Product managers produce less quality than self organized teams because even a good listener will not be able to coordinate all the small things that go into a

Product managers produce less quality than self organized teams because even a good listener will not be able to coordinate all the small things that go into a great product where every domain specialist can contribute there sense of quality. This inefficient centralization however is necessary in higher complexity orgs because otherwise the higher level has nothing to control, no levers to push and pull. (they can't track down and keep in touch with EVERY individual) The downside of self organization is lack of focus outside a certain scale. The free market is a quintessential example of higher level emergent quality resulting from individual self organizing self centered interaction. It produces "goodness" but not in a mission directed way. The JavaScript ecosystem is another example. And like all ecosystems (as opposed to just "systems") it can be messy and confusing despite what it does. Efforts to tame these types of wildness often fail. Efforts to scale without becoming this type of wildness also often fail. As orgs grow, the focus on controllability requires more and more gatekeepers to maintain eventually choking actual output.