I think you are being just as disingenuous. Without knowing the processes, we have absolutely no idea what the decision chain looks like. I can think of many

I think you are being just as disingenuous. Without knowing the processes, we have absolutely no idea what the decision chain looks like. I can think of many emergency situations where I would want workers who are close to the problem to make judgement calls. Even if they make the wrong call, at least the chance of success was optimised. I often notice a bias amongst some people that they think management is more susceptible to caving in to pressure for "success" (success being measured by getting a job done quickly/cheaply, etc). In reality, I think it's just a human condition. Imagine working in a shop where every move you make is scrutinised. If you get something done fast, everyone assumes that you cheated somehow or that you did an exceptionally poor job. People always doubt you and assume that you are on the take somehow. This would be pretty dysfunctional. Now imagine working in a situation where when you do work everyone assumes that it is of high quality. They don't have to check it because they know you are capable, hard working and reliable. If you get it done more quickly than expected, it's because you are a genius and should be promoted. People often try to build companies like the latter. The problem is that it's very easy to let your standards slide. If you do poor work very quickly you get congratulated and rewarded. If you do good work very slowly, nobody looks at it, nobody understands the quality and everyone complains that you took a long time. If you are in management, it's even worse. If you check up on the quality of work of your workers: 1. They are upset that you don't trust them. 2. If you find problems, it only causes you headaches and makes you look bad because nobody understands quality at all. They just think everything is wonderful and if you bring up a problem, then it's because you are the worst manager on the team! It's really easy to close your eyes and reward poor work. What I find really interesting is that on teams where there is absolutely no pressure to deliver, conversely programmers often imagine pressure from management to deliver quickly. Again, it's because nobody sees the quality of their work and the only thing they see being evaluated is the speed with which they deliver. In the end, management must take responsibility when workers make mistakes. Maybe the wrong people were hired. Maybe there was a lack of training. Maybe the social dynamics were poor. It doesn't matter. However, it is also possible that workers made the wrong choice, but that the system still allowed the choice with the highest chance of success to be made (given the information that they had). You are never guaranteed to have success. Even when workers and management do an excellent job, sometimes you fail because of something you didn't realise at the time. In that vein, I wouldn't assume that "the workers did X" is an indication that they were incompetent. Nor would I assume that management pressured them into doing something stupid.