> especially when things aren’t going according to plan.
Exactly my experience. The first misstep and it reverts back to top-down micromanagement and the actual product roadmap is the last priority... then it's downhill from there.
Not necessarily ego-driven but in my experience they usually come together. If there was trust, all that would be needed is more communication. Without it reporting teams are not given autonomy. Now if execs issue top-down direction, it's because 'they know better' aka ego, not the kind for collecting wins, but simply believing they know more than those that are closer to the problem and data.
> [top down control] drives away the most capable, creative problem solvers [..]
Eh, I think it's the lack of execution that drives them away, in fact if you're not executing many times it's because they're not even there.
It’s challenging to build a company with a high-trust culture. While many companies say it’s one of their values, I’d bet it only holds true for a small minority of them in practice, especially when things aren’t going according to plan.
When an organization is failing to execute against its goals, regardless of the root cause, the natural tendency is to introduce more process and exert more top-down control. Ironically, this drives away the most capable, creative problem solvers, who’ll look elsewhere for fulfillment.