Prisoners of their own procedures

Means tend to triumph over ends. Form triumphs over spirit. People become prisoners of their own procedures. The means and methods were originally designed to achieve some specific end, but when circumstances change and new means are called for, it turns out that the old ones had become sacrosanct; the means have become ends in themselves— no longer effective perhaps, but enshrined. People forget what they set out to do. It happens all the time. So the mature organization ends up with a web of customs, procedures, written and unwritten rules that is extremely hard to cut through.

John W. Gardner, On Leadership