I agree with you on the downsides of distributed decision making, but I think it is just a matter of tradeoffs. Involving more people in a decision is usually

I agree with you on the downsides of distributed decision making, but I think it is just a matter of tradeoffs. Involving more people in a decision is usually going to result in better decisions, as it will benefit from more viewpoints, experiences, and critical review. The tradeoff of group decision making is that it is expensive and slow. Even just a single hour meeting with 8 people is a whole man day of work. On the other hand, distributed decision making (where individuals or smaller groups make decisions) is faster and cheaper, though on average probably produces less optimal decisions. Whether centralized or distributed decision making is optimal depends entirely on factors like how much better the centralized decision is than the distributed one, at what cost that improvement comes, and the cost of later correcting a sub-optimal decision. In other words, the real world is complicated. Soothing bromides like "It's Easier To Ask Forgiveness Than To Get Permission" or whatever its opposite is don't have very much value.