There are some mainstream-ish ideas out there like Servant Leadership or Agile that try to work around this problem by dis-entangling power and prestige. If the lower level managers are organizationally “in charge” of what actually gets done (leaving the higher levels just in charge of who to hire/fire), that breaks up some of the feedback.
Another thing to do is ensure that Management is not the only (and hopefully not even the best) way to gain prestige in the company. Include the top widget makers in the high level corporate meetings. They might not care about strategic direction, but if the CEO’s golf foursome includes the senior production employees in the rotation alongside upper management (and the compensation packages are similar between them), that can help.
If you try to introduce Agile in a company that is already a deep Maze, expect to get it redefined to a version that has only superficial similarity with the original idea, and is Maze-compatible.
Basically, why most developers hate Scrum. Read the Scrum Guide, then underline the parts that your company does differently: Everyday meetings? Yes. Meetings under 5 minutes? No. Sprints? Yes, but they are two weeks instead of the recommended three. Retrospective? No. Scrum Master? There is a guy called that, but actually he is a manager. Product Owner? There is a guy called that, but actually he is a manager. Definition of Done? Not really, but there are JIRA tickets. Autonomy? Not really. Sustainable pace? Haha, your velocity is constantly measured, and it better keep increasing.
If you look at that list, it can be summarized as: remove feedback, increase paperwork, introduce metrics that can be Goodharted. While calling it Agile, so you can check another item in the list of buzzwords.
There are some mainstream-ish ideas out there like Servant Leadership or Agile that try to work around this problem by dis-entangling power and prestige. If the lower level managers are organizationally “in charge” of what actually gets done (leaving the higher levels just in charge of who to hire/fire), that breaks up some of the feedback.
Another thing to do is ensure that Management is not the only (and hopefully not even the best) way to gain prestige in the company. Include the top widget makers in the high level corporate meetings. They might not care about strategic direction, but if the CEO’s golf foursome includes the senior production employees in the rotation alongside upper management (and the compensation packages are similar between them), that can help.
If you try to introduce Agile in a company that is already a deep Maze, expect to get it redefined to a version that has only superficial similarity with the original idea, and is Maze-compatible.
Basically, why most developers hate Scrum. Read the Scrum Guide, then underline the parts that your company does differently: Everyday meetings? Yes. Meetings under 5 minutes? No. Sprints? Yes, but they are two weeks instead of the recommended three. Retrospective? No. Scrum Master? There is a guy called that, but actually he is a manager. Product Owner? There is a guy called that, but actually he is a manager. Definition of Done? Not really, but there are JIRA tickets. Autonomy? Not really. Sustainable pace? Haha, your velocity is constantly measured, and it better keep increasing.
If you look at that list, it can be summarized as: remove feedback, increase paperwork, introduce metrics that can be Goodharted. While calling it Agile, so you can check another item in the list of buzzwords.