Every company is in the middle of some kind of evolution.
You'll walk into situations you had no hand in creating.
A big part of leadership is getting comfortable with this reality and understanding your role in helping move the ball forward.
Things are the way they are for a reason. Don't start changing everything without first understanding the reasons.
In many orgs things are much more organic and random, and less intentional.
Sometimes there is no fence.
a fence that’s up for 30 years is more likely to have purpose than a 2 year old process set up in a growing company.
generally, you can tear things down the younger they are.
Also, if they had the foresight to a) hire someone who could fix it and b) give them the run room to get it done, they’re ahead of the curve.
You don’t feel bad for calling a sewage specialist when your septic tank breaks and there’s shit all over the lawn. And the septic tank person isn’t calling you out by saying “Wow there’s shit everywhere”
You know there’s shit everywhere. That’s why you called a shit specialist.
The CEO put a PR person in charge of HR, who cut bonuses and probably salaries ahead of a buyout to optimize the balance sheet.
Companies are about change - much of the state of a company is a result of decisions that were made years prior, based on assumptions that aren't true anymore, or as you noted were reprioritized. The best run 100 person company will struggle as a 1000 person company with their old policies (and likewise, the best run 1000 person company's policies would crush a 100 person company).
How many times have we read an article that goes like this: "when I started at X, everything was a mess. I quickly turned things around by doing Y." Well the CEO who hired you at that company now looks like an idiot, and their board of directors is quickly taking notes. You took credit by making someone else look bad. Was that really necessary to get to the point you're trying to convey?
The reality is that the CEO built something out of nothing, and prioritized certain tasks (eg: PMF) while deprioritizing others (eg: the company's expense policy). Eventually there was enough money in the bank for the company to afford a $300k/year hire, who then paid back the administrative debt. How you paid back that debt is orders of magnitude less heroic than how the CEO got to the position of being able to afford your salary in the first place.
I really wonder if all those later-stage senior leaders could be that tone-deaf, or if they are throwing their CEOs under the bus on purpose.