How to be a Crony by Reading between the Lines

There was this discussion about experiences that vendors go through when they're in the middle of a tender or price negotiations. For the record, I have either NOT encountered any such Dark Managers, or its an art that needs to be honed further.

Apparently, one needs to "infer", the hints thrown across the opposite end of the table and work behind the scenes in fulfilling those needs. For example:-

1. I do not believe that my phone will work well with your solution.
   Emphasis on the work "my", as it really means; if you wanna be my buddy - by all means give me a new phone asap. Especially one that'll work with the solution.
   
   It's not necessarily a phone, but could be anything. For example, I do not think my firewall will be able to work with the solution. If the person is a straight shooter, it's probably true, but more often than not its a lazy manager that's been sitting on an upgrade to an old firewall that's 12 years old and about 200 patches behind.
   
   
2. I'm sorry, my kids are screaming at me for an x-box and I need to go now...
   Perk your ears for any "domestic" complaints, it's actually a problem requiring a solution. In this over simplified scenario, it's an x-box. It could be anywhere from "my girlfriend wants to go to a concert and I can't seem to find the time" to "I think I twisted my back the other day..." which really means, I need a spa weekend massage. Happy ending or not depends on the person.
   
   
3. How many customers have used your product?
   This yells SITE VISIT like a beacon, just jump right through it and get it done and over with. Book your tickets to Thailand, Singapore and South Africa (hint - world cup), Vegas etc. Never mind that the closest demo center is just a 15 minutes drive.
   
   
4. Can you tell me the benefits of this system?
   Book a personal time later to explore what kind of "benefits" tickle the Dark Manager's fancy. Especially when you ask whether he/she requires more private time with the "team" to go through it in detail.


5. How many users can this system support?
   The question above shows doubt, which requires "investments" in terms of a "proof-of-concept" machines. I.e. the operations team requires a loaner as they're facing an IT catastrophe. Oh, be warned though, the loaners tend to go missing or returned to you 2 years later.
   

Once you've fulfill most of the needs, the hints will be more obvious and by then you're pretty much a good friend. Feel free to add-on to the list...

Getting a Return on Judgment

The financial meltdown showed the limits of bureaucracy. Recovery depends on how well companies adopt the practices of personalization instead.

by Julian Birkinshaw and Huw Jenkins

_______________________________________________________________
The article above took the words out of my mouth, where bureaucracy creates moral and emotional detachment to actual outcome, elimination of personal accountability and situations such as "communally approving" hanky panky covered under the guise of governance.

Indeed personalization of accountability is key.

Control

Dark Managers achieve control through various means:-

• Information Clamp Down.
Where possible, limit the amount of information leaving the project or the department. The only news that gets reported should only transpire between him and the CEO. It’s a simple principle really; most people gripe, and the amount of lies you put out means that these lies will eventually reach the CEO. So keep your team and your peers in the dark, more importantly if the project is high risk, short in time and lacking in resources.

Secondly, it also allows you to deny things, because CEO’s have so many things in their minds these days, they’ll potentially forget.

• Remember Nothing
It’s easy to remember nothing; you sign nothing, and approve nothing - That way, nothing bad ever happens. This is contrary to the belief that by telling the truth you will not need to remember your lies, in some ways correct but in many ways not actionable. Once you've told the truth, you need to back it up in the future, the knife cuts both ways.

• Make your lie other people’s promise
In short, you’ve over committed on behalf of the organization that overall performance of the system will be fantastic. Now, everyone in the value chain is forced to own up to the promise. The network team is screaming at you that you know better that the bandwidth can’t support it, the infrastructure team is also screaming because the servers won’t handle the load. But guess what, they'll be too afraid to mention to the CEO that no upgrades have been done for the last 5 years cause they've been too lazy to do anything other than order the vendors around.

• Bureaucracy
There’s nothing like a manual time sheet in a book with a strung pen even though the company has already automated it online. It forces your team to go up to your desk, sign in and you get to smirk at them or smile at the prettier ones.

What do you think? Are you confident about the progress of the project?

Perhaps this post would better serve appearing under "white lies/half truth to upper management", but it happens often enough in "Steering Committee" meetings that it's better addressed here.



A steering committee intends to "steer" a particular endeavour towards a roughly correct course or direction. Through the Management's wisdom, having had 5 years working experience (I exaggerate, but you get my point that corporate businesses are being run by folks wet around the ears cause they're related to the boss) their input is like manna from heaven.

So what happens when the "Chairperson" asks you "What do you think? Are you confident about the project?"

As a Dark Manager, there's only ONE answer, "YES SIR! Everything is going on schedule, no major issues".

Even though you know that:-

• half the testing will not be completed because there's not enough time
• the training manuals are 2 versions behind yet still being published anyway
• 80% of the users will not be trained with the product
• Arbitrarily, you decide to re-categorize Major, Moderate and Minor bugs
• Half the team has resigned because they know that the system will go live with a ton of problems.
• The illogical project schedule was dictated by the same "experienced" chairperson.
  

Why? Because based on the principles of Tai Chi - There's always someone else to blame or able to solve your problem.

Corruption = Dark Management?

Eigen observed that "Good Projects" often take years to fruition because of the number of studies and planning required. While "bad projects", those that are fueled by corruption are extremely quick and fast.

And he is SPOT ON!

What's even more amazing is his disclosure that for European companies, foreign bribery is allowed under their corporate governance practices!

Getting a Straight Answer

There are things in life that are certain, like all males have balls unless you’re a Dark Manager where they shrink to the size of ornaments.

Here’s how you can tell when you’re NOT getting a straight answer from a Dark Manager:-

a) I suppose... / I presume.../ I think...
That means that the manager is “guessing” or extrapolating from an assumption or logic. The person “may” be correct, but more often than not wrong. Dumb Dark Managers out number smart ones by 10:1.

b) I believe...
Nope, still not good enough. A belief is based upon “faith” which is as good as believing that there’s an invisible man in the sky that you talk to on a regular basis.

c) I trust...
That’s like saying, all spouses won’t philander, if you have to say that you ‘trust’ someone; it usually means that you don’t trust them enough. Did you ever notice that the moment you say that, you’ll immediately follow up with a phone call to confirm it?

d) It’s possible...
With enough time and money everything is possible. We don’t need another half baked project or situations that “suddenly” go out of hand through acts of God or factors beyond our control

An exact answer means just this.

a) YES or NO. Period.

Followed with...

b) We will or we shall by such and such date...
If this came from a dark manager, he’s a good one. Especially when the statement of commitment was stated loudly vs a whimper. E.g. We SHALL meet the date of 3^rd week in May...

Patients with amygdala injury 'unafraid' to gamble

The amygdala is associated with fear

Californian scientists think they may have discovered the part of the brain which makes people fear losing money.

The study, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at two patients who had damaged their amygdala, deep within the brain.

These patients were less worried about financial losses than the normal volunteers they were compared with.

The scientists say this could translate to how people make decisions in fields ranging from politics to game shows.

'Loss aversion' describes the avoidance of choices which can lead to losses, even when accompanied by equal or much larger gains. Click here for full story

___

On the Dark Management front, it now makes a lot of sense why managers make stupid callous decisions. Psychometric tests are highly recommended to include a section on gambling to separate wheat from the chaff!