[david_mitchell]

The new guy publicly throwing the old guy under the bus is actually a a step in a recommended strategy for turning a company around. See this blog post from Marc Andreessen's archive: http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_big_companies_part1.html

[arethuza]

"Lay off a third of the workforce."

I remember a book amount management consulting and it mentioned one firm (only referred to as the "Butchers") who only ever recommended this one action regardless of the actual state of the company. Of course they spent vast amounts of chargeable time analysing operations to produce data that supported the conclusion they had already made.

http://www.amazon.com/Rip-Off-Scandalous-Management-Consulti...

[chiph]

Thanks for the link - just bought it. I've seen some of those techniques used during my time working. P.T. Barnum was right - "There's a sucker born every minute", especially in management.