Some in management loved to play political games in the company. Like it was fun. Why? Business isn’t a game for those trying to earn a living.
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Kakistocracy is the term you’re looking for.
When you select for sycophants, you don't usually get value creators. You get a few -- but you also get political game players, abusers, and incompetents.
That's what I saw in my time at SAS: a talented minority of managers, trying to do the right thing, but required to compromise with a majority who would not or could not.
Those compromises were adequate to maintain an existing revenue stream, but not to create new ones. That's all the SAS culture could achieve. At this late date, it won't change.
SAS, like other legacy enterprise software companies, is now forced to compete not only against Open Source, but also against AI. A culture that failed to compete against the former will not compete against the latter.
Employees can only look now to take care of themselves and their families, in these changing, challenging times.
It was over the day that Paula Henderson left the building. The caring for people was over, the culture was allowed to expire, and now we all sit waiting for the HR call.
“Donald vs. The System” on YouTube explains these corporate games.
@c8 I guess SAS management had more than 4%.
They were allowed to abuse employees and play their political games. HR had no power to restrain them.
They were usually not good at generating revenues. But there was no accountability, so that didn't matter.
Every company has a few such people. Companies need to identify them, and move them to roles where they can be productive.
At SAS, once such people got in positions of power, they were allowed to stay.
It has been said that 4% of the population suffers from a Cluster B personality disorder- narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism.
That’s 1 in 25 people. Some of them work at SAS. I’ve come across a handful there. And to preempt that one guy, no, I’m not naming names.
It's agency cost in business theory. Management isn't fully aligned to the shareholders/owners. People do not agree with other people. The answer to some important decision is usually not a simple one. So you have to influence others (do politics) to get work done. Some may take that a bit far. People like games of all types. Maybe those people like and are good at the politics game but are not good at value creation games.
In my experience, politics were usually a power play. Some people weren't trying to produce great software, and weren't even trying to make money for the company. They just wanted power and control.
There are psychological reasons why some people are broken that way. They were broken, and they broke the company.
@OP
Examples from your time at SAS? Be specific.