[justin_oaks]

Funny enough, at my last job the bosses never listened to anything their employees suggested. Whenever an outsider (journalist, user, family member, or outside consultant) suggested the same thing as the employees suggested, only then did the bosses consider it.

I don't know how common this is in other places, but that organization could only change through external, not internal, influences.

[jodrellblank]

I remember reading something about it in the gaming industry; from memory it was written by a contractor brought into 3D games on tight deadlines to unstick them. And what they did was go in, ask the employees what was wrong, the employees told him everything that was wrong and what would fix it. They'd been trying to tell anyone who would listen, for months, and he was the first person who would listen. Then he turned around and told everything that was wrong to management, who were thrilled that the contractor could come in and so quickly tell them what was wrong and how to fix it, and give him the resources to do it because the deadline was imminent. The employees could lean on the consultant to cut through bureaucracy, and the consultant (who had skills) could sort out some intricate game engine performance problems, and the whole thing moved on. He did that almost routinely moving round big game companies from project to project.

I might be misremembering, but I can't find it in the HN search history.

Like an explanation given for how companies will let key employees quit, then excitedly pay more for new hires. New employees (or contractors) are all marketing about how great they are. Existing employees are all too obviously mere mortals with plenty of flaws. Of course getting rid of the ordinary employee and getting Superman looks like a good idea.

Manager spends time listening to employees complain: losing proposition, boring, time consuming, looks like doing nothing. Manager brings in amazing consultant who helps: manager looks good, saves effort, has a claim to need a bigger team and budget in future because evidence shows they just needed some extra help.