Middle management blues

From the well-thumbed pages of the Jolly Contrarian’s songbook

With apologies to W. H. Auden.

Stop all the key performance indicators, cut off the Skype^®
Prevent internal audit complaining with a load of old tripe,
Silence the subject matter experts, and with animated deck
Bring out the target operating model,
That stakeholders will wreck.

Let escalations circle, rise and then dip
Scribble on the sky “can you run it by Chip?”
Put service level agreements round the service line’s necks,
Let the chief operating officer wear flannelene kecks.

You are my steerco and opco, my SOX audit pass,
My CBT, my CPD (where I’m best in the class)
My deep dive, disclaimer, my eye-ess-dee-aye;
They said the call would take minutes: It lasted all day.

Please be advised that they’ve outsourced the fun,
Right-sized the moon —
Disintermediated the sun.
They’ve circled their wagons and reached around the group;
For our direction of travel is a Mobius loop.
Dramatis personae: CEO | CFO | Client | Employees: Divers · Excuse pre-loaders · Survivors · Contractors · The Muppet Show | Middle management: COO · Consultant · MBA | Controllers: Financial reporting | Risk | Credit | Operations | IT | Legal: GC · Inhouse counsel · Docs unit · Litigator · Tax lawyer · US attorney Lawyer | Front office: Trading | Structuring | Sales |