Its the signal of a dying creature. Once office politics are waged and won, hierarchy's are established- suddenly, communicating ideas openly for people only interested in the product and the customer - and by doing that jumping over hierarchy's is a criminal offense - the last terminal stage is reached.
The duration of the process may vary- the outcome does not.
> suddenly, communicating ideas openly for people only interested in the product and the customer - and by doing that jumping over hierarchy's is a criminal offense - the last terminal stage is reached.
This is not a bad thing. The key is some hierarchy is good. For example, often in small organizations the product is at the mercy of the loudest sales person, demanding the feature to make their sale. SalesPersonX needs FeatureY to close a $50,000 deal, when CustomerA, CustomerB, and CustomerC have all requested ImprovementD, maybe they'll renew without it, maybe not.
Someone needs to make this call: prioritize ImprovementD or FeatureY. Maybe they can both get done this year, maybe not. It's a business decision, either keep current customer happy or drive for sales. Usually SalesPersonX knows RockstarZ's number and calls him directly. RockstarZ get's burned out from the constant pressure and quits.
So, someone needs to be gathering feedback from customers and prospects, build a roadmap, then project management can concentrate on delivering features. Some hierarchy is required for long term growth and stability. If you're sales people are burning out your Devs, you've got a problem. And you're goddamned right I'm going be harsh on the sales guy who's calling my devs directly.
The vast majority of corporate america is a dying creature then.
The problem is that the vast majority of the upstarts who will eat them will also die, -and- even the winners may not usurp anything for 20+ years. At which point they, too, will likely start 'dying'.
I think you exaggerate the diagnosis. As with a patient with a disease, you have to modify treatment. The reality is that learning to deal with office politics is an important skill to have.
It's really easy to say "politics" with a look of scorn on your face...and then turn around and read about 'influencers' and 'how to win friends and influence people' and '7 habits of highly effective people' and etc, and think "oh, hey, figuring out how to learn what people are thinking and appeal to people's needs is super important". They're the same thing.
'Jumping over hierarchy is a criminal offense' - sometimes yes, sometimes no. The point you miss is that with enough people, hierarchy can be necessary. If you've ever been in a position where you have to make strategic decisions, you -have- to delegate. In fact, many of the things that make me feel good as a developer, such as being empowered to make decisions (beyond just the code, but in terms of features and things), require someone else to trust me to make those decisions (i.e., delegation).
"Well, our whole team makes the decisions"; fine, are there other teams working on other things? Do you all make your own decisions? Because if so, you have delegated responsibilities to those other teams, just as they have with you. If not, then people who are less informed than you are getting a voice, and that's just unnecessary noise.
As soon as delegation occurs, I don't -want- people crossing over unless it's incredibly important. Same situation, of multiple teams; do you want someone on another team coming to you to complain about issues on their team? Of course not; that's for their team to fix. Unless the issue is something so bad it threatens you and your team, you don't want to hear about it.
In a hierarchy, the same thing happens. I delegate to someone and entrust them with seeing it to its success; I do not WANT someone re-burdening me with that problem, -unless- it's vital I be informed, and that person knows I am not being informed.
Yes, this can break. People can start valuing the hierarchy more than what it's attempting to achieve, I grant you. But as often as not what I've seen are people jumping up the hierarchy to complain about things that are not sufficiently urgent. And part of that is perspective; what is going to bother someone higher in the hierarchy is not necessarily what bothers someone lower down. And yes, understanding that, and knowing what to do about it, is "politics", but also, alternatively, it's "empathy and influence".
Or, put another way, what's the difference between 'manipulating' and 'influencing'? That's the difference between 'politics' and 'organizational intellect'. It's trying to achieve one's goals dealing with a single person, vs trying to achieve one's goals while dealing with multiple. Because when dealing with multiple people, there are always politics, and you can't merely throw up your hands and decide to never deal with it. I wish you could, I'm not always good enough to win the battles I need to win...but I recognize that it's not something I can just avoid.
Im sure if you are higher up in this Ponzi Scheme you have all the time for a sophisticated justification.
But where i am, we need our attention on problem solving, attention on important (often cross-department) details - we do not have the time and resources for procedure-obsessed bureaucrats, leeching initiative and resources into there little Japanese gardens of power, while the project as a whole suffers- and all that ever returns from your proposed silod departments is excuses, blame-shifting and informal orders to not reveal information to other departments working on the same project.
I understand that this is human nature and it must run its course, because those who could actually fight it - are actually fighting for it. Still, if you are in a company to innovate and push the boundaries of tech (which usually needs short com-paths, teamwork and the ability to bounce ideas informal), this is the end of your path in this company.
Oh, and before you try to wriggle out by pointing at the "innovation" initiatives started by CEOs noticing the absence of exactly this- which becomes just another shiny hot powerpoint potato being pin balled from department to department. No, that is not it.
Finally something positive- sometimes.. power aggregates, and some control freak snatches too much of it, merging departments, and this one guy, running hierarchical amok, breaks the spell for a time. He basically destroys the attempts of the hierarchy to sabotage communication, by directly sampling data and pushing worthwhile endeavors against the resistance of the apparatus.
You should hear middle-management hiss at the employees, after the manager-type (lets call him the boar), just casually talks to the people involved and gets Information and Ideas, that where "NOT-SUPPOSED-TO-BE-COMMUNICATED", enabling work to be done and problems to be solved. Subversion saves the day and nobody admits it.
So here is, though i detest the personality type when in personal contact, a toast to the likes of Steve - who at least get things done after the calcification sets in.
I have 5 years as a dev, and two as a lead dev/architect. I am only recently taking on management tasks. My comment is not biased because I am "higher up in this ponzi scheme", it is predicated on -what I have seen-.
You are living in the happy little world I got to live in before my current job (when I was simply a senior dev), where there was enough protection of the dev team that I didn't need to concern myself about the business (beyond the occasional clarification of a story), didn't need to concern myself with departmental and organizational 'politics', and when I saw it I rolled my eyes at it, hated it, decided I'd never deal with that sort of thing, etc.
But even at the dev team level there were 'politics'; technical decisions would oftentimes be made based on who had the most clout. Now, that clout was usually due to, de facto, speaking to what the rest of the team cared about, understood, etc (i.e., technical language and priorities). But once you go inter-disciplinary, that stops being true.
Fundamentally, most people want to succeed, and they recognize that the way to do that is delivering results. Sometimes there are leeches, who learn to abuse the system and take credit while not helping deliver. It's abuses like this that deserve our condemnation. But the fact is that in an organization there are multiple roles, with differing priorities, and differing definitions of 'success', and fundamentally the way you deal with that -requires- a level of empathy and influence. You can decry it all you like, but that's reality, and something you'd benefit from adapting to rather than objecting to. I'd love it if everyone was technical, even those whose roles are solely focused on business direction and strategy. I'd love it if everyone thought like me, prioritized like me, and was completely objective in making decisions. But that's simply not the world we live in, and, I suspect, that would actually lead to a worse outcome (I'm not good at sales, for instance, and I don't have the insight into how best to sell something, even if it's technically superior and the UX is better than any competitors). You don't have to like it (and again, I -don't- like it), but that's the truth.
Please note, I'm not saying that every org is healthy. But I -am- saying that regardless of the health, understanding what people's motivations are, and how best to disseminate, discuss, debate, and prioritize information given the context you're in will help you tremendously.
The duration of the process may vary- the outcome does not.