When individual actors and subsystems lose sight of the guiding goal of the system, or when the system lacks a clear and unifying overarching goal, there will be a power struggle and competition of sorts as everyone tries to pull the stock of the system closer to their own narrow goals. Policy resistance can result as everyone devotes a lot of time and energy to trying to pull the system in multiple directions at once. The outcome is often the system being stuck in a place that no one really likes.
