Level 1: "we need to reduce costs; everyone work on that" Level 2: "we've been told to cut costs, and staff is the lowest hanging fruit; which products should

Level 1: "we need to reduce costs; everyone work on that" Level 2: "we've been told to cut costs, and staff is the lowest hanging fruit; which products should we kill?" Level 3: "hey, I need to reduce the number of products, and staff is the lowest hanging fruit; which teams should we reduce?" Level 4: "since I can't ask if anyone is actually doing anything without raising suspicion, we'll just pick the largest cost sinks, and cull a bit; here's a list" I doubt anyone really cared which products got reduced. In an org with 100k employees, it's just numbers all the way down to level 5-6 somewhere.