Corporate Goals

I was recently reading a blog post (an interesting read, if somewhat long and technically focussed).
The point that stuck was in the first few paragraphs where it talks about the ideal state in a corporation. Where everything is aligned with the company strategy. Where the approach taken at each branch of the corporate tree contributes to the goals of the level above.
It occurred to me that I have no idea what my organisation's goals *are* at the company, unit or account level - nor what the strategies are in place to achieve them. This makes it quite difficult for me to tell if what I am doing is aligned or not; whether I am helping or hindering the strategies.

I have had several useful discussions at the account level which clarified how specific projects fit within the (implied) strategies. But I did not learn what those strategies were - only how my manager thought they applied to the immediate situation.
There are exceptions; the CEO of our local branch recently shared her intent to drive the company toward a more socially responsible role - and was asking for suggested strategies to achieve that. The CEO of our parent company has mentioned, as an aside in a corporate-wide message, that he sees the global company heading toward a more product-centric future. Both of these *appear* to be aligned with the published corporate vision, but it is very difficult to tell since it will be critically dependent on how the goals are implemented. And that will depend on the strategies adopted.
Obviously not all strategies can be advertised widely for business reasons, and certainly they will adapt over time to changing circumstances. But it should also be true that there are directions that the corporation would like to head, and decisions made about the means to achieve this, which can be shared with all employees.
The majority of these intents may not be directly relevant to my day to day work, it helps me put context on what we are doing. And it provides an approach to take when talking to clients or other team members. Apart from anything else, understanding the reasoning behind decisions made by the governing team, at each level in the organisation, provides more relevance to the work and therefore a greater sense of engagement.

So, given the advantages, how does it come about that we know nothing about the direction the company is intending to go? The trouble is that there are very many managers who like to play things very close to their chests. Letting people know what you are doing leaves the door open for them to comment on how you do it; or, even worse, discover that you are NOT aligned and are working on your own behalf, not the company's.
I have had one account manager (i.e. a sales person) ask us to put together a web-site where his team could enter in the current prospects, how much they were worth, the likelihood of conversion etc. One of the requirements was that it NOT be able directly upload to the corporate dashboard. He wanted to make sure he had the chance to 'adjust' the figures before they became visible to his bosses.
In addition, I have found our company to be almost paranoid about what "leaks" out to the media and how they might spin the information. I am not sure whether this is a consequence of the size of the company, the culture (internally or externally) or the pre-delictions of the governance team. I do find it is very difficult to get any information about the reasons behind are policies and what they are intended to achieve.

Corporate Governance

There are a large number of people in my company who are called 'managers'. There are project managers and portfolio managers and engagement managers and account managers and delivery managers and, and, and...
The question arises - why is it necessary to have so much management? I think a large part of it is just terminology.
A minor part is because the company is basically Indian. Despite having sites around the world the internal culture is very much sub-continental. As an non-Indian, one of the things that is clear is that everyone wants to be a manager. I have been told that this is cultural. Status arises from the number of people/activities that you influence rather than the work you do yourself (as it is in my home culture).
However, there are a number of roles in any company which are referred to as 'manager' but which I would suggest are more governal (is that a real word?). These are the "senior management" roles. The CxO level jobs are not trully management, or they shouldn't be. These are governance roles in the same way that national government is not the same as management. The Bureacracy is in charge of management. The ministers and congressmen and corporate leaders are in charge of setting direction and creating policy.
To have policy set by junior staff in the IT department means that the overall goals of the business can be short-circuited by someone with no view outside their office. (Of course the junior staff member in IT may have a wider vision than the CIO but we are talking about abstract roles and responsibilities here, not real people).
Hence the 'senior management' would be better referred to as 'corporate governors'. The change in title would hopefully give a different focus to the roles.
Of course, a good policy maker takes into account all the consequences of the policy and will canvas feedback and suggestions from all stakeholders. (Again we are back to ministerial roles rather than management.) Just as it is the duty of every member of the organisation to bring details (and ideas) to the attention of the governance team. Implementation of the ideas and management of the process is not however, the responsibility of the governance team.

This has drifted far from what I wanted to say - about the nature of government in most organisations - but I think it is a necessary prelude to define the approach.

What do I talk about?

It is interesting to find how difficult it is to articulate an idea enough to write it down in a coherent form. One of my intents with creating this blog was to get used to writing things down. Instead of ideas whirling around in my head as I re-tread old ground over and over again, if it is put on "paper" then, in theory, I should be able to view it from a different angle.
The trouble with this theory is that it is often very hard to formulate the various aspects of an idea in a linear form that makes any sort of sense. The gestalt of an idea contains so many side tracks and associated concepts that it is very difficult to follow just one. It is particularly annoying when I drift off into another path and never get back to the point I was trying to make!
More to the point for writing it down is where to start when showing only one side of an idea seems purile and pointless. Things that seem deep and meaningful in my head, with many interesting connotations and facets, get flattened into something that is simply not particularly insightful and which seems to have been said multiple times before.
Still, since this blog is not being read by anyone (according to the stats), it is just for me to say whatever and it really doesn't matter. So be it.
Perhaps I can broaden the scope somewhat. I was keeping this mostly impersonal and non-technical. But it started writing down some concepts related to heavy-weight vs light-weight applications and it occurred to me that this is probably a good place to go over what I want to say while I try to find the common thread that I am looking for.