I’ve spent some time in the data science world and can emphasize. I think one reason it feels like this is that you’re relatively close to the power structures of the organization: the CEO says everything should be “data driven” and you are “data”. That makes everything very political.
EDIT: And to state the obvious: corporate politics is hugely inefficient and mostly worthless.
Incredibly insightful take. I need to think about this. It's absolutely the case that a C-suite Acronym person will have an idea, and suddenly the whole organisation is scrambling to pivot it.
The reason that I mentioned vision is important is that at one of the roles, we had an extremely competent Chief Data Officer. While I think all their management were basically lying to them actively, they nonetheless managed to plot a clear enough course that the organisation has improved substantially. Is all the work still worthless? Yes, absolutely. Do code review, CI/CD, and cloud enablement all exist? Also, yes, absolutely. If we do this for another 5-10 years, we might actually get something done.
The other places though? Absolute chaos around everything where the word data is mentioned.
Corporate politics may be "worthless" but they are the manifestation of human nature in a large organization. Thus, they can't be avoided entirely, other than not joining a corporation at all.
EDIT: And to state the obvious: corporate politics is hugely inefficient and mostly worthless.