[lowercased]

"In large organizations it becomes harder and harder for individual contributors to see how their work fits into the larger organization."

... because the planning and reasoning and vision aren't shared? As an IC - in small and large companies - I would often get this "you just don't understand" and "you don't see the big picture". Well.. because it's not shared. Decisions made in secret, or in boardrooms without any transparency... yeah - of course I don't have the full picture. I bet half the upper management doesn't either - they all just have their slices.

Some companies - typically smaller - sometimes have shared details on direction/vision/etc enough so that everyone could have a common shared sense of purpose and goals. But I've found that to be relatively rare.

[jimbokun]

Yes, good management is rare.

I believe companies where ICs understand how their role ties into the overall success of the company will outperform other companies on average.

[rcxdude]

Maybe, there is an aspect of things being deliberately kept hidden, but also communicating this stuff is just pretty hard. Large organizations often spend huge amounts of effort on it and still get things wrong.