Anyone else getting taken over by project managers and feel like all is lost?

I work for a company building software to analyse collaboration so this is something I’ve had some experience looking at.

The short answer is that you have to have processes in place to ensure high-trust and high-autonomy throughout the org.

The longer answer is: it really has to be mandated from the top (leaders have to have be high-trust); there needs to be processes to increase visibility throughout the org; there needs to be obvious and causal feedback systems - so if someone does well they need to be rewarded and if they do badly they need to be helped to improve or to be fired; every level of management needs to be incentivised to be high-trust and high-autonomy.

Scaling this is hard, but most small companies I’ve dealt with have the same problem. A lot of people are controlling and have low-trust. A lot of leaders therefore do. I don’t have enough data to say but most leaders might be lower trust than they should (much worse in some culture types and much better in others).

If you try to solve for it you can, at scale, with enough help and work. If you don’t solve for it you’ll usually end up with a shit org.

Anyone else getting taken over by project managers and feel like all is lost?