Plausible deniability

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Plausible deniability
/ˈplɔːzəbl dɪˈnaɪəˈbɪlɪti/ (n.)

The quality of being just the right distance from a saucy initiative: close enough to bask in its glorious light should it be a success; far enough to be well clear of the blast radius when as, usually, it will — it explodes in ignominy.

How much of a firm’s risk management infrastructure is dedicated, as a first priority, to plausible deniability? This question might sound cynical were the resounding answer not, “all of it”.

The scorecard of corporate catastrophe against individual responsibility over the last 30 years tells a grim — Grimm? — story: Whatever should go wrong, however disastrous, it never seems, officially, to be anybody’s fault.

This has unedifying implications for our captains of industry. Either our multinationals are little more than uncontrolled dirigibles, blown madly about an angry sky by the capricious winds of fortune, their executives little more than wanton boys to Gods — in which case you wonder why they get paid so much — or their executives really are in control, but have skillfully arranged things to be forever upwind of whatever fan happens to be in the manure flightpath for the time being — in which case, you also wonder why they get paid so much.

Now this is not to say no-one is downwind of the Fans of Ordure: stooges and patsies abound amongst mid-ranking subject matter experts who are, as Sidney Dekker comprehensively catalogues, routinely found at fault and eviscerated for corporate shortcomings whose root cause was plainly poor design in systems and controls.

Now wantonly mendacious employees — while, of course, not unheard of — are the exception not the rule: most folks who show up are earnest, want to do a solid day’s graft, be recognised for it, and go home. Otto’s razor refers:

Never attribute to virtue something that could equally be attributed to self-interest; never attribute to skill something that could equally be attributed to dumb luck.

Those with a survival instinct learn the Buttocractic oath, and will act as a first priority in preservation of their own posterior, but as they rise through the ranks, the stakes get higher, the number of diffusion avenues inevitably grows, the priority of ensuring, above all else, plausible deniability.

Now defenestration of executives certainly happens, but rarely follows forensic investigation of an ill-fated buck to find where it stopped. Bucks, in a modern corporation, do not stop anywhere: they just diffuse into thin air. They are mercurial; wills-o’-the-wisp. They elude all attempts (few of which are, thus, ever made) to snatch at them. Defenestration happens through a far more visceral process. It is unwritten; primordial; choleric. Like Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas, one day you’re on top of the world; about to become a made man: the next, you’re in an empty room with plastic sheeting on the floor and a guy behind you with a pistol.

As ever, we digress. But none of this is should surprise anyone in a culture relentlessly focused on building machines and then blaming people for their unwanted outcomes, rather than practically managing outcomes day-to-day to avoid them becoming unwanted in the first place.

And so an entire professional subculture has emerged to, er, buttress the arse-covering instinct. Auditors, credit rating agencies, providers of legal opinions, to whom the individuals inside the organisation and whose job, you would think, it is to manage those risks, can point should they come up short.

“No one got fired for hiring IBM” – or Linklaters, Deloitte or Moody’s – has more than a grain of truth to it.

See also

• Terry’s law
• Agency problem
• The dog in the night time
• Buttocractic oath