To Toe/Tow the Line

Dark Managers also suffer from a parrot reflex of repeating phrases that the CEO uses. At the moment, "towing the line" seems to be spreading around.

It's so odd how its being used in just about every situation. E.g. if the boss shits and you wipe his ass; that's also known as towing the line.

When I did a quick check on wikipedia, it was originally written as to "toe the line" as in when an army commander calls his soldiers to attention, they stand abreast of each other, with each soldier looking down to ensure his/her toes are on the line.

So maybe that's true too, in the even the boss walks by, you'd want your subordinates to "toe the line" and in corporate speak; that means a clean desk, arms always clenching a deck of freshly printed powerpoint presentation plus a 300 page leather bound organizer. Nevermind that you also carry a phone PDA.

Nevermind also that the PowerPoint presentation is merely 5 pages long, but you've printed 20 copies of it just to make it look big.

Governance - Dark Management Style

After working with Governance or Councils or Committees for the last 5 odd years. It dawned on me that perhaps there's a deeper meaning to the purpose of these proceedings:-

1) When any hanky panky needs to be done "officially"
2) To stop any other hanky panky that is not your own
3) To make decisions backed by articles prepared by preferably institutions that are based in US or UK (does not matter that the study is conducted on only American or British soil exclusively). As long as the recommendations are "backed" by those study, somehow responsibility for the decision making is absolved.
4) To ensure that all traceability of accountability does not stick to the governance body.
5) where possible, to deny any initiatives because its better to be safe than sorry.
6) To make decisions that are for the benefit of the Governance/Council/Committee members and hardly ever for the business
7) To pretend that they care only when there is a user representative.

It's also typically manned by folks that are over the hill; the type that just can't get promoted or transferred anywhere else cause nobody really wants them.

I know, its not a funny or sarcastic post... i'm just pissed.