Comment by zaphar

Some of what you say about management is true. But if you really want to fully understand then you need to keep following that trail of incentives. Your bosses boss doesn't optimize for those metrics "just because". There are reasons and persuading them requires understanding those reasons. A company has only so much revenue. Wasting that revenue in the best case reduces profits. In the worst case it kills the company. Changing a perverse incentive requires understanding whether it is actually perverse or not and then proposing a compelling alternative that results in better results for the company.