It is not done to call “bullshit”: Difference between revisions

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Is this the first principle, or the last word, in practical risk management?
Is this the first principle, or the last word, in practical risk management?


The JC once spent time in the employment of a financial services firm , a new CEO decided the firm needed an explicit purpose. He convened working groups all around the organisation to settle on something pithy, memorable and meaningful. A diverse cross section of staff, it must have been for they even invited ne’er-do-wells like the JC, were invited to workshops at which we were presented with suggestions formulated for our consideration by the executive board. One was something along the following lines: “Collaborating with our communities to eradicate global inequality”. It wasn’t exactly that, but it was not far off. It definitely aspired, without qualification to global fairness.<ref>They wound up with something predictably anodyne and meaningless like “Reimagining the possibility of investment by connecting the digital world.” The marketing goons ''loved it''.
The JC was once employed by a financial services firm whose new CEO, in a flush of new-broom exuberance, decided the bank needed an explicit ''purpose''.  


All around the room nodded in a thoughtful, if non-committal way — it pays not to be too enthusiastic in situations like this, in case it is a trap — except your correspondent, who asked gingerly, whether a bank whose most significant line of revenue accrued from its ultra-high net worth wealth management business — one which, by aspiring to make the super rich richer was really rather committed to ''increasing'' inequality — really ought to be saying such a thing.
Working groups from around the organisation came together to settle on something pithy, memorable and meaningful. They invited a diverse cross-section of staff — it must have been, for they invited ne’er-do-wells like the JC — to workshop some suggestions formulated for our consideration by the executive board. You can just imagine, can’t you.<ref>They wound up with something predictably anodyne and meaningless like “Reimagining the possibility of investment by connecting the digital world.” The marketing goons ''loved it''. The CEO has since moved on.</ref> One was something along the following lines: “Collaborating with our communities to eradicate global inequality”. Not ''exactly'' that, but not far off. In any case it aspired, without qualification, to vouchsafe global equality.
 
All around the room nodded in that thoughtful, non-committal manner one adopts in situations where you cannot rule out a trap — all, that is, except your correspondent who asked, gingerly, whether a bank whose most significant line of revenue accrued from its ultra-high net worth wealth management business — one which, by aspiring to make the super rich richer was really rather committed to ''increasing'' inequality — really ought to be saying such a thing?


Given that any commercial organisation is a [[self-perpetuating autocracy]], we should expect a great deal ''less'' licence to the free expression by the rank-and-file of uncomfortable opinions than is [[Virtue-signalling|virtue-signaled]] by the boss in his daily lectures on the telescreen.  
Given that any commercial organisation is a [[self-perpetuating autocracy]], we should expect a great deal ''less'' licence to the free expression by the rank-and-file of uncomfortable opinions than is [[Virtue-signalling|virtue-signaled]] by the boss in his daily lectures on the telescreen.