When the Board’s decisions backfire (as they often do), they clutch their favourite security blanket:
“We relied on advice from our experts.”
Adorable.
But let’s stop pretending they’re victims of bad advice.
They’re victims of their own inability to recognize it.
This isn’t about one rogue opinion.
It’s about a board that:
- Can’t assess the advice they receive,
- Won’t disclose the full facts to those giving it,
- And lacks the curiosity, humility, or literacy to tell the difference between “expertise” and “expensive guessing.”
Garbage in, garbage out.
You feed a lawyer selective facts, you get a selective opinion.
You ask a property manager you get advice that wouldn’t stand up to a Google search.
You toss vague instructions at an engineer, you get a report that could double as a weather forecast.
But here’s the twist:
They like it this way.
Because when your goal is plausible deniability, fuzzy advice is a feature, not a bug.
If they had the competence to evaluate advice, they’d also have the burden of being accountable for it.
And if they told the truth to their advisors, well – then they’d have to live with the consequences of honesty.
Much easier to cherry-pick facts, hide key details, then act shocked when the strategy blows up like a budget estimate.
So let’s not romanticize this.
“We were just following advice” is not a shield.
It’s a confession:
We don’t know what we’re doing, and we surround ourselves with people who won’t challenge us.
That’s not governance. That’s theatre.
And the community keeps paying for the tickets.
Disclaimer: This post is satire and opinion. Read full disclaimer.
