Accountability Laundering
There’s a decision at the C-level that nobody wants to own, so a consultancy gets hired. The consultants recommend, collect their fee, and leave. If the decision later falls apart, it has a convenient home: “That was the consultancy’s recommendation.” Each step in this chain is individually rational. Nobody designed the mechanism. But the steps add up to a structure in which ownership quietly disappears, and product managers are the ones who live with the consequences.