Scott Adams – The Management-free Organization:

“Our decision-making so far seems to follow a rational model that goes like this:

1. We discuss the question (by email or Skype).
2. Everyone gives an opinion or adds information.
3. The smartest choice becomes obvious to all.
4. The end.

That decision-making model might not work in your company if some of your coworkers are worthless. There's always the one person in every meeting who keeps changing the topic, or doesn't understand the issue, or insists he knows more than he does, or is bluffing to cover his ass, or is jockeying for a promotion, and so on. To put it in clearer terms: Management exists to minimize the problems created by its own hiring mistakes.”

(I don’t think anyone is “worthless”. But I sure agree that mistakes in hiring, training, growing and empowering and motivating people poison companies. Let’s not just track and fix the bugs we developers put into our software, but these management failures as well.)