What is the phrase or word for this type organizational useless work [duplicate]
What is the phrase or word for this type organizational useless/pointless work based on either half baked ideas, of just o appease the higher ups.
Example: An organization have three tier management
- CEO
- Oper. Manager
- Dept. Manager
Suppose CEO gives a strategic instruction and fails to followup much of the time. But with a imaginary deadline (within 2-3 days), at the cursory instruction of the CEO, the Oper. Mngr initiates action telling Dept. Manager to work on an assignment based on strategic idea provided by the CEO.
As a result, Dept. Mngr. instructs his staff to start working on the assignment, assigning resources to it, etc ASAP.
Now as the day comes to submit the deliverables, the CEO has initiated a contrasting idea to the initial one. So the work done on the initial one goes to waste.
What is the phrase or word for this type organizational useless work in business setting.I suppose there must be an apt Wikipedia styled phrase for this phenomenon. I searched online for "Redundant work" which is usually used in some articles in passing, but on google, the search prompts for Redundancy rather than redundant work. The point is to read more article (pros, cons, effects, perils) or Wikipedia information on this subject phrase.
Busywork (or busy work) is work that has no purpose but occupies time and is used either to keep someone busy or to make them look busy. Wikipedia. Merriam-Webster.
It usually has the connotation that somebody knows it has little value but it is done anyway. It might be senior management who know but impose it anyway (to keep people occupied, or to present a show of having lots of staff working hard). Or sometimes the staff working know that it's pointless but management still call for it to be done (either through tradition, because it's always been done that way, or because the middle managers have themselves been ordered to do it, and are passing it down the chain of command).