirt.

Extract -

"In the initial boost phase of the organization, success is not guaranteed. Success is contingent on the organization fulfilling its real-world purpose: transparent, competent governance, making products of enduring value and functionality, etc.

This requires feedback from the real world that hasn’t been filtered, as filtered feedback generates false signals, and responding to false signals leads to failure.

The leadership of the organization understands this and accepts accountability, for the organization won’t survive contact with the real world if leaders are not accountable for failures.

Feedback and accountability are transparent out of necessity.

This changes once the organization has institutionalized its success. The perception of those inside the organization changes: the organization is now viewed as so stable and successful that its existence is no longer contingent; it’s guaranteed.

Insiders no longer have to concern themselves with feedback and accountability; the focus shifts to maximizing private gains. Since the organization is permanent and rich in resources, revenues and political protection/power, there’s no need to invest in maintaining feedback or accountability, as the system basically runs itself via rules that govern the centralized hierarchy.

The organization selects those amenable to hierarchy and obeying rules. Those applying for positions self-select: those who chafe at hierarchy and rules quit.

Over time, this leads to leadership optimized for following rules and protecting the organization from consequences. Those with the capacity to adapt to sudden changes by reworking the entire organization on the fly have been weeded out by either self-selection or the optimization of business as usual, i.e. the artifices of filtering feedback, limiting accountability and defending the organization from negative consequences.

So when the time inevitably comes where radical re-organization is the sole path to survival, there’s no organizational memory to tap and nobody in the organization with the ability to manage it. The leadership will simply increase the resources devoted to artifice--bogus statistics, happy-story narratives, fake reforms, and so on ".

https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/why-is-everything-such-a-hot-mess