Saturday, September 29, 2007
The Corporate Bullshit Detector: A
Action Planning - To avoid doing it on the back of an envelope at the last minute, you spend weeks defining your goals, assigning tasks and reviewing schedules. Then real life happens, not to mention other people’s action plans, and you end up doing it on the back of an envelope at the last minute.
Added-value - Producing a product or service, then realising you need to find extra uses to make it sound more attractive. Results range from touting Haagen-Dazs as a sex aid to claiming your company is a professional organisation.
Aims - Does anyone really know the difference between business aims and objectives apart from Sue your trainer, and does it really matter? If she knows so much, why is her company still based in a disguised garage on an industrial estate outside Milton Keynes?
Win a Great Getaways holiday break www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Why we hate meetings
What is it about meetings that always brings out the worst in people? If we’re passive, we find they last longer than Murder She Wrote on UK Gold. If we’re dominant with bad listening skills, then it’s just another ego trip with a captive audience sharing one Wagon Wheel between them. The problem is made worse because most of us think that all meetings are the same. We go in ridiculously unprepared with no idea whether to go into a slight doze or a deep coma. If nothing else, below should give you some ideas to sleep on - preferably in a meeing.
(1) The ‘I’ve been here so long it seems like a second home to me except I don’t normally go for late 80s office furniture’ meeting
A weak chairperson and a few individuals who’ve seen Michael Douglas in Wall Street and can’t wait for red braces to come back are all that’s needed here. Everyone talks at cross-purposes and listening to others is kept to a minimum - just as well considering the number of people in the early stages of rapid eye movement.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘Now we’re all here, there’s something else I’d like to say.’
‘I think we’re going to need another urgent meeting.’
(2)The ‘let’s get the boring bit out of the way so that we can get down to a tea party’ meeting
In theory this should be one your favourites, especially if a gleaming trolley is temptingly parked in front of everybody with full tea service and lots of comestibles. Unfortunately if you happen to be a woman, there’s every chance that you’ll have to be ‘mother’. Centuries of conditioning mean that male drive flags at the first sign of a steaming pot and fails completely at the merest hint of passing around napkins. Total paralysis sets in with pouring - which is regarded as the next best thing to cross-dressing in front of colleagues.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘So who’s going to be mother?’
‘What you need is a good J-Cloth.’
(3) The ‘people I love you all. I want to empower you so that I can delegate all the boring responsibilities on to you’ meeting
Empowerment is a popular buzz word and what an ideal opportunity to thrust the fruits of lazy corporate thinking (sic) into your innocent lap. Basically your facilitator - it sounds friendlier than incompetent manager - will attempt to offload even more dull tasks on to yours truly under the guise that this is somehow liberating your spirit.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘Think of me as your facilitator and friend, not your boss.’
‘It’s the only way ahead …’
(4) The ‘if 20 staff go on assertiveness training courses, what do you expect?’ meeting
Assertiveness is a vital skill in today’s business world but few of us can have foreseen what happens when a group of its expert practitioners are forced to make a collective decision in a meeting. As twenty people decide what they want, state it openly, listen carefully and get in touch with their individual needs as the new departmental milk rota is discussed, all you can do is keep quiet and hope no one asks for your opinion.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘No.’
‘I think yours is a brilliant idea, but I don’t agree with it.’
(5) The ‘I think this shows what conscientious employees we are by not rushing home’ evening meeting
No one will wish to attend this unless they have been given a mobile phone for partners to continually ring in and ask when they’ll be home. The meeting then has to be temporarily abandoned each time as people mouth to each other that ‘it’s in the dog’ and think they’re being screamingly original.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘There doesn’t seem much point in going home.’
‘Can I have half your Polo?’
www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
(1) The ‘I’ve been here so long it seems like a second home to me except I don’t normally go for late 80s office furniture’ meeting
A weak chairperson and a few individuals who’ve seen Michael Douglas in Wall Street and can’t wait for red braces to come back are all that’s needed here. Everyone talks at cross-purposes and listening to others is kept to a minimum - just as well considering the number of people in the early stages of rapid eye movement.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘Now we’re all here, there’s something else I’d like to say.’
‘I think we’re going to need another urgent meeting.’
(2)The ‘let’s get the boring bit out of the way so that we can get down to a tea party’ meeting
In theory this should be one your favourites, especially if a gleaming trolley is temptingly parked in front of everybody with full tea service and lots of comestibles. Unfortunately if you happen to be a woman, there’s every chance that you’ll have to be ‘mother’. Centuries of conditioning mean that male drive flags at the first sign of a steaming pot and fails completely at the merest hint of passing around napkins. Total paralysis sets in with pouring - which is regarded as the next best thing to cross-dressing in front of colleagues.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘So who’s going to be mother?’
‘What you need is a good J-Cloth.’
(3) The ‘people I love you all. I want to empower you so that I can delegate all the boring responsibilities on to you’ meeting
Empowerment is a popular buzz word and what an ideal opportunity to thrust the fruits of lazy corporate thinking (sic) into your innocent lap. Basically your facilitator - it sounds friendlier than incompetent manager - will attempt to offload even more dull tasks on to yours truly under the guise that this is somehow liberating your spirit.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘Think of me as your facilitator and friend, not your boss.’
‘It’s the only way ahead …’
(4) The ‘if 20 staff go on assertiveness training courses, what do you expect?’ meeting
Assertiveness is a vital skill in today’s business world but few of us can have foreseen what happens when a group of its expert practitioners are forced to make a collective decision in a meeting. As twenty people decide what they want, state it openly, listen carefully and get in touch with their individual needs as the new departmental milk rota is discussed, all you can do is keep quiet and hope no one asks for your opinion.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘No.’
‘I think yours is a brilliant idea, but I don’t agree with it.’
(5) The ‘I think this shows what conscientious employees we are by not rushing home’ evening meeting
No one will wish to attend this unless they have been given a mobile phone for partners to continually ring in and ask when they’ll be home. The meeting then has to be temporarily abandoned each time as people mouth to each other that ‘it’s in the dog’ and think they’re being screamingly original.
Giveaway Phrases:
‘There doesn’t seem much point in going home.’
‘Can I have half your Polo?’
www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
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