I recently sat in a meeting where my manager spent a full hour explaining a process that technically exists but doesn’t seem to do anything. It started with them saying this was “important for alignment,” which is usually how you know something confusing is about to happen. They pulled up a document and started walking through it step by step. On the surface, it sounded structured. There were stages, approvals, checkpoints, all the things that make something feel official.
But the more they explained it, the less clear it became what the process actually produced. At one point, they said the purpose was to “capture visibility before action,” which sounded important until I realized I didn’t know what that meant. Then they explained that before doing anything, you have to log that you’re thinking about doing it.
Not doing it. Just thinking about it. That gets reviewed. By someone else. Who then decides if it should move to the next step, which is documenting why it might happen. After that, there’s another review to confirm that the reasoning aligns with the original intention, which had already been reviewed.
At this point, no actual work has been done. Someone asked what happens if the task is urgent. There was a pause, and then my manager said, “That’s why the process is so important.” That did not answer the question.
They continued explaining how this creates accountability, which seemed to mean that multiple people are now aware that something might happen at some point. Then they said, “This helps us avoid unnecessary work,” which was confusing because we were currently doing a lot of work just to avoid doing work.
At one point, someone asked what happens at the end of the process. There was another pause. Then they said, “At that point, we evaluate next steps.” Which sounded exactly like where we started.
No one pushed on it. We all just nodded.
By the end of the meeting, I understood the process completely in the sense that I could repeat it back, but I still had no idea what it was for. Later that day, someone referenced it like it was critical.
I think we’re all just going to use it now. Not because it helps or actually does anything, but because it exists.
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