The search bar blinks with infuriating patience. My fingers know the path without my brain’s permission: Shared Drive > Global Ops > Strategy > 2024 > Q1. There it is. Q1_Strategic_Pillars_FINAL_v8.pdf. The digital dust on it feels almost real. It’s February 28th. The file was last modified January 8th.
I click it open. The consultant-approved graphics load with a sterile crispness. Five pillars, each a different shade of corporate blue, promising to ‘Operationalize Synergy’ and ‘Activate Downstream Leverage.’ I stare at Pillar #3: ‘Expand Integration with Project Chimera.’ A Slack message from yesterday afternoon scrolls through my mind. It was an all-caps bulletin from the CTO. Project Chimera had been ‘sunsetted’ as part of a strategic realignment. The pillar, not even two months old, is now an archeological relic. A fossil from a forgotten era. It lasted 48 days.
We love to blame the plan. We say the assumptions were wrong, the market shifted, the re-org came out of nowhere. But that’s a dodge. It’s a convenient way to avoid the terrifying truth that the plan was never the point. The plan is a beautiful lie we pay a fortune to tell ourselves.
The Illusion of Control
Its real purpose

























































