Tag Archives: Business

Business Jargon for Dummies

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Institute of Mediocre Management graduates demonstrate the art of meaningless psychobabble  that will enable them to progess to the highest levels of management.

Psychobabble

Practise these phrases to become a C level Thought Leader without having to do any real work.

Or if you want the written manual here it is:

Book Fan small

If you would like to avoid paying any tax on this purchase, please use my Panama bookshop outlet giving them your full bank details and any PIN numbers you may have. This way it saves a lot of paperwork for you.

 

Status Meetings: A Complete Waste of Time But Still Essential Say Mediocre Managers

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SURVEY REVEALS ALMOST 50 PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS WOULD RATHER GO TO DMV, WATCH PAINT DRY (Source: CLARIZEN 2015)

Status meetings undermine worker productivity with lengthy preparation requirements and distracted, multi-tasking participants. Three in five employed adults reported that preparing for a status meeting “takes longer than the meeting itself,” while more than one-third of those who attend status meetings called them a waste of their time.
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The results show that employed Americans spend an average of 4.6 hours each week preparing for status meetings and 4.5 hours attending general status meetings, up from four hours each week four years ago. New results also indicate that almost three in five workers reported that they multitask during status meetings. Almost half of respondents would rather “do any unpleasant activity” than sit in a status meeting, including going to the Department of Motor Vehicles or watching paint dry.

“Survey results continue to show that status meetings do not boost employee productivity,” said Avinoam Nowogrodski, founder and CEO of Clarizen. “In today’s modern workplace, where demands are constantly changing, employees need easy, real-time access to their discussions, work content and processes. This is what fuels employee productivity and quality work, not sitting in status meetings or preparing lengthy status reports.

It’s Friday so DOSS to your Boss. (i.e be Deferential, Obsequious, Sycophantic and Subservient)

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As its Friday, here at the I.M.M. , our Head of Human Exploitation, Dr Hiram N Sackem, thought that your workers could do with a little cheering up – we’re not all ogres here at the Institute! The obvious caveat being these should be enjoyed in their leisure time not whilst working at your coal face.

2nd Place Awesome  Exercise  Star Wars Stars Teamwork

Going Home

Source: #demotivationalposters and @ThePoke

Sleeping is for Wimps! Man up says the IMM and smell the Coffee

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Here at the Institute of Mediocre Management we pride ourselves on our policy of looking after our esteemed members holistically. Not only do we want to see our colleagues do well fiscally but also we want to ensure their mental and physical well-being. After all, IMM members are the Elite, The Head Honchos, Those Who Shall Be Obeyed and therefore without them leading our World, it would cease to function in the way it does today.

An infographic is currently circulating showing how the top business people and politicians manage their sleep patterns and it’s clear that there is a wide differential in the amount of sleep taken.

HOW MUCH SLEEP DO YOU REALLY NEED?

HOW MUCH SLEEP DO YOU REALLY NEED?

The IMM’s Medical team investigated this research and discovered that those who get enough sleep are more likely to have better mental health and are less likely to be overweight, develop high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes.

But they also discovered that if you cut sleep back to less than five hours a night for several days in a row, then your short-term and long-term memory, ability to focus, decision-making capacity, number processing, cognitive speed, and spatial orientation all start to suffer.

When I ran Widget European Enterprises , I personally introduced a corporate culture based around Sleep Deprivation and it didn’t hurt us a bit, apart from the litigation and the bankruptcy. It was a unique concept, which worked extremely well for W.E.E. as the resulting high turnover of junior executives, mainly from mental and physical breakdowns, allowed us to keep wages down and therefore increase profits.

Here is some of the guidance we gave to our up and coming leaders:

  • An ambitious manager should manage at least an 100-hour work week
  • Sleep should be restricted to less than five hours per night, so employees can be on call for longer.
  • Employees’ phones should be on at all times and answered at all times.
  • When you signed up, the small print advised that W.E.E. own you. Get used to it.
  • Stay Awake! Drink at least 10 cups of coffee a day! Snoozing is for Wimps!

For us, of course, the Numero Uno Executive Leaders, long days are not an issue. How else can we utilise our expense accounts? So we tend to burn the candle at both ends, with early breakfast meetings and dinners that run late, for days and days. And if like me you can’t get to sleep without some wind-down time in a lap dancing club then you may not doze off until 2 in the morning. Which can mean an average four hours of sleep a night for four or five days.

The IMM Medical team advises that Executives running this kind of schedule develop the same level of cognitive impairment as if they’d been awake for 24 hours, equivalent to legal drunkenness, and like a drunk, a person who is sleep deprived has no idea how functionally impaired he or she truly is. The results are obvious. Senior Executives may get angry at employees, make unsound decisions that affect the future of their companies, and give muddled presentations before their colleagues, customers, the press, or shareholders and generally offer bugger all value to anyone.

So no change there and no-one will notice any behavioural changes at all if we, the Masters of The Mediocre, have 4 hours or 10 hours sleep, so it’s BAU: Keep Calm and Carry On Oppressing the Masses.

The Office Xmas Party | Saving Unnecessary Expense | Use the 3 V’s

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Just had a note from my Medusa my temporary P.A. Fantastic girl, no one ever gets past her into my inner sanctum, one look from her and they just freeze and stand there looking awkward.

Anyway, efficient girl that she is, she reminded me it was nearly Christmas and where did I want to hold the Xmas party. I was a little confused at first and said it would be at my little hideaway on St Lucia, like I do every year. It was her turn then to look stupefied and said how would the whole Office get out there?

I had a brief vision of the Operations lot sat around my pool farting and drinking my Dom Perignon ‘52 out of beer glasses and holding fistfuls of my lobster canapés in their hot sweaty hands. Luckily the vision passed but my mood was somewhat soured.

Through clenched teeth I asked what party dear Medusa was referring to and she said the Office Xmas Party. Apparently all her previous employers held these and some of them had them every year. Such profligacy is hard to imagine! Don’t they realise that there is a global downturn? I’ve had to cut down my first class travel to ye olde Caribbean to me only and put the wife and kids in cattle class.

I then asked her to explain what this ‘party’ would entail and she advised that the company would hire a venue, provide food and drinks and some entertainment all at the company’s expense. I nearly wet myself; she can be really funny for a P.A. sometimes!

Then the true horror dawned on me – she was for real.

The Office (c) NBC

The Office (c) NBC

So for the benefit of any Manager reading this who is also in the unfortunate position of have to agree to an Office Party I have some useful tips on how to organise one. To be absolutely clear, the tips are for one of your minions to use to organise the party.

Remember the three V’s: Venue, Vouchers and Volunteers

Venue:

Check out the local entertainment website and look for the reviews. By booking late the 2 to 5 stars places will have long gone so it’s the solitary star hole that’s a strip club in the evening that’s the perfect site. No there won’t be any ‘strippers’as the party should be held at lunchtime. You’ll get a better deal then.

Vouchers:

The last thing you want is the staff over indulging. Its nothing to do with being tight fisted more a paternal concern for their welfare and of course Health and Safety. The Voucher should allow the recipient to have 1 meal (including starter or Dessert) plus one alcoholic drink or one soft drink. Keep the former to light beers or a thin white wine.

Volunteers:

To get everyone in the festive spirit ask for volunteers to provide the entertainment, especially the ones always horsing about laughing when they should be working. They can share their hilarious jokes with the rest of the staff and management. Also get the lot who tell stories of how they rinsed ‘Angels’ or ‘My Way’ at Karaoke to contribute their vocal talents as well and call it the the ‘V’ Factor’ talent show or lack of, for all to enjoy.

I may Skype in briefly from my bolt hole in the sun or my Butler may do said honours.

Happy Christmas one and all

Scrooge* Lannister

* Who says Senior Management don’t have a sense of humour

The 7 Habits of Mediocre Management

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There is a very successful book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, written by Stephen R. Covey. The premise is that by aligning your behaviors to these Seven Habits then you can achieve almost anything you want. But what happens if your company is run by a psychopath, the middle management are incompetent and your co-workers are as effective as chocolate tea pots. You’ll need the following habits to survive.

The Seven Habits of Mediocre Management

(1) Be Reactive:

Whatever you do don’t start anything new. If it hasn’t been done before its bound to fail, as your competitors would have thought of it first and obviously decided it was too risky. Only do something if has to be done e.g. putting a fire out. Otherwise the safe not sorry mantra is: If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

(2) Always Think of the Consequences:

If you have to start something new and god forbid, innovative, what happens if it goes wrong? Can it be traced back to you? If it can, set up a ‘Steering Board’ or at least a Works Committee so you can spread any blame by ensuring collective responsibility. If it goes well, your boss will take the credit so don’t concern yourself with that scenario

(3) Prioritise Yourself:

Put yourself first. After all you are at least less mediocre than your peers. So what can you get out of this? Is there a promotion or pay rise involved? Make sure that you are front and centre of any activities that are visible to your management and are bound to succeed or at the very least not to fail. Your team, direct reports and anyone else directly connected to the project should be in no doubt that your happiness is their job security.

(4) Never Apologise or Explain:

It’s an old truth but one practiced by the Captains of Industry, Politicians and Royalty for generations. You must always remember it’s never your fault. Even if you made the original decision, someone should have interpreted it in a way that did not cause the catastrophe it created. That’s the point of a ‘Team’. Plus of course, all should remember that in the unlikely event you do go down, they go down with you.

(5) Communicate Effectively:

Communicate information only a ‘need to know’ basis only. The ‘Team’ should not have the ‘Big Picture’ as it’s far too hard for them to understand. They should just follow any orders that are given to them, whether written, verbal or via ‘guidance’ delivered in the pub. Telepathic employees are like gold dust, so ask all the team to work on that skill, it saves so much of your time time if you actually have to pass on stuff.

(6) Build a Team:

You need do-ers, a note taker, a PowerPoint expert, a sycophant and an expert. Make sure there is only one expert, two will just contradict each other and this will involve decision making in a subject area you have no idea about. The do-ers should be told what you expect to happen and the expert will look aghast at the time scale and budgets allocated. Let them fight it out between them. The PowerPoint guy does the status reports, the more pages and complex the less likely to be commented on negatively at your review with your boss. The sycophant provides coffee and biscuits. The note taker (ideally a sycophant as well) is to ensure evidential proof that what ever you said or did was the right thing.

(7) Your Boss is Always Right:

A Mediocre Boss will practice these habits so expect to be managed in that way. The advantage is you know what to expect from the behaviors so don’t get caught in any fall out. If your Boss is a complete $*!@*% then sycophancy is the best defence.