Maybe that's because you were enveloped in it. It's equally hard to see how weird your culture could look to others, until you actually visit some of those others and watch them operate, think it's weird, and then realise the feeling is probably reciprocal. For me a case in point was how a society could function without being very proscriptive, because where I live (Australia) where everything is that way. You will occasionally see people say Australia is a nanny state because the way we are expected to behave is often written down, and often policed.
One way that stands out is road rules. The French tourism operators have cottoned onto this, and plonk us ozzies by the bus load in front of the Arc de Triomphe for 1/2 an hour. And we just sit there memorised, unable to tear our eyes away. The fact that any OECD country would operate like this defies our preconceptions. The fact that such uncontrolled chaos actually works defies belief, it's like we've visited a different Universe.
And so it is with workplaces. I worked in a series of companies where the operating assumption was that if you weren't trying new things and failing occasionally, you weren't trying hard enough. (Actually, a more reasonable description of the expectation is you must be racking up successes at a reasonable rate. But as everyone knows you can't rack up successes without failing occasionally.) It's been that way for my entire working life.
Until a year ago that is, when I the company worked for was purchased. And then it was like I was in France, watching the Arc de Triomphe. The decisions seemed inexplicable, the words used to justify them like "enterprise grade" were literally meaningless to me. I went through denial, thinking a much bigger and clear successful company couldn't operate in ways much different to what I learned worked over the course of decades. Then confusion, after acknowledging it clearly did operate on different rules, and those rules must somehow be understandable to all the players, except me, apparently. And then, finally, a month or two ago the oh shit moment, "this isn't about the best decision for the corporation, it's about minimising personal responsibility and risk". Just like the article says. How unoriginal that thought turned out to be. Unlike you I was oil watching water make its way into my world. It wasn't my unchallenged normal. It was in my face, sudden, and painful. In that situation I could not be a slow boiled frog; this thing demanded an explanation.
After that moment of clarity, understanding the games being played was much easier. Approaching a problem with "I'll see what I can do without bothering too many people. Experiment a little, try 3, and ask the users I inflicted in what worked out best" is utterly untenable. Firstly, I've actually chosen something without consulting _all_ the stakeholders first (or wasting their time in fk'ing endless meetings). Heaven forbid - that would mean I'm clearly responsible for the outcome. I can't palm it off as "the committee" made the decision, or cast the decision as a shared responsibility. This choice to spend the time, effort and expense is all on me. Then there's the little matter of 2 out of the 3 experiments could be painted as failures by enemies. And finally, by actually letting others way in on which experiment was best, how on earth could I justify my "the decider man who gets paid the big bucks" position. In this process I'm little more than the bunny doing the leg work. Project must be my idea, with all the decisions for the good outcomes owned by me.
No, the way this must work is hours of meetings speaking in tongues. Hidden criticisms, white anting the existing setup, but nothing overtly back stabby like "this is shit - it's costing us money". The initial task is to create the politics for change while minimising the risk to me by keeping a small profile, then once the winds for change are strong I can sail in with the magic bullet and vanquish the remaining naysayers.
But this magic bullet can't be created by me - that would make me unquestionably responsible for the outcome. No, there must be wriggle room. It must be something purchased from outside, someone to share the burden of responsibility. That has several advantages.
Firstly, I don't have to sell it. The vendor has a well oiled sales team that gives me all the materials I need. Brochures, slick rehearsed demos where nothing goes wrong, written guarantees with SLA's no less (that offer to refund the $10 you have paid for the service was down for the day and stopped 50 people working). As I have recently discovered that well oiled sales team will be happy to be my mercenaries, using their connections (they are sales after all) to have quiet words here and there. (Strangely, it hadn't occurred to me that this would happen in the corporate world.)
To add to the air of enterprise grade it can't be cheap either - I don't want to be responsible for risking a few bucks for years by using a fly by nighter. No, if this company fails, no one could have seen it coming, certainly not me. It's irrelevant that it's a commodity like an internet link I could get from anywhere if my el-cheapo failed, as it's the failure in my choice of vendor (because it was undeniably solely my choice!) that reflects on me.
The second advantage is if it has hairs, that's the clients fault for not seeing through the demo's. We showed them what they were getting after all. And better yet, I can't fix the hairs, so I can't accumulate responsibility for fixes that don't work. The specification for those fixes must come from the client, and of course they bear full responsibility. I just sign the cheques. In fact I can probably avoid paying for the fixes out of my budget.
The third advantage is it came with a big legal document, so if all turns to shit we have recourse, and perusing that isn't my job - it's legals. Never mind the cost or perusing it is prohibitive. Never mind the vendor's legal team had years of time to fill it with more holes than swiss cheese, whereas I demanded an answer from our legal team in a week. The failure to obtain recourse can't be mine - I did a perfectly good job in getting the paperwork signed. Legal said so, and now it’s their job to see it through.
I reckon I could play the game now, if I could bring myself to do it. The problem is unlike the Arc de Triomphe, I see how it would work in anyone's favour, except mine. But I guess if I can't see that's what matters most, I'm missing the point entirely.
Right now I’m not playing it, and as the article says those who don’t play by those rules are treated as a threat. That’s a new development. To see it written on hacker news as truism when I’ve just learnt it after being in the workforce for decades is more than a little unsettling. I even didn’t notice it was happening a few weeks ago. I was probably just too wet behind the ears to notice, but in addition now we’ve outright rejected their “enterprise grade” solutions for something that is cheaper and clearly gives better service, and worse we have done it twice, in quick succession.
Now reputations are on the line and the game is on. My supreme confidence they are indeed a bunch of idiots naturally makes me believe if this is allowed to continue there is only one possible outcome - the accumulated successes will be noticed and the failed experiments eventually forgotten as that has always panned out. That is surely my hubris speaking; hardly something that could be taken seriously. But still too many successes could undermine authority, and risk personal reputations. Risks can’t be tolerated.
I’ll concede the outcome of this type of stoush would usually be a foregone conclusion, the big company culture will always squash the new acquisition. But in this particular case the big company wasn’t doing so well, the newish CEO recognised he had a bureaucracy problem and bought us to shake things up. So there’s hope. Maybe.