Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Political Hacks Turn Management Gurus


Washington's Blog reported:

"our society is a layer-cake of pathologies, our economy little more than institutionalized racketeering and our politics a corrupt auction-house of pay-for-play, influence-peddling, money-grubbing and brazen pandering for votes."- Charles Hugh Smith
This statement confirmed my unease over the marriage of corporations and politics, such that the pursuit of power and greed consistently trump decency, fairness and justice.  

CEOs once studied under renowned management theorists.  Dr. W. Edwards Deming's "There is no knowledge without theory", has been jettisoned for management pragmatism.  It happens that excessively enriching executives for the work employees perform is pragmatic.  

CEOs now study under a Clinton hack who failed to operate the family charity in an upright and ethical manner.   Teneo helps CEOs get richer and more powerful for a $250,000 monthly retainer.  Teneo Capital and Teneo Ventures act like private equity underwriters (PEU).  

Teneo Capital is an independent investment bank providing strategic and financial advice on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, capital raising, valuation and capital markets transactions. 

Teneo Ventures partners with companies run by visionary but pragmatic CEOs, focused on solving large, real-world problems. In addition to providing financial capital, we leverage capabilities across our platform to offer operational capital, relational capital, and intellectual capital.
Teneo Founder Douglas Band was described by a Clinton White House colleague as "a gatekeeper who charged tolls."  Teneo combines the financialization of everything with gross politics. 

Management, like politics, focuses on self image and personal enrichment.  Substance and truth take a back seat to hollow narratives corporate chiefs and officials foist on their workers and the public.  There is no depth, only shiny shallow surfaces that enable people at the top to see their best reflection.  Woe to anyone who asks for real relationship or mutuality in today's mirror, mirror on the wall world.

The marriage of business and politics has not improved the lives of workers the last two decades.  It has however produced a new class of ex-politician business consultants whose practice involves the continued exercise of greed and power.