It's really the manager's job to look at a productive employee and say "great job with all of that glue work you're doing," and their bosses job to support thei

It's really the manager's job to look at a productive employee and say "great job with all of that glue work you're doing," and their bosses job to support their support, and so on up to where the org tree merges the two sides being glued and you get one person who's personally happy about it. Of course that doesn't happen, but that's due to bad management rewarding lower management for putting departmental metrics ahead of company-wide results, not due to there not being a "moonshot" in progress. If the CEO is patting the head of development on the back for results he got by stonewalling sales, and the head of sales for stonewalling development, that's the source of the problem even if the company sells used carpets.