I think this is one of the pernicious things about OKR-type organizational planning. Companies get so fixated on generating results -- quick wins -- that they kind of flail around doing stuff that gets measured on a dashboard.
For what it's worth, I think this is often what we mean when we complain about "MBAs" controlling companies.
I feel that people spend insufficient time deciding why they're choosing a course of action. Companies need to allocate more resources (i.e. time) deciding what they're not going to do.
The best executives I've known have invariably shared one trait: they've been decisive in killing decent/good ideas to focus on important problems. This often makes them unpopular.
By contrast, I've found that middling executives agonize over KPIs.
