All companies are pathological is the way I think of it.
But I would add that in my experience it seems to correlate to size of the organization. I.E. smaller orgs are not immune but the larger you get the more organizational pathology that creeps in.
For me its based on 30+ years consulting, with many different companies of different industries, sizes, and maturity as an organization.
The value for me in this notion is that it has stopped me from fantasizing about idealistic work scenarios / environments.
The larger the company the more likely it is to have authoritarians and narcissists in positions of power. They will inevitably poison the culture and usually destroy profitability - although that may not be obvious for a while.
In fact they can create the illusion of doing the opposite. Occasionally they actually manage it for real, but more usually they create a boom/bust cycle where everything looks splendid until suddenly it doesn't.
I strongly suspect pathology is related to personality disorders. The less disordered the management team and employees are, the less political drama, time wasting, power playing, and passive aggressive incompetence you get.
But I would add that in my experience it seems to correlate to size of the organization. I.E. smaller orgs are not immune but the larger you get the more organizational pathology that creeps in.
For me its based on 30+ years consulting, with many different companies of different industries, sizes, and maturity as an organization.
The value for me in this notion is that it has stopped me from fantasizing about idealistic work scenarios / environments.