Corporate Maxims
Here’s a couple that I’ve been searching the origins of:
1. The amount of time spent making a decision is in inverse proportion to its importance.
i.e. Men will spend months researching a stereo or computer system but take a job in an instant.
2. In a business meeting the least likely option will be the one most likely to happen.
i.e. If your boss says “The chances of the takeover succeeding are minimal,” get your resume out fast.
3. The importance of a company’s data or processes are in inverse proportion to the age of the technology running it.
i.e. The CEO’s Blackberry may be bluetoothed to his laptop, but the hundreds of millions of accounts the firm services will be running on hardware older than the people supporting it.
4. A firm’s proprietary knowledge is rarely recognized as such by internal resources and will be apparent (and freely accessible) to everyone else.
i.e. A CIO’s personal shopping list will be protected using 128 bit RSA encryption, while his meeting notes will be on a shared drive or password protected using his wife (or mistress’s) name.
5. The likelihood a project will succeed is in direct proportion to the size of its stakeholders.
i.e. If you want to kill a project, give everyone possible a stake in its success.
