Re:The Thermocline of Truth
by thewakalix on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @07:11PM
(#27990934)
The article doesn’t blame the underlings that report a “rosy picture”, but rather blames the culture that heavily incentivizes reporting a rosy picture regardless of the facts on the ground, and punished everything else. And the people with the most power over this culture are the ones at the top, making them the most culpable for the thermocline.
setting aside how top managers weaponize anything into "blame others and excuse themselves", the blame is more clear in the original blog post linked in the article https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-...
Re:The Thermocline of Truth
by AnimalMuppet on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @05:38PM
(#27990078)
If you're "siding", you aren't "honestly believing". You're choosing what you want to hear and believe, rather than choosing truth.
>They told her that there simply couldn’t be problems with the IT system on the scale that was being suggested
and thus they provided her with plausible deniability. Like that Enron CEO who supposedly didn't know the financial details and relied on what is told by his CFO/etc.
The whole article sounds like a whitewash of senior management responsibility by blaming it on the lower ranks who reports "rosy picture". No wonder that the author seems to be a successful consultant - i can see how his expert opinion may be helpful for such a whitewashing by establishing the existence of the "thermocline of truth" in the specific situations what he gets brought into and thus is liked by the upper management.
As an extra example of "thermocline of truth" - that EBay CEO discussed again just yesterday who supposedly didn't know how his security chief with the gang were criminally harassing the blogger to carry out the CEO's order to “take her down”.
I think approaches like RICO or SOX or plain old army principle that the CO is responsible for whatever happens under his command are the examples of the tools to pierce the "thermoclines of truth".