by Rodney Marks | Dec 2, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
The classic definition for MBA is Married But Available. This refers to executives who are married to one organisation and whose degree makes them marketable to others. Marriage itself is a market, with competitive and comparative advantages. Hence work:life balance could be described in economic terms. It’s sometimes unwise to be clever.
Excuses for getting married
- You are in love, and don’t know if it will ever happen again.
- You are loved, and don’t know if that will ever happen again.
- You want to receive empathy from your subordinates, so that you can get them to work harder.
- You need to regulate your hitherto erratic social life, in order to be a more productive corporate team member.
Excuses for getting divorced
- Your married life was interfering with the business cycle, especially year-end reporting.
- You had some extra cash, and didn’t know what to do with it.
- You did the maths, and discovered that two really can’t live as cheaply as one.
- You wanted to have an affair, and your spouse wouldn’t let you.
Excuses for doing an MBA
- You wanted to understand the latest management thinking.
- You wanted to meet like-minded aspirants, and develop a network of soul mates, fellow travellers and high achievers who could help you reach your goals.
- Your career has stalled.
- You really wanted to do a DBA, but didn’t have the grades.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 1, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Want to be a management consultant, corporate counsel, strategic advisor, or expert for hire? It only requires the ability to create 1,000 different three-word buzz phrases. Choose one word from each of groups (a), (b) and (c), and you’re off and running up billable hours.
Group (a)
- commercial
- competitive
- conceptual
- cyclic
- global
- intelligent
- positioning
- strategic
- tactical
- worldwide.
Group (b)
- alignment
- based
- climate
- culture
- infrastructure
- leadership
- reinvention
- re-purposing
- synergy
- throughput.
Group (c)
- advice
- change
- clarification
- focus
- knowledge
- matrix
- model
- paradigm
- shift
- template.
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by Rodney Marks | Nov 30, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here is a syndrome of sinful synonyms and an anthem of antacid antonyms for literally, and figuratively, a handful of management terms … and conditions. The writing is in Q&A format, to emphasise the assertion that many manager have in mind the answer prior to asking the question.
throughput
- What actually happens in the process of creating a service or product. Senior managers do not know how things are manufactured or created, so this useful wastepaper basket word can be applied to make them look knowledgeable
- The process between input and output
- Transformation, often on a transcendental level
Answer: 4. What you put through something.
synergy
- Two + two = five
- Marketing + finance = operations
- Company a + Company b = you lose your job
- Coal + solar = wind
Answer: 5. Only venture capitalists and lawyers make money through mergers.
customer
- An annoying individual or group entity whose sole aim is to interfere with perfectly good processes, systems, products and services
Answer: 1. There is no other experience.
direction
- Where we’re heading, as determined by the straight line from where we’ve been, through where we are now, and into the infinite future
- Something that you give, but never receive
- An excuse for a conference ever since some Roman said Quo vadis?
Answer: 4. Management consultants’ raison d’être … the reason for our debt.
expert
- A well-credentialed and expensive person from somewhere prestigious, who says the obvious eloquently, and at great length
- Someone better paid than you
- Someone who stayed at university one degree longer than you
- Someone who claims to be
Answer: 4. which is self-explanatory.
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by Rodney Marks | Nov 29, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
You don’t need a ton of knowledge to play a bigger game. Here’s a tonne of keywords to help you on your way. Play buzzword bingo with 100 examples of clear gibberish, garbled gobbledygook and today’s clichés from the fantasy worlds of Strategy, Management and Leadership.
Strategy buzzword bingo
- alliance, big picture, brainstorming, case studies, caveat, market entry, business ethics, management fad
- fit, game plan, game theory, gamification, gap analysis, corporate governance, high-level, intellectual, intelligence
- partnering, reduction, re-purposing, restructuring, strategic (etcetera), synergy, value stream, visioning.
Management buzzword bingo
- benchmark, best practice, capability, catalyst, change, dotted line, downsizing, effective
- efficient, empowerment, environment, feedback, flexibility, granularity, heads up, high-quality
- infrastructure, scaffolding, insourcing, matrix, megadigm, model, multimedia, next level, offline
- offshoring, onshoring, org chart, org tree, outsourcing, paradigm, presenteeism, preward
- proactive, responsibility, results-driven, rightsizing, schadenfreude, scope creep, self-managed, shift
- silos, templatised, traction, transparency, values, vision, win-win, world class, global reach
Leadership buzzword bingo
- adhocracy, chaos, collaboration, consultation, continuous, dialogue, direction, discourse
- empty suit, role holder, excellence, fast track, functional, herding cats, integrated, knowledge, leverage
- mindset, organisation, rankism, strategic business process re-engineering, reinvention, responsive, robust, stress, thought leadership.
When you hear one buzzword too many, shout ‘Bingo!’ and go home.
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by Rodney Marks | Nov 29, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
The real trick to sounding smart in business is mastering three-word management terms. Select a word from each of the three paragraphs below. This innovative process will create a three-word description of a project or a management theory. No-one can remember every possibility, but as a mnemonic, commit these lists to memory and your troubles will be over.
- alphanumeric, annual, creative, ethical, historic, integrated, parallel, resource, scheduled, workplace
- balance, design, distribution, finance, marketing, morale, non-profit, operations, planning, sales
- big data, development, forecast, initiative, market, network, output, process, review, solution.
You’ll have thousands of options to choose from. Colleagues, superiors and subordinates will admire your originality, hold your linguistic dexterity in their highest esteem, and look up to your adroit leadership style.
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by Rodney Marks | Nov 29, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Prick up your ears each time you hear one of these key business buzzwords. When you hear two, go to high alert. If three are buzzing around a meeting in quick succession, tie your shoelaces tight and get ready to stand up. If all four are spoken at the one event, adopt one or more of these survival techniques:
- feign an acute myocardial infarction
- burst into tears
- fall asleep and start snoring
- rush to the bathroom
- prepare for your exit interview
- avoid eye contact
- develop Tourette’s syndrome
- press Ctrl+Alt+Del
- look busy, or
- shout ‘Bingo!’ and go home.
Here are some definitions to help with your decision-making:
Values
- Something to fall back on when the cashflow doesn’t.
Vision
- Something that the CEO has at a management retreat, after too much alcohol and caffeine, followed by too little sleep;
- a perfect response when you don’t understand the detail of a problem: “Is this congruent with out vision?”
- A management retreat held at a beautiful resort, #2 in the sequence: values, vision, mission … and if there’s more money in the kitty and the end of the financial year – strategy.
- Proof that contemporary management theory is the new religion.
Mission
Nobody actually knows what this means, so just nod wisely when it comes up as a thing to have, to do, and to believe in. Passionate statements help. Here are a few to get you started:
- “I’m totally on board with the commitment to our mission being critical; it’s mission-critical”
- “My position is that I’m a missionary for our mission”, or
- “Our mission statement tells it like it will be”.
Strategy
- The scaffolding of the roadmap of the blueprint of the game plan of the infrastructure of the architecture of what we’re doing next week.
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