The Gap

Geoffrey more calls it “Crossing the Chasm” when discussing the elements required for new innovation to bridge the gap between tech-heads and conservative stalwart consumers. Within Management, I’ve noticed this “gap” that exists between top management and line managers as illustrated below.


So what interests me is the stark difference in behaviour, particularly how positive they can be. So the excuses provided by dark managers are that, top management; in lieu of their sky high salary and perks as well as lack of grounding and distanced from the stresses of the middle management can afford to be “virile” and “visionary” in all its pomp and glory.

However, this notion can be challenged as the layer down, the line managers, exhibit all the passion and desire to do the right thing. So it begets the question, what happened?

Do line managers go through some sort of metamorphosis as they age?

What kind of dribble have they consumed to chrysalis themselves with their own sputum and emerge as a Dark Manager?

Try it out and look around, most large companies will have this ‘gap’; it’s scary when you can see it.

Turning Guessing into an Art Form

Just when I though I've seen it all, here comes another organization with its variant of Dark Managers.

Now, where I come from, when there's doubt, you remove it through inquiry, enquiring and face to face meeting with facts on the table. On the other hand, you have the "maybes, perhaps, could've would've assumptions" answer to any uncertainty. Used by a dark manager, it really means avoiding ever leaving your cozy seat to find out WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG!!!

Apologies, I fluster.

But seriously, here's what I experience on a daily basis dealing with the budget for one of the largest banks in South East Asia.

Mgr A: How come CAPEX from IT differs from CAPEX in business?
Me: Would somebody just go to the business and find out why?
Mgr B: Maybe they've included head counts in it?
Me: Would somebody just go to the business and find out why?
Mgr C: No wait; maybe they turned their CAPEX / OPEX formula around?
Mgr B: Cannot be... that's too dumb
Me: Not any dumber than a bunch of clowns "guessing" what's wrong with the numbers.
Mgr D: I know! It's because they didn't include software licenses..
Mgr A and B and C: Ahhh.. that's it.. that's it. Let's move on.
Me: Huh...? You mean that's it!? nobody even bothers to go through the numbers and cross reference it with someone from business?

As far as South East Asia is concerned, I am pretty sure that the Japanese concept of "Genchi Genbutsu" is as alien as physically getting your asses up from your desk other than going to the loo or for lunch.

Quotations on Teamwork

"Teamwork is knowing your responsibilities so that you can help one another"

"Teamwork is knowing your responsibilities so that you know who to pass the bucket to"
- Dark Manager

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results"
- Andrew Carnegie

"Teamwork is the ability to work separately toward a common lie. The ability to misdirect individual accomplishments toward your own objectives. It is the fuel that allows dark managers to attain the perception of uncommon results from common effort"
- Dark Manager

"The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses."
- Napolean Hill

"Why does he even want the job?"
- Dark Manager

Why Dark Manager's Shouldn't mess with a Geek

Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

• By Kevin Poulsen
• March 17, 2010 |
• 1:52 pm |
  

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.

For the rest of the news: here

The Architecture of Fear

I got this from a blog called "time for a pause" and the notion of an "Architecture of Fear" is just so quaint. But not to fret, the author also provides an "Architecture of Abundance" within the same article.

Check it out by clicking on the image

Will Lehmann cause E&Y's downfall...?

The last time an accounting firm was implicated with a major screw up it went belly up, remember Andersen which was swallowed up by E&Y. Now it seems that E&Y have their own dirty customers to deal with.

So who exactly can we trust these days?

---

Lehman file rocks Wall Street

By Francesco Guerrera and Henny Sender in New York and Patrick Jenkins in London

Published: March 12 2010 00:41 | Last updated: March 13 2010 00:21

The fallout from the report into the collapse of Lehman Brothers shook Wall Street and London on Friday as US officials grilled banks about off balance-sheet trades and questions were raised over the City’s role in the company’s attempts to cover up its problems.

The 2,200-page report by Anton Valukas, appointed by a US court to probe the reasons for Lehman’s failure in September 2008, paints a damning picture of the bank’s top management, including former chief executive Dick Fuld, three of its chief financial officers and auditors Ernst & Young.

Read the full news here

On Strategy

"Strategy without Tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat" - Sun Tzu

"Action without Glory is the hardest route to being sidelined. Glory without Action is best noiseless when you take credit for other people's work" - The Dark Manager