[bigpeopleareold]

It shouldn't be a distraction.

You should understand what you are working on, how it is progressing and what is the goal of certain things. You need to know how to align yourself with goals of your company and the impact of the products you are developing.

Honestly, I don't appreciate anyone not taking any stake in what they are working on. This transient attitude makes it hard to trust people to understand fully or even want to understand problems that need to be solved. I can understand if someone is new and doesn't know what to do for a product. Of course, in this case, your first goal is: learn and ask (good) questions. After that, I would not be happy to give you constantly basic advice on your own tasks.

So, this is not just a managerial problem. You get paid to work on problems, to develop an insight on those problems and to think independently on those problems.

With that out of the way, when the company itself is unsure what to do next, then it can become a distraction, because it could mean that even top management doesn't know what exactly to do. I've had this happen and that's frustrating. I can talk all day what I could do, but nothing can stick if you don't get a clear idea what top management wants to do.