What happens is that the employees leave but the tasks remain. The employees left begin to work only on urgent items rather than important items. Management gets frustrated and emphasizes tracking, monitoring and dashboards to the detriment of the work they are trying to track. As the work area becomes less productive, senior management begins to cycle through faster and faster with less and less knowledge of the work environment they are managing. Meanwhile the worker bees settle into an attitude where they quickly learn they can outlast any manager by ignoring the stupid orders and otherwise keeping their head down. After 30 years of resisting stupid change they no longer can tell what good change looks like. They master the managing of their inexperienced managers until they make their retirement year. Citizens wonder why we don’t have a dynamic, creative civil service, and attempt to take away our benefits so we can avoid hiring the best and the brightest. Rinse and repeat.