Declaring (it's someone else's) responsibility
If I get a message from higher-ups, it's usually a formal declaration that something is now my responsibility. Most of the directives seem reasonable. The absence of specific steps and procedures to make them happen could be interpreted as trust in me to carry them out how I think best, right? And the absence of any resources provided to effect these changes could imply that it's a fairly trivial ask.
I'm not talking about rules like no fish in the office microwave. These are mandates to police everyone's work practices and interactions, because in a few previous cases, some were broken. So I'm now responsible for changing the practices and behaviors of dozens of interlinked people who are already overloaded and who have no incentive to comply, let alone document their compliance.
Changes like these can only happen in the context of people's individual work situations, not in the utopian upper admin world where everyone is assumed to have the capacity and willingness to carry out new mandates because the memo says so. Sure, healthy organizations have rules and change their practices, but they also have a mosaic of diverse microbiomes that thrive on individual conversations, negotiations and understandings, that blanket mandates destroy.