When you are a junior staff you don't understand why decisions are made rather inefficiently. You only come to understand as you move up the ladder in the organization.
There is nothing stupid or evil about how "organization" behaves. It's exactly same as the society we all live in, just at a smaller scale. When you are in the position to make the call, you see that someone's idea may be as good as someone else's idea. How do you decide which idea is right? Do you choose one and fire the other with another idea? What happens when a wrong decision is made? This is the exactly reason why CEO or executives make compromises. They have responsibility to make sure that the organization survives no matter which scenario pans out. Junior staff often don't understand this because they can always move onto another opportunity when things collapse. As their career progresses, they also come to understand that you can't torch the field just because you don't like the crop growing there - it's much harder to find fertile land to begin with.
As people move up they either still know the business or they don't. Not trusting the people whom are running the actual business is IMO terrible.
The COO at the company I work for (recently left) could describe the daily work in detail. He could have conversations with any recently hired staff, various level of management, but also with the board, investors and customers. Lastly, he (amazingly) knew all the people he worked with before. No matter if that person 10+ years later is still in the same position (or not).
IMO having a good network, being able to communicate with various levels is highly beneficial. Your post seems to suggest some staff should not be taken seriously. That's utterly weird to me.
> How do you decide which idea is right?
From your post it seems one of the options is not to listen to staff. Further, junior staff won't gain experience if you do not let them develop.
> They have responsibility to make sure that the organization survives no matter which scenario pans out.
For one, why isn't this explained? Secondly, some decisions are bad without actually going into it any further. Then multiple years are wasted while everyone involved knew this from the start; they were just not listened to.
IMO regarding "scenario pans out": for some cases it's entirely true. But also sometimes it's not the case at all... just nobody listened to the people running the business and too much disconnect.
There is nothing stupid or evil about how "organization" behaves. It's exactly same as the society we all live in, just at a smaller scale. When you are in the position to make the call, you see that someone's idea may be as good as someone else's idea. How do you decide which idea is right? Do you choose one and fire the other with another idea? What happens when a wrong decision is made? This is the exactly reason why CEO or executives make compromises. They have responsibility to make sure that the organization survives no matter which scenario pans out. Junior staff often don't understand this because they can always move onto another opportunity when things collapse. As their career progresses, they also come to understand that you can't torch the field just because you don't like the crop growing there - it's much harder to find fertile land to begin with.