Worth placing this piece alongside pieces on entrepreneurship and the new agendas on ESG - how to assess corporate performance beyond the systematic chopping of 10% (such an arbitrary number in terms of people rather than looking at returns on investment for example).

Although American centric, take a look at English football (soccer) and also music companies where regularly the idea is to cultivate new talent within quality systems. Dump the big stars, sell them when the returns for the outlays is just not there.

Why so many corporates now follow a model of entrepreneurial endeavour and rid themseselves of layers upon layers talking percentages of what?

Manage what you can measure and head counts rarely reflect returns on investment