Charlotte Kok’s Wicked Winning Ways – posted 21 February 2026
If One Is Winning, Who Is…
Before outlining my Wicked Winning Ways, it is worth acknowledging a simple commercial reality: outcomes in organisational life are rarely distributed evenly. Where one professional advances with appropriate momentum, another may find his/her trajectory… recalibrated. This is not, in my experience, a flaw in the system so much as a reflection of how performance environments naturally allocate opportunity.
The disciplines I describe are designed to ensure that, wherever such moments of recalibration arise, readers are positioned on the more favourable side of the equation. If you are someone who prefers that advancement occur without consequence to others, you may find the following material somewhat confronting. In that case, it may be perfectly reasonable to pause here. For those prepared to engage with the practical realities of modern corporate life, however, Wicked Winning Ways have proven remarkably reliable.
The Wicked Winning Ways Framework
For ease of reference, I group these disciplines under what I call Charlotte Kok’s Wicked Winning Ways. They are neither complicated nor theoretical. When applied with care and diligence, they create the conditions in which capable professionals can progress with appropriate momentum, while less adaptable contributors tend to self-select out of the forward path.
Each Winning Way addresses a familiar friction point within modern organisations: misaligned expectations, unnecessary scrutiny, and the persistent misconception that visibility and value are always positively correlated. With the right posture and narrative discipline, most of these obstacles can be resolved well before they mature into something requiring formal attention.
In the entries that follow, I will outline these Winning Ways in practical terms. Readers are, of course, free to adopt whichever elements align with their own leadership journey. I would simply observe that those who apply the framework with consistency tend to find executive confidence strengthens, organisational resistance diminishes, and career momentum becomes considerably easier to sustain.
CK’s Wicked Winning Way #1 – Weaponising the Performance Improvement Journey – posted 27 February 2026
In any high-functioning organisation, the Performance Improvement Journey™ (PIJ) is a delicate instrument requiring… careful narrative management.
Many inexperienced operators make the mistake of maintaining a single, consistent message. Admirable, perhaps — but operationally limiting.
At Elite Altitude, we recognise that the PIJ performs best when calibrated for its audience. The beauty of this approach is that, none of the messages needs to be entirely – or even vaguely – consistent with the truth. In fact, embellishments are de rigeur!
Version A — Employee-Facing
This version should be warm, encouraging and strategically non-specific:
“You’re doing well. Not”
“We value your contribution. Like a fart in an elevator.”
“Let’s keep the momentum going. All the way out the door.”
The objective here is psychological stability. Sudden clarity can be deeply unsettling for developing performers.
Version B — Leadership & HR Briefing
This representation, by contrast, must reflect the full gravity of the (concocted) situation. Whether the alleged interventions actually happened – or not – is immaterial.
“Despite extensive support, Employee X continues to demonstrate disconcerting capability gaps.”
“Multiple coaching interventions have not yielded sustainable uplift.”
“All reasonable performance pathways are being… actively explored.”
Where appropriate, it is entirely acceptable to reference:
- targeted training
- structured feedback loops, especially from senior leadership and all and sundry
- informal, formal and ‘ambush’ mentoring
- and, in exceptional cases, external thought leaders (Tony Robbins optional but powerful)
Where additional clarity is required, it may be helpful to attach a consolidated diagnostic summary, informally known as:
“Every Incompetence Under the Sun… and Also Where the Sun Don’t Shine”
This working document typically captures observed themes such as:
- inconsistent [fill in the blanks] capability
- situational attitude variability
- selective receptiveness to constructive feedback
- intermittent accountability ownership
- fluctuating attention to detail
- meeting participation that is present but not always… contributory
- a developing opportunity in deadline interpretation
- variable alignment with managerial expectations
- and, in certain cases, an overconfident relationship with incomplete information
Naturally, the purpose of this document is purely developmental and should be framed accordingly.
The Strategic Outcome
When properly executed, the dual-track PIJ ensures that:
- the employee remains constructively engaged
- leadership remains appropriately concerned
- and organisational momentum is preserved
It is, in many respects, an act of stakeholder kindness.
Welcome to The Charlotte Kok Files – posted 10 March 2026
Corporate success explained honestly.
Morals optional.
You never knew self-serving corporate duplicity could be so… elegant.
That’s because you’ve never studied under Charlotte Kok, Client Success Executive, Findex-Crowe.
Each week, we will publish a new lesson in Charlotte Kok’s Wicked Winning Ways — practical gems of office treachery strategy drawn entirely from real workplace experience. No theory. No management-consultant abstractions. Just the quiet mechanics of how things actually get done: bending maintaining principles, stretching faithfully following truth, manufacturing deniability ensuring accountability, weaponising managing the narrative, manipulating aligning stakeholders, and ensuring that inconvenient realities are handled with appropriate payback professionalism.
Every episode is based on real events, involving real organisations, real people, and very real consequences.
Everything you read here happened.
All of it.
Study the lessons carefully.
If you find them instructive, do the obvious thing.
Hit the “Like” button.
And subscribe.
For our readers at Findex-Crowe
Some – many – of you are already unwitting pawns of Charlotte Kok’s Wicked Winning Ways!
Some of you have given damning feedback and even attempted direct interventions with one of Charlotte’s subordinates. Your determination to see him removed was admirable. In fact, it left Charlotte with no alternative but to terminate his employment within five weeks of his probation.
You didn’t know that did you.
Others never troubled themselves to understand the truth behind his grisly end, choosing instead to support Charlotte without qualification.
How convenient.
To all of you, Charlotte says, “Thank you for your service.”
To Charlotte.
Disclaimer
The materials contained on this website are presented for informational and educational purposes only. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, the Editor accepts no responsibility for any professional advancement, reputational damage, strained workplace relationships, disciplinary proceedings, litigation, or sudden career stagnation that may arise from attempting to replicate Charlotte Kok’s Wicked Winning Ways.
Readers are reminded that the behaviours described herein—while occasionally effective—may be considered unethical, manipulative, or career-limiting in organisations that still maintain such antiquated concepts as integrity, accountability, or basic human decency.
By continuing to read, you acknowledge that any resemblance to real people, organisations, or catastrophically dysfunctional workplaces is entirely intentional.
Retribution Dressed as Corporate Alignment – posted on 10 March 2026
The Editor exercises his prerogative to title this post. Charlotte’s account appears below.
A Question of Grammar – in Charlotte’s own words
There is nothing I detest more than being corrected. Even in private.
I care not that the plural of Auditor General is apparently Auditors General and not Auditor Generals, as I had quite reasonably believed. English, after all, is full of such unnecessary irregularities.
But the point is not the grammar.
The point is the pattern.
Shortly after that episode, the little shit employee in question also took it upon himself to comment on the drafting of our tender responses. Apparently, when a paragraph introduces a list of bullet points, the verbs in those bullet points should be conjugated consistently with the tense used in the introductory sentence.
This was explained to me at some length. The little shit employee even took the liberty of correcting my text in a couple of cover letters and responses!
While I appreciate a commitment to grammatical precision, I do find that employees who concern themselves excessively with such matters sometimes struggle to appreciate the broader responsibilities of senior leadership.
An Unfortunate Discovery
The same little shit individual then announced — rather triumphantly — that he had discovered the firm was paying for two tender portals that provided exactly the same information. He promptly cancelled one of them and alluded – to several colleagues including myself – that he had saved the firm possibly up to three thousand dollars per year.
Three thousand dollars. Per year.
Now, let us think about that for a moment.
What exactly does such a discovery imply?
If the firm has been paying this “extra” three thousand dollars each year, and if I have been responsible for this function for the past three years, what conclusion might certain people begin to draw about my competence?
Senior executives must always be mindful of perception.
Small things have a way of becoming… narratives.
Impressionable Loyal Colleagues to the Rescue
Naturally, I cannot allow narratives of that sort to take hold within the organisation.
Leadership requires decisiveness.
And I am blessed to have unquestioning loyal colleagues who have stood behind me in these trying circumstances, providing damning constructive feedback and even direct interventions in the form of mentoring and remedial coaching to the little shit employee in question. Although, they are not yet aware of this fact.
Every Incompetence Under the Sun… and also Where the Sun Don’t Shine
This is an apt a rather vulgar expression to describe an immaculately beautiful process of retribution professional alignment.
The Hegelian dialectic teaches us: Problem. Reaction. Solution.
I have refined this slightly:
No Problem.
Reaction.
Solution.
Where there is no problem, well, there is a problem.
Or will be. Soon.
In the documentation, of course.
Nobody needs to know about this – especially the employee in question.
It is appropriate now, to introduce the incompetencies. The more the merrier. Include the kitchen sink.
Everything from insubordination, subservience, lack of core competencies, too many competencies complicating the output, poor attitude, excessive attitude, lack of attention to detail, too much attention to detail, inability to prioritise, too much emphasis on prioritisation, poor stakeholder engagement, over-investment in stakeholder engagement, weak communication skills, overcommunicating, overconfidence, underconfidence, responding too quickly, responding too slowly, insufficient commercial awareness, over reliance on commercial aspects, inadequate initiative, excessive initiative, failure to follow direction, following directions too literally, to a general inability to meet expectations across the full spectrum of professional responsibilities.
Variety is important.
It is a test of your credibility what management will swallow accept when you bring this litany of trumped up allegations facts to them, and highlight the little shit’s employee’s progress (or lack of) on his performance improvement journey.
Discerning readers will note that there is no journey at all, and that this shopping list of wall-to-wall inadequacies is presented to him on his termination day as a fait accompli.
It is, incidentally, also the first time he sees it.
In my experience – and as a testament to the confidence and faith management has placed in me – nobody has even batted an eyelid.
How anyone can be incompetent in every single aspect of his profession and then some beggars belief.
But there you are, my gullible good colleagues.
The Importance of “Documentation”
The important thing is that everything has been “documented”. And the “documentation” appears only where it is most useful: before the appropriate decision-makers, and at precisely the moment it becomes relevant.
People and Culture receive it.
Senior leadership review it.
The narrative is already complete.
From their perspective, the situation could not be clearer.
You have, after all, been trying your very best to correct a difficult situation:
You – and said colleagues – have mentored.
You – and said colleagues – have coached.
You – and said colleagues – have exercised patience beyond what most executives would reasonably tolerate.
And yet the blathering idiot incompetent blathering idiot incompetent blathering idiot incompetent employee in question continues to struggle.
At some point, leadership must accept reality.
Certain people simply cannot be helped. Except along their journey. Out.
Editor’s Note
Our astute readers will have surmised that the “employee” in question is none other than Charlotte’s most recent Bids and Tenders Manager.
As you will recall, his tenure with the firm concluded five weeks into his probation.
As an exercise in forensics, readers may wish to consider whether Charlotte’s stewardship of the bid function played any part in her decision to terminate her subordinate — particularly in light of her ruminations on the optics of her Bids and Tenders Manager’s unfortunate discovery — or whether he was indeed a blathering idiot incompetentblathering idiot incompetentblathering idiot incompetent little shit
Readers will form their own views as to whether corporate alignment must necessarily be constrained by the truth.
Or procedural fairness.
Or not.
Who is a Malignant Narcissist? – posted 18 March 2026
Reflections from Elite Altitude
Editor’s Preface
Our astute readers — having absorbed Charlotte Kok’s Wicked Winning Ways thus far — may by now have reached certain conclusions regarding the philosophical foundations of her management style.
Some have ventured psychopathy extreme.
Others have suggested malignant narcissism opportunistic, which strikes us as unnecessarily generous candid.
Charlotte herself prefers to describe her approach as operating at Elite Altitude.
And who are we to argue?
Charlotte presents her case
I have been called everything under the sun from self-serving floozy, malignant narcissist, major liability, and liar, to Rose Hancock’s daughter. I wear these assessments as a badge of honour.
After all, when one operates at Elite Altitude, one serves oneself the organisation above everything and everyone else. One’s — my — selflessness is exemplary within Findex-Crowe. And everyone who knows me understands the extraordinary lengths I go to exact payback ensure the interests of my employer are protected.
Look at my accomplishments:
Litigation commenced Entire teams have been… refreshed.Redundant payments made to extraneous suppliers Budgets liberated from wasteful hands.Retribution dispensed Unhelpful voices removed from important conversations.
All in the service of organisational excellence.
On Younger Voices
Some individuals — often the younger ones — believe enthusiasm and modern tools somehow entitle them to challenge leadership.
One memorable junior colleague even had the temerity to question my grammar in private.
Imagine.
Naturally, I corrected this misunderstanding immediately and at appropriate volume so that the wider team could learn from the exchange.
Leadership requires courage.
Particularly when one must gently guide ambitious but inexperienced staff away from the dangerous belief that competence alone qualifies them to speak.
From Elite Altitude, one sees clearly that not everyone is equipped for the climb.
Organisational Alignment
Some people misinterpret this clarity as harshness.
I prefer to describe it as alignment.
When individuals prove unable to align themselves with the strategic direction I have established for the organisation, they eventually make the sensible decision to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
Observers sometimes refer to this phenomenon as “attrition.”
I call it self-selection.
Naturally, periods of transformation can produce a certain… intensity… within the workplace.
This is simply the natural consequence of high standards.
Call Centre Care-Giving
Earlier in my career I worked in a call centre.
It was a formative experience.
I relished delivering large quantities of abuse care-giving to customers:
- There was the gentleman who
I had to verbally bitch-slap into submissioncalled regarding a billing discrepancy and left with a deeper appreciation of contractual fine print - Another caller required a
tirade of invectivesfifteen-minute explanation of why the problem he described was, in fact, a misunderstanding of his own making - And then there were the truly satisfying interactions — those in which a caller began the conversation with confidence and ended it with… humility
These exchanges taught me something invaluable about leadership: people rarely appreciate care-giving in the moment it is delivered.
But they remember it.
I have brought this same philosophy into my management style. A measured combination of undermining firm guidance, supercilious retaliation clarity, and the occasional public humiliation correction ensures that everyone understands precisely where he stands.
Mentoring is a Public Service
This is why I have always taken mentoring seriously.
Many organisations speak of mentoring as though it were a gentle exchange of encouragement and career advice.
I disagree.
Mentoring, in its most effective form, is not a private exchange of guidance, nor an investment in another’s development. It is a visible, carefully curated performance.
The employee in question will receive no direct tuition, feedback, or coaching of any kind. To do so would risk clarity. Instead, instruction is delivered around her — generously, repeatedly, and always within earshot of others. Her colleagues, therefore, benefit from a richness of guidance she herself is never afforded.
Corrections, when required, are best administered publicly. A passing remark is seized upon, examined, and gently — but audibly — dismantled. The reproach should be delivered with a degree of personal sorrow, as though the mentor is burdened not by irritation, but by disappointment. Even regret. This distinction is critical.
“Progress” is to be discussed frequently, and always in the employee’s absence. Such conversations allow for a more candid, unencumbered assessment of her trajectory, while also ensuring that expectations are clearly communicated to all relevant stakeholders — except, of course, the employee herself.
From time to time, it may be appropriate to reference prior guidance that was never, in fact, given. This reinforces both the mentor’s diligence and the employee’s apparent inability to absorb instruction.
In this way, mentoring fulfils its highest purpose: not the development of the individual, but the demonstration that personal initiative has consequences of leadership.
Psychological Safety
The same principle applies to psychological safety, a concept modern organisations discuss at great length.
I have always been a passionate advocate. In my team, everyone understands exactly where he stands:
Subservience is expected Expectations are clear.Scrutiny is constant Standards are visible.Reprisal is just around the corner Consequences are well understood.
True safety arises when people recognise the limits of their authority and remain comfortably within them.
Especially when I encourage them to reflect upon their position in the hierarchy.
Under my leadership, teams become highly efficient.
Conversations grow shorter.
Questions become rare.
Meetings proceed with remarkable discipline.
And while certain individuals eventually decide that such an environment does not suit them, those who remain demonstrate a level of organisational alignment that is deeply satisfying to observe.
This is what happens when leadership operates at Elite Altitude.
Elite Altitude
Operating at Elite Altitude is to operate where the oxygen is thin.
Naturally, not everyone is able to function effectively in such conditions. Some individuals experience dizziness. Others lose their sense of balance. A few discover, rather abruptly, that the climb was never meant for them.
Leadership requires the composure to continue upward regardless.
Editor’s Note
Readers may find Charlotte’s reflections illuminating.
Students of organisational behaviour have long been fascinated by leadership styles in which silence is interpreted as respect, departures as validation, and fear as efficiency.
Critics might characterise the same phenomenon as malignant narcissism otherwise.
Charlotte’s philosophy — which she describes as operating at Elite Altitude — appears to follow a particularly elegant internal logic. At such heights, disagreement is rarely encountered.
This is largely because it has already left the building.
It would be unfair to suggest that Charlotte’s leadership environment lacks psychological safety. On the contrary, her teams enjoy a remarkable degree of certainty.
Everyone knows precisely what will happen if they speak. Out.
Charlotte traces many of her leadership insights to what she describes as her formative period in Call Centre Care-Giving. For researchers interested in workplace culture, Charlotte represents a valuable case study. Not because her leadership philosophy is unique. But because she has succeeded in describing it.
At length.
And with complete conviction.
The Peter Principle – posted 29 March 2026
Editor’s preface
The Peter Principle was written by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, and thrust upon an unsuspecting corporate world in 1969, published, one would assume, in a moment of cavalier dismissal of its wider implications for the corporate climbers out there – and their employers. Its central thesis – that individuals are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence – is often presented as a cautionary tale, but for students of Charlotte Kok’s Wicked Winning Ways, it is a roadmap. The discerning practitioner will recognise that the Principle does not merely explain organisational devolution – it provides the perfect cover for it.
The Peter Principle according to Charlotte Kok
In every organisation, according to The Peter Principle, people rise to the level of their incompetence. In rare cases, they may even be promoted to the level above.
At Findex-Crowe, I estimate it’s two.
Or three.
Or more.
Take the twit Bec Payne People and Culture Partner, for example. I almost tripped over myself in glee was pleasantly surprised when the fool she afforded me the honour of writing the termination letter to the little shit you-know-who myself. It was also another opportunity to showcase my creative writing talents par excellence (for our less informed readers, that’s German for – well, you know what it’s for!).
Normally, these final communications are an exercise in the dispensation of bland blandishments: Thank you for… followed by a farewell… of sorts. A gentle easing out. A soft landing. A fiction, lovingly maintained.
Not mine.
My letter – or his if we are to be technical about it – was a dictionary of under-achievements fit for the chronically under-victorious. It traversed the full and rather exhausting spectrum of his inadequacies: attitudinal adjustments perpetually “required”; a conspicuous absence of team spirit when it proved inconvenient to me; an inability to compose even a single-page cover letter without descending into earnest mediocrity; a baffling fixation on accuracy over expediency; and a most unhelpful tendency to identify inefficiencies rather than quietly inherit them.
There were also the finer nuances. His failure to appreciate the strategic value of optics over outcomes. His reluctance to engage in the careful curation of narrative – what lesser minds might call “documentation”. His inability to understand that stakeholder alignment is not discovered, but constructed. And perhaps most damning of all, his persistent confusion between competence and usefulness.
These have justified the little shit him being placed on a performance improvement journey – short as it may have been – followed by termination.
Those of you keeping up with my previous posts, Retribution Dressed as Corporate Alignment and Weaponising the Performance Improvement Journey, will already be aware that there is in fact no journey at all, only the “documentation” of one.
And many of you will already be familiar with a technique I developed, and use extensively: Every incompetence under the sun… and also where the sun don’t shine. I think the title speaks for itself.
Astute students will also recall my Wicked Winning Way #4 – Deploying the Cat’s Paw, a masterclass in letting others take the blame socialising responsibility. Upward.
Last, but not least, the pressganging of the entire cast of The Peter Principle colleagues to serve my interests in retaliation the pursuit of professionalism and corporate alignment. Again – this needs only to be “documented”.
It was, I felt, a comprehensive document. Educational. And in the end, a kindness to the little shit struggling employee to put him out of his misery.
Editor’s interjection
Best practice, Bec, would have been a no-frills, vanilla, “Thank you, goodbye.” letter. Nothing more.
Instead, the task was delegated to a manager with an evident appetite for retrospective justification – resulting in a document replete with claims, some of which may invite closer scrutiny.
Back to Charlotte…
In such cases, it is, of course the organisation that wears the fallout bears responsibility for the treatment of the employee – at least in the eyes of those who insist on looking. The P&C Partner owns the process by which termination is dispensed. She was the Master of Ceremonies throughout the entire proceeding; I, at most, a contributor-spectator. I may have supplied the ammunition, but she discharged it.
I also left it to the twit her to deal with the employee’s delusional entirely reasonable requests for evidence of “coaching” and “mentoring” by “colleagues and senior leaders”. Those… proved unexpectedly elusive. One cannot, after all, produce what was never formally required, documented, or – in any meaningful sense – delivered.
And so, when a challenge inevitably arises – say a Fair Work claim under General Protections – the organisation does what organisations do best. It closes ranks. Not around the facts, you understand, but around the process. And, by convenient extension… around me.
It is a curious rite of passage. One emerges not diminished, but fortified. We become partners in crime institutionally aligned, bound together by a shared interest in the abuse of process integrity of what has already been done. To question me now would be to question the process; to question the process would be to concede error; and to concede error would be… administratively untidy.
Far better, then, to proceed with confidence.
And unity. At the little shit’s expense.
Editor’s closing remarks
Where coaching and mentoring are asserted, but cannot be evidenced — whether by records, contemporaneous notes, or independent corroboration — they tend to be characterised not as implicit, but as non-existent.
The distinction between process and outcome may, in law, be less accommodating than Charlotte suggests.
An organisation may close ranks, but can it close the evidentiary loop? And does “alignment” cure defects in substance?
