Oft espoused at Microsoft BUT, as I found out, that one case where I ordered an extra $150 whiteboard for my office without first going to my manager resulted in a really stern rebuke.

The stern rebuke is part of the thing.

You pretend to forget about the policy, and they pretend to tell you off for it, and you pretend to be remorseful.

It sucks, but it's the effective way to do business in a bureaucracy.

Managers manage resources which usually means strict control over them in an mbas or old mind: even if the whiteboard was $1 that you did not ask them is their issue. This of course has no place in innovative companies.

Given all the under-the-radar, play-it-fast-and-loose stuff I was encouraged to do there, I was quite surprised by the episode. This was just after the consent decree came down and the whole place become very risk-averse practically overnight.

Yeah -- probably only a handful of companies put their money and practice where their mouth is -- aka not a micromanagers' heaven. It is part of the process of a company's death if the company is in the innovation/tech sector.