“You can’t make the obvious decision and act on it because you have not been through their process. And they use their process to inhibit any progress.”
It sounds like something right out of a Dilbert cartoon.
Yes, it is like Dilbert. They try to gain power by controlling who is successful. But, they want liberal or useless things to succeed and block true innovation. I managed a product area where these people controlled the people assigned to my program and they dumped the worst on me. I got a broader definition for my group so I just hired from the outside (not relying on management staffing decisions) and grew the business for this customer from a few $100k projection to over $60M. These control freak managers hated me for succeeding even though it benefited them. They wanted to pick the winners and loosers and their winners were the Chucky Schumers and Barney Franks of my company. Head-to-head is the only way to go with these people.