>10% is easily handled through attrition over the course of one year and without the anxiety leading to wide-spread disruption. I'll never understand how terrible decision makers rise to the highest ranks of leadership.

I think it has to do with the psychology that people want to know they're having some sort of impact on a finished product or the operations of a business. Even if it's this kind of "trim the fat" decision that layoffs tend to entail.

As a content writer/strategist, I've seen so many stakeholders give edits to things they think has some sort of value when a lot of changes are really six of one, half a dozen of the other. People just want to feel like they're contributing something to the conversation, especially when their ego won't let them off the hook in that way.

Honestly, so much of middle management is such a joke. They sit in strategy meetings to pass information, as well as the buck to technicians and contributor-level employees. And for what? To put lipstick on a bacon balance sheet. It is what it is. So much of what we humans do is a waste of time. But then again it's all a waste of time.