This is true even if there aren't heavy policies in place; in fact, it's worse, because you have to figure out or guess how decisions get made, and by whom, and

This is true even if there aren't heavy policies in place; in fact, it's worse, because you have to figure out or guess how decisions get made, and by whom, and there's no day to day consistency. You end up working on projects that get cancelled for no reason you can tell, you have to pitch ideas without knowing what the metrics they'll be judged on. It's arguably more demoralizing.