Another Corporate Shibboleth Deflated

In the corporate arena, one of the more stale yet enduring platitudes of smug, self-satisfied C-level suits is the importance of having “family men” occupy positions in the hierarchy that are publicly visible. The main conceit is that a married man offers stability and status quo obeisance to the organisation.
  With a wife, 2.5 children, and a second mortgage, Mr Mandley fit this requirement to a T, and was rewarded with a middle management position in an (almost) corner office. But this is no dig at him, neither personally nor professionally. He simply went through the motions, a squeakless cog in an ossifying machine who just told higher-ups what they wanted to hear.
  “Perception is everything,” Mandley would constantly remind his department, albeit with a sheepish tinge of nervousness, like he didn’t quite believe the words coming from his own mouth.
  In reality, Mandley and a million other middle managers are where corporate deadweights at the top want him: leveraged between a rock and an unemployed place, with a family and mortgage to remind him not to make waves.

  “Not make waves?!” Dismay was the immediate emotion felt by a young Johnny Gutts at this display of corporate cowardice, know-nothingism, or whatever one chooses to call this white collar pathology. As a junior peon with neither wife nor mortgage, thus, little to lose, his opinion was seen as a mere voice in the wilderness. He thought truths offered need not be brutal, and constructive criticisms would not normally be seen as a threat in an ostensibly healthy organisation. But there’s the rub, aye?

“Not make waves? I wasn’t trying to rock the boat — I was just pointing out the iceberg.”