Philip Selznick Quote

Running an organisation... generates problems, which have no necessary (and often an opposed) relationship to the professed or "original" goals of the organization. The day-to-day behaviour of the group becomes centered around specific problems and proximate goals, which have primarily an internal relevance. Then, since these activities come to consume an increasing proportion of the time and thoughts of participants, they are-from the point of view of actual behaviour – substituted for the professed goal.

p. 48; as cited in: Owen A. Jones. The Sources of Goal Incongruence in a Public Service Network. 2013. p. 23 - "An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy," 1943