Frankly, something that I don't see discussed enough is the truth that many people are plain stupid. If my position in the company depends on stupid people, then this completely changes the game, because then good engineering isn't the best way to maximize my status anymore. That's how you get smart people spend their time coming up with elaborate tactics to appear productive while in reality they aren't and play office politics. All successful corporations understand this and build processes around the assumption that their workers are idiots, which has the side effect of suffocating smart workers, but the truth is, ten thousand morons is a bigger force than a hundred geniuses.