[nooneelse]

In light of the "management engineering" slant, the way people organizations seem to get made reminds me of the old meme that buildings in the far past were 'designed' only to the extent that they didn't follow the exact design of some other building which had fallen down. And in that vein, the answers by zaidf and sirkneeland, are like: buildings above some size keep falling down, so add a big central column in the middle to support the weight. Make all of the building depend on that central column.

But buildings evolved to have arches and open domes, no central column needed. Why can't the same be done with people-based control/oversight/management systems? Building a beautiful structure dependent on all/many the members around, not just a central support/dictator.

[zaidf]

Just because you have one person who makes the final call does not mean he isn't reliant on other members of his team.

The way Gates describes his process resonates with me:

In terms of deciding what programs are going to do, a fairly large group makes suggestions. Then there’s a filtering process. Eventually I’ll decide which of the ideas makes sense, and I’ll make sure we have champions who are personally involved in making that product succeed.

http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/bill-gates-1986/