Paragraph 7.3(b)(iv): The Last Line of Defense Against Common Sense in Corporate America

Somewhere out there, a corporate committee is still arguing about bullet styles.

Let’s say you walk into a meeting and hear someone say, “We’re making real progress on the renumbering initiative.”

You might assume this is satire.

It is not.

Somewhere, right now, in a windowless conference room with those weird stackable chairs that smell like fear and microwave soup, a very serious conversation is happening about whether Section 7.3(b)(iv) should be renumbered as 7.3.b.4 or 7.3-B-subpart-alpha.

This is what some people call innovation.

Not better service. Not clearer guidance. Certainly not fixing anything broken. Just the kind of innovation that involves hours of “crosswalk mapping” and a PowerPoint titled Proposed Hierarchical Shifts – Phase III.

You see, there are entire departments in corporate America whose job it is to defend outdated processes with the fervor of medieval knights guarding a fax machine. These people are not trying to solve problems. They are trying to protect formatting.

They fear change, not because change is risky, but because it might mean fewer footnotes.

These are the folks who say things like:

“We can’t revise that, it was finalized in the 2011 refresh.”

“Let’s loop in the formatting subcommittee.”

“The legacy document owner has strong views about indent styles.”

At some point, someone will float a wildly progressive idea like “let’s make this usable.” They will be met with the kind of silence normally reserved for heresy.

Because that’s not how it’s always been done.

These teams aren’t just behind the times. They are behind the invention of time. They will resist any improvement unless it comes with a three-tab spreadsheet, two consultants, and a memorial plaque for the original version.

Meanwhile, the corporate world is moving on. Innovative corporations are out there doing radical things like… listening to employees. Designing systems that work. Creating cultures that don’t require a decoder ring.

But in some corporations, the boldest change anyone has made in years was switching from “Times New Roman” to “Calibri (Body)”.

Look, I’m not saying everyone needs to become a visionary. But maybe just maybe the path to progress involves more than reformatting the index.

And if you're still worried about Section 7.3(b)(iv), I promise: no one was reading it anyway.