I made the mistake of joining a small company where the founder did the exact opposite of everything you have described: the product was his, the plan was his, and the design meetings inevitably degenerated into lectures on why we (his employees) didn't understand the market we were in, and therefore weren't qualified to do anything but follow his guidance. There were certainly no whiteboard sessions (after all, why would you need a whiteboard, when you can just describe what's going to happen using a powerpoint presentation?)
The result was terrible morale, and a bad product. Where we should have been reacting to the demands of the market that we were in, we were plodding along a pre-determined path to failure, without the ability to change strategy or tactic.
As a result, I now have a well-developed filter for people who have this tendency, and I avoid them like the plague. Comments like "I'll flesh out the design" immediately send me running.
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Oh man...you hit the nail on the head.
I made the mistake of joining a small company where the founder did the exact opposite of everything you have described: the product was his, the plan was his, and the design meetings inevitably degenerated into lectures on why we (his employees) didn't understand the market we were in, and therefore weren't qualified to do anything but follow his guidance. There were certainly no whiteboard sessions (after all, why would you need a whiteboard, when you can just describe what's going to happen using a powerpoint presentation?)
The result was terrible morale, and a bad product. Where we should have been reacting to the demands of the market that we were in, we were plodding along a pre-determined path to failure, without the ability to change strategy or tactic.
As a result, I now have a well-developed filter for people who have this tendency, and I avoid them like the plague. Comments like "I'll flesh out the design" immediately send me running.