"I read a lot of Taleb in my early 20s, and he'd call this iatrogenics in a non-medical context, and I'd agree. One of the ex-Pivotal guys I spoke to mentioned

"I read a lot of Taleb in my early 20s, and he'd call this iatrogenics in a non-medical context, and I'd agree. One of the ex-Pivotal guys I spoke to mentioned that most of the highest-performing teams emerged from "benign neglect" from management - i.e, they got busy and left the team alone. Could be a recipe for disaster, certainly, but there's also compelling anecdata out there that it could be the grounds for great things with the right people." Alan Eustace, who was Google's SVP of engineering forever, used say he would deliberately put enough on director's plates that they couldn't pay attention to everything, in the hopes that exactly this would happen.