Favourite example I heard of this is a manager who would always pay vendors upfront for the whole year, even though there was no discount versus monthly or breaking it into milestones. The money's already paid so higher ups can't stomach canceling his project.
I think I may have employed the opposite technique earlier in my career. When my direct manager would state "Department X has decreed that Y must occur no later than Z so we have to do A,B,&C" I'd just ask what the projected implementation cost was for us. If it was anywhere near the annual profit my business unit pulled in, I knew I could rely on it never happening.