Something I've had to learn with larger organizations is that the logic at the top isn't always conveyed to the bottom. Perverse incentives play heavily into this. An example of this is executive bonuses. Everyone knows that for long term health of a company short term gains should be subservient to long term gains. Bonus structures are typically structured for short term, which means that in order for an employee to get a bonus they have to do something that farms the company long term.
Another example is RIFs (reduction in force). An executive in IT gets a bonus for cost containment by not hiring appropriately. This leads to longer hold times, poorer service techs, and less training. Overall it costs the company more time lost and wasted effort, but this isn't tracked, only bottom line. The exec gets his bonus for cost cutting and the company gets less efficient and effective for it.
This is a major problem in large corporations and why CEOs are really useless employees in most cases, and almost universally overpaid compared to results. Generally a company could do without a CEO it choose one at random and get the same results.
The first goes "most people are wrong about most things". You have to include yourself in that one or it just sounds arrogant, but it's true. Mostly we have a toy understanding of how anything really works if we are asked to scratch any deeper than the surface and the sheer amount of mental models required to begin to somewhat accurately map to reality vs. the search cost of finding those abstractions vs. the probability any individual is sufficiently motivated to pay the search cost. It's abysmal. So basically no one has truly good ideas. Yet some how the whole thing still grinds along.
You get what you incent. That would be another key model. Behavior follows incentives. Period.
Conflict of interest. That's another thing to watch out for. Loosely related to the idea of "subtext". People will say one thing but often mean the exact opposite of what they say. For example when someone says "I believe it is" this is a contradiction. The sheer timidity of the statement actually indicates that they harbor a hint of doubt. The subtext says "I acknowledge there is a possibility that it might not be and I cannot be 100% sure".
Power of ideas vs. Power of people. These are the fundamental two types of company culture that exist. If you're a thinker, you will be eternally frustrated in a power of people culture.
I'm probably rambling now, but there are a good many "human factors" that make companies awfully questionable at times.
I actually say I believe specifically when I want to convey I may have doubts, usually followed with "please correct me if I'm wrong" but I have worked hard to foster an environment without blaming my team. If there's a need to correct an action after it's been done we correct the action and define it within the process documentation. We've also worked very hard to solidify expectations so that if decisions need to be made without guidance they are clear on the intent of what their actions should be and respond accordingly. It's not a perfect system but it allows us to respond quicker to customer needs without waiting for management decisions.
I consider myself a thinker but it's actually very interesting to think about people. It's important to realize that everyone is way more fragile and vulnerable than they pretend to be. Primal fear drives all of us, at different levels and in different quantities. Everyone's got their gaping blind spots.
I'm shy and introverted like the rest of you, and I'm not a good small talker. But it's naive to think of challenges as just technical challenges. In any organization, making change is a people challenge. Think about people.
Another example is RIFs (reduction in force). An executive in IT gets a bonus for cost containment by not hiring appropriately. This leads to longer hold times, poorer service techs, and less training. Overall it costs the company more time lost and wasted effort, but this isn't tracked, only bottom line. The exec gets his bonus for cost cutting and the company gets less efficient and effective for it.
This is a major problem in large corporations and why CEOs are really useless employees in most cases, and almost universally overpaid compared to results. Generally a company could do without a CEO it choose one at random and get the same results.