Workign in a meritocracy

I find it so refreshing working in a meritocracy. The lack of turf wars has such a great impact. I started workign on my 20% in an area I am not going to disclose, but let's call it A. There are people already working in A.
In a normal company it would go like this:
I have to ask my manager if I can work in A.
My manager thinks about whether he is going to gain or lose power with that.
If he approves, I go to my project manager, who can still reject it, because he will lose someone from his project, and possibly, is afraid of losing me completely.
My project manager fights with my manager, and I may go to square 1 if the project manager wins (notice the word "win").
After all this approval, my manager will think the best way of telling the manager A that I'll be working part time in that.
The manager in A will be afraid that my manager is planning a takeover, so they will keep information away just from me.
Whatever was wrong, it will be my fault (because I am the inefficient minion of my manager who is trying to spy in A).
If everything goes well, my contribution will be ignored, since prizes, raises, etc. are for "full time staffers only".

In Google, on the other hand it goes like:
Checking that I am not in absolute crunch time, I tell my manager I'll work in A (and notice it is not ask, request, it is just tell).
I read the documentation.
Tell the team A that I am planning to work on this.
Team A will be really helpful since they can use whatever assistance they get.
If it works out, I will get a positive review, raises bonuses, etc.