You could phrase it like that, I suppose. Not sure if I agree though.
You're right in saying that people who question often have a skewed perception of what's going to be an improvement. Just because the establishment is wrong, doesn't mean the different thing is right. However sometimes it actually is, but it's nearly impossible to filter improvements through the web off ass-kissing suckups in corporate.
Nearly every business I've seen has shitty systems in place and literally throws money and manpower down the drain. I've worked in a business where 5% of employees (myself included) are generating 80% of sales. Ended up making 200 people redundant because operating costs were outweighing sales.
The hilarious thing is that they could have cut about 80% of their operating costs at no detriment to total sales, but instead chose to stick it out with the friendly, non-threatening yes-men who stroked the egos (probably more in certain cases) of senior managers all the way up to the point that it crashed and burned.
This pattern repeats itself over and over in most businesses. Eventually the COO/CEO/MD/GM gets pissed off enough that they want to see a real change, but of course they don't want to have to put in any effort to see a meaningful change: they just want a scapegoat. So a few people get fired, department heads get shuffled around, a few of them roll and then they start off with a, "new and improved mission statement" that gets shoveled down everyone's throats.
By virtue of everyone being shit scared of losing their jobs, results improve for a few weeks, everyone pats themselves on the back and then the spiral starts again until finally 3 months later, another scapegoat and shake-up happens.
The other part is that it's fucking awful working in an environment of unquestioning inefficiency, where employees just sit around and grimace at every stupid procedure they're forced to follow and work in a shitty and uninspiring workplace. Talented individuals are lost and the people who move up are people who're too dumb to question or too lazy to look for a better job.
So you end up with all these companies full of dumb, lazy management staff. But how does this happen?
It's actually pretty easy.
You're CEO of a company, Mr. Black. A manager has just left and you need to promote a new one. You go through a list of people in the company, mostly faceless names who you barely interact with on any meaningful level. There's 10 candidates proposed, but you only know the names of 2 of them: who are you going to pick? You're pretty sure they're all retards just like the last guy, but better the devil you know right?
I'd rather have 10 employees questioning me at every turn than 10 employees who shutup and do what they're told.
