I like the analogy, but I don't fully agree with it. If the "product on shelf" is a basic CRUD app, then sure, managing a team of 20 people might be harder than doing the individual tasks related to putting the product on shelf, but oftentimes there are challenging technical aspects related to the product. In some cases those technical challenges might be harder than management of the team.

> Telling or managing a team of 20 people to put products on shelves is a lot harder than putting products on shelves.

After 20 years of experience I can tell you it depends on many factors, but first of all on the people you work with.

And why would that be? That's a strong claim that's completely unsupported.

Personally I disagree.

>>Telling or managing a team of 20 people to put products on shelves is a lot harder than putting products on shelves.

no it isn't

telling people is easy, actually getting the result that you want in each situation is hard