This is a well known phenomenon that was described by C. Northcote Parkinson[1]. While Parkinson's law is often misunderstood by readers, including Wikipedia editors, who can't make it past the first paragraph of a work, the actual law is a formula describing the growth of bureaucracies: x = (2k^m + p)/n, "where k is the number of staff seeking promotion through the appointment of subordinates; p represents the difference between the ages of appointment and retirement; m is the number of man hours devoted to answering minutes within the department; and n is the number of effective units being administered. Then x will be the number of new staff required each year." In this context "minutes" are basically printed out emails.

There's much more to it and it's a great read.

And to answer your second question, in virtually all cases the only thing that can be done is to wait for the organization to fail. There's a reason there aren't many 100 year companies.

[1] http://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf