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Plausible deniability: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Guilty-dogs.jpg|450px|thumb|center|It was the guy in operations, honest.]] | [[File:Guilty-dogs.jpg|450px|thumb|center|It was the guy in operations, honest.]] | ||
[[File:Shit hits fan.jpg|450px|thumb|center|The fan of ordure, yesterday.]] | [[File:Shit hits fan.jpg|450px|thumb|center|The fan of ordure, yesterday.]] | ||
}}{{d|Plausible deniability|/ˈplɔːzəbl/ /dɪˈnaɪəˈbɪlɪti/|n|}} | }}{{quote|{{d|Plausible deniability|/ˈplɔːzəbl/ /dɪˈnaɪəˈbɪlɪti/|n|}} | ||
To be just the right distance from an initiative: close enough to bask in its warm, glorious light should it be a success; far enough away to be beyond its blast radius when, as inevitably it will, it explodes in ignominy. | To be just the right distance from an initiative: close enough to bask in its warm, glorious light should it be a success; far enough away to be beyond its blast radius when, as inevitably it will, it explodes in ignominy.}} | ||
How much of a firm’s risk management capability and infrastructure is dedicated, as a first priority, to ''plausible deniability''? This might sound a fatuous, rather cynical question, but the scorecard of corporate catastrophe against individual responsibility over the last 30 years tells a different story. Whatever should go wrong, however disastrous, it never seems, officially, to be anybody’s fault. ''Anywhere''. | How much of a firm’s risk management capability and infrastructure is dedicated, as a first priority, to ''plausible deniability''? This might sound a fatuous, rather cynical question, but the scorecard of corporate catastrophe against individual responsibility over the last 30 years tells a different story. Whatever should go wrong, however disastrous, it never seems, officially, to be anybody’s fault. ''Anywhere''. | ||
This has a couple of unedifying implications. One is that our multinationals are really little more than uncontrolled dirigibles, | This has a couple of unedifying implications. One is that our multinationals are really little more than uncontrolled dirigibles, blown madly about an angry sky by the capricious winds of ill-fortune, their executives little more than wanton boys to jealous Gods, played with for sport — in which case you wonder why we pay them so much — or that the 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 we pay them so much. | ||
This is not to say ''mo-one'' is downwind of the fans of ordure: stooges and patsies abound amongst the [[subject matter expert]]s who are, as {{author|Sidney Dekker}} comprehensively catalogues,<ref>{{fieldguide}}</ref> routinely found at fault and eviscerated for corporate shortcomings whose root cause was plainly poor [[Design principles|design]] in [[System|systems]] and controls. Proactively mendacious employees — while, of course, not unheard of — are the exception and 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. Those with an instinct for survival learn the [[Buttocratic 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. | This is not to say ''mo-one'' is downwind of the fans of ordure: stooges and patsies abound amongst the [[subject matter expert]]s who are, as {{author|Sidney Dekker}} comprehensively catalogues,<ref>{{fieldguide}}</ref> routinely found at fault and eviscerated for corporate shortcomings whose root cause was plainly poor [[Design principles|design]] in [[System|systems]] and controls. Proactively mendacious employees — while, of course, not unheard of — are the exception and 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. Those with an instinct for survival learn the [[Buttocratic 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. | ||