I see this all the time, and I call it "organizational priority inversion." Not only is the real execution/critical work boring, but management often doesn't r

I see this all the time, and I call it "organizational priority inversion." Not only is the real execution/critical work boring, but management often doesn't really understand it or how to measure the effectiveness and contributions of people that are spending their time on it, so they make a blanket assumption that everyone is performing at a satisfactory level ("we only hire the best") and turn to other metrics that are simpler to understand and measure. It's much easier to count how many "organizational initiatives" Bob helped to launch, how many informational lunchtime talks he gave and the number of important meetings he made an influential remark at than it is to judge how much wasted time and aggravation his poor designs and implementations generated, and as a result, the work that Bob was actually hired to do (quickly dismissed as his "day job" by his manager during performance reviews) becomes the worst use of his time. As Bob realizes this, his reputation improves even more because he spends less time on his work - obviously someone putting his thumbprint on so many initiatives and decisions must be a key player, and it would be a waste to have such a person spending his time "in the trenches." In an organization that conflates influence with effectiveness, it doesn't matter what you're influencing others to do, only that you do it often and well.