Dark Tactics of Corporate Work
Stuck in middle management? Go beyond your skills; obtain wealth and power without deserving it. Leverage interpersonal techniques and manipulate people into promoting you, all without having to do much work. 🫣
Every organization includes people who don't contribute much concrete value. And everyone (even you) can't generate max productivity all the time. That would hurt. But some folks' main tactic to stay valuable is dark patterns to get ahead.
They usually also increase the amount of communication in an org, but the help is negligible. Ultimately these people are a net negative. They extract and waste resources, and at worst they reduce productivity under the banner of planning.
I've been the victim of each...
Spectre
Colleagues who regularly invoke the CEO, or founder exec, and claim the project has visibility at a high-level and therefor deserves urgency, and they are a very important person.
Wedge
They put themselves between two technical teams, or people, who need to communicate to execute plans. They pretend to be a conduit that protects people's time. They are not helping.
Secret Council
Regular meeting that makes unilateral decisions while keeping out voices. They make decrees and have findings that no one else can have a say in.
Big New Idea
People have been griping about something that needs to change, with months or years of research. Someone repackages this and calls it their big new idea. You have done all the leg work already, but it transmutes into execution of the "new idea."
Culture Builder
Provides no concrete value but is very good at connecting teams and group with similar goals. They plan meetups and work with HR to make work more fun. They will always listen but never provide any meaningful feedback beyond praise.
Info Hoarder / Control Hub
They simply collect details and access to information and don't share it. They need to be a hub, they want to grant permission to see things, they are a secret librarian and they should be a wiki page instead.
Flattery Spying
Unfortunately people who want to derail or hijack your work will often do it with a smile. This person may be genuinely curious and full of honest praise, but they may not have your best interests in mind. Keep sharing your ideas! Just be aware.
Wannabe VP
They love to hear themselves talk. They have a thought immediately after anyone utters a word, and often beyond others are done speaking. They take change of every meeting. They are not your boss, but they desperately need to be. They live in world where they are already promoted, and that's why they never will be.
Vision Jockey
They never met a strategy doc they didn’t love. They float 5-year plans with nothing to do Monday. They "evangelize" and "galvanize" but never actually do. Their favorite deliverable is a keynote.
Risk Firewalling
They act like the only adult in the room, endlessly pointing out risks, red flags, and reasons to slow down. They don’t fix problems—they narrate them. They call it “protecting the org.” In reality, they're just afraid of movement. Because they don't know how anything works, so they can't imagine anything better.
Meeting Nesting
The tactic of scheduling pre-meetings for meetings that will lead to other meetings. These pre-syncs are used to shape narratives, build alignment cliques, and neutralize surprises—before the real discussion ever happens.
Context Flooding
They overload a conversation with history, politics, and irrelevant past decisions. The point isn’t clarity—it’s confusion. When everyone feels behind, they become deferential. Control moves to the person who “knows the backstory.”
Hyperalignment Theater
Endless alignment sessions disguised as consensus-building. Every stakeholder is included, but no decisions are made. The process becomes the product. Action is postponed until the heat dies down—or someone else takes responsibility.
Microscoping
Zooming in on a small flaw or typo to derail a broader conversation. This tactic hijacks momentum under the guise of attention to detail. Real progress is paused while the room debates naming conventions or color codes.
Calendar Warfare
Weaponizing scheduling. Important discussions are “coincidentally” booked during PTO or over other critical meetings. Decisions are slipped into off-hours or ambiguous invites to reduce dissent and increase plausible deniability.
Deferral Loop
Any time accountability nears, the tactic kicks in: “Let’s revisit this next week.” Delay becomes defense. Deadlines slide not because of blockers—but because the decision maker never quite arrives at a decision.
Status Inflation
Turning small wins into big wins via branding and spin. A minor feature becomes a “launch.” A bugfix becomes a “system resilience upgrade.” This tactic consumes bandwidth and praise meant for meaningful progress.
Playbook Quoting
Using internal docs or company principles selectively to block initiatives or ideas—especially ones that challenge the status quo. The tactic turns values into shields, using language meant for inspiration as a blunt tool for obstruction.
Asynchronous Sandbagging
They respond only when a thread is cold, dropping in lengthy feedback once others have moved on. The timing ensures maximal disruption with minimal risk of debate. It’s not participation—it’s sabotage in slow motion.
Metric Mirage
Cherry-picking data points to prove progress while ignoring the big picture. This tactic thrives on dashboards, vanity metrics, and slippery definitions. Success becomes a carefully curated illusion.
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