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> But a lot of humans don’t want to step on others’ toes or be perceived as acting out of line.

It's conditioning. In all organizations above a certain size (> 100 people), stepping out of line receives an official reprimand. Someone always complains. Receive enough reprimands and the person is terminated. People learn to stay in line because they've been punished whenever they step out of it.

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Unless the organization really truly rewards that behavior. Which is rare.

The senior-most people (VPs, founders) often say they want it. But it’s the middle managers who will stab you in the front in revenge, while staring you in the eye. And if the VP doesn’t step in, they are endorsing the outcome.

The legend of Richard Montañez and inventing Flaming Hot Cheetos itself is not supported by facts, but the underlying story of someone low level who jumped the chain of command and contacted executives at the company seems to hold up. Which means there's at least one organization out there for which it's true.

Basing a pattern on outliers is not a successful strategy. It has to have reasonable success rate for the average person to risk it.

> reasonable success rate

Or little to nothing to lose.

Both are good reasons to jump up the hierarchy chain

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