[iggori]

I wrote this after years of working inside large European companies. What looks like an "innovation problem" is usually an incentive problem. People aren’t rewarded for taking risks, owning outcomes, or pushing things forward, so the system defaults to safety and process.

I’m curious how this compares to what engineers see in the US. Is it the same pattern or something different?

[salawat]

Incentive problem is technically the same in the U.S. You might think there's ownership conferred by taking risks and such to the individual worker, but it is much more akin to the feudal sharecropping arrangement. You are delegated a body of work by your liege when they are pleased, but the moment you fall out of favor or become inconvenient, poof. The real answer to the ownership question manifests. It was never yours in the first place. You just sold your blood, sweat, and tears to enable someone else to thrive in the long run while you get tossed aside at the first sign of difficulty.

[iggori]

I get what you mean about long‑term ownership. My point in the article is a bit narrower. In many EU companies people don’t even get ownership inside the work itself. Decisions are spread so thin that nobody can push, take responsibility, or move anything forward.

I’m trying to understand whether this is a specifically European pattern or if US engineers run into the same thing.