Executives and the Corporate Mountain

This is an analogy I like to use to explain why “things don’t make sense” at large corporations.

As one climbs higher and higher in the corporate ladder, it’s like they are a mountain climber scaling higher and higher on a mountain.

The peak has the least amount of oxygen and that’s where the other highest climbers are.

That’s also where everyone meets to get work done. One of the most important jobs as one gets higher in a company is to decide. The goals for next quarter, the vision of the company, etc. You know, really important stuff!

How do they do this really important work? The people at the top, executives, meet in a room and they are breathing. These meetings get long, because they’re important. The longer the meeting, the less oxygen there is.

These meetings may be so long that supplies, err, someone brings food there.

The meetings go so long and with so little oxygen, they forget why they are up there. Eventually, someone realizes they have to do work and make a decision. they make decisions with the least amount of oxygen available.

The decision by the executives makes sense to everyone there with the least resistance because there’s so little oxygen left.

The executives’ finished their important work - now they must spread the word to everywhere, far and wide.

Someone writes the decisions on stone tablets and sends it down the mountain so everyone in the company can revel in awesomeness of the executives on the top of the mountain.

When everyone looks at the decisions, they wonder - “huh?! what do they mean by this?!” or “these are so generic”. Nobody understands the decisions from the top of the mountain.

The most puzzling part - the executives are smart people - they were on the lower levels with more oxygen before.

This is why I think corporations don’t make sense or say one thing, do another, etc.

The executives are all operating with less oxygen than everyone else in the company.