I could have done better elaborating on the conundrum.
Ultimately, companies are looking for outcomes (e.g. financial return). Outputs are an important part of outcomes, but not the goal in of itself. Outputs also need to be working towards valuable goals. Without value, outputs are worthless.
This creates a conundrum where you need to find a proper balance between the large quantity of people who need to make the outputs and the fewer number of people who need to guide the value.