When supposedly smart people consistently act stupid, it's usually a good indication that you don't understand the actual game that is being played. The goal o

When supposedly smart people consistently act stupid, it's usually a good indication that you don't understand the actual game that is being played. The goal of corporate employees usually is not maximizing profit. If it were, things like private equity, LBOs, and shareholder lawsuits would not be necessary. Rather, the goal of organization-man is maintenance of the hierarchy. Why? Because people who aren't interested in this goal either quit and take jobs outside of the corporate world (like consultant, therapist, small business owner, etc.) or they circulate freely throughout many different companies and rely on up-leveling at the interview stage to get raises and promotions. With this goal, all the stack ranking, annual reviews, politics and image maintenance makes sense. For there to be a hierarchy, there must be people at the bottom of the hierarchy. There must also be a pathway to the top of the hierarchy, lest people tire of the game and quit. Therefore, people seeking to preserve the hierarchy will create processes to ensure some people are defined as needing improvement, and others are defined as being worthy of promotion and upward mobility. The folks who are purely interested in maximizing profit usually enter finance and become hedge fund managers, where they have a small staff (largely dispensable, other than themselves) but outsize influence on markets, and can keep 20% of their profits (100% if trading their own capital) for themselves.