by Rodney Marks | Dec 7, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Excuses for doing non-work related activities on your work computer:
- All work and no play …
- Connecting with the outside world is motivating, and therefore your productivity actually increases, so this apparently irrelevant web-surfing or emailing or job application writing is, in fact, in your employer’s interest.
- You need to find out what inappropriate activities other people are doing so that you can ask them to stop it.
- In an holistic cosmos, everything is inter-related, and you resent the implied distrust.
Excuses for arriving home late
- The boss needed someone from the team to attend an executive meeting about the group’s future viability, and I was selected as the most persuasive member.
- You met an attractive salesperson, had a few drinks, booked a room at a hotel, made passionate love and then had a romantic, candle-lit dinner, though not necessarily in that order.
- You had a consultation with a marriage guidance counsellor.
- You went to the kids’ school, as you thought it was parent-teacher night.
Excuses for having children
- My partner and I were bored with each other, and we felt that kids would keep the relationship alive, and there seemed little downside in testing the theory.
- We did a cost-benefit analysis, and they seemed better value than renovating the house.
- They would be company for the dog when we were at work.
- We needed the aggravation.
- It wasn’t solely your fault.
- It was an investment decision: we hope that parenthood will pay off during our retirement.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 6, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Empower yourself. You can construct a thousand different, three-word buzz phrases about strategy. You’ll become a master of waffle, a pioneer of piffle, a doctor of spin, a leader with linguistic dexterity.
Choose one word from each of the three groups. Bravo! You’ve just created the name for your organisational philosophy, corporate culture, positioning statement or leadership style.
Group (a)
dual, full, input, macro, micro, qualitative, quantitative, quasi, semi, total
Group (b)
categorising, corporate, e-commerce, holistic, internet, mathematical, mentoring, partnering, policy, synthesising
Group (c)
analysis, benchmark, calculation, classification, idea, interface, nexus, re-engineering, report, research.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 5, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here is a Q&A of definitive definitions of the key management terms: stakeholder, productivity and MBA.
The answers are arbitrary.
Even the options are only objective in the sense that objectivity is tantamount to the verisimilitude of the facsimile of the approximation of shared subjectivity.
stakeholder
- a Dracula-like figure ready to drive a pole into the very lifeblood of an organisation, for its own good and for the good of the industry
- any blood-sucking management parasite with an axe to grind
- a business leader who, having stabbed you in the back, slaps you on the back
- a horticulturalist
- a dyslexic shot-order apprentice chef
- an imperative directed to whomever has the air-conditioning remote control.
Answer: 5. in the broadest sense, anyone at all, especially someone who supports your point of view.
productivity
- an ongoing, expensive intergovernmental commission, charged with making business less costly
- doing more or the same with less, more or less
- the quotient of output over input
- obtaining the same output from reduced input
- obtaining more output from the same input.
Answer: 5. none of the above, but something nebulous that can be increased to turn an organisation around.
MBA stands for:
- Married But Available
- Married By Accident
- Master of Business Administration. Nothing to do with values, vision, mission, strategy, leadership, governance, disruption, profitability or cash flow, this definition is simply of an expert at administering a business in its current state. This is an uninspiring title for a supposedly transformative degree. That’s why it’s usually known simply as an MBA, in the pathetic hope that the initialism, as a brand, will overcome the lame expanded wording.
- Master Bad Ass
- Making Busy Arrangements
- Main Battle Area
- More Bucks Annually
- Manager By Accident
- Management By Analysis
- Mediocre But Arrogant
- More Bad Advice
- Master Bull*&^% Artist
- Moron By Acclamation
- Mighty Big Attitude
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Rodney Marks is an Australian corporate comedian. He’s based in Sydney and travels widely. For more info, see his LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au.
by Rodney Marks | Dec 4, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
How many of these 25 acronyms (as in NATO) and initialisms (as in IBM) do you know?
The answers are below.
If you know 21 to 25, then you’re management consulting material; 11-20 correct means you’re an MBA or MBA student; 0 to 10 means you’re CEO potential.
1:1
24/7
80:20
B2A
B2B
B2B2C
B2C
B2E
B2G
CEO
CIO
COO
CRM
CYA
FAQ
GIGO
KPI
MBO
MBWA
PICNIC
ROA
ROI
TQM
USP
WOMBAT
Answers:
1:1 one to one relationship; one to one marketing
24/7 24 hours a day, seven days a weeks
80:20 80% of value is from 20% of customers (Pareto optimality)
B2A business to anyone
B2B business to business
B2B2C business to business to customer
B2C business to customer
B2E business to everyone
B2G business to government
CEO chief executive officer
CIO chief information officer
COO chief operating officer
CRM customer relationship management
CYA cover your …
FAQ frequently asked questions
GIGO garbage in, garbage out
KPI key performance indicator
MBO management by objectives
MBWA management by walking about
PICNIC problem in chair, not in computer
ROA return on assets
ROI return on investment
TQM total quality management
USP unique selling proposition
WOMBAT Waste of money, brains and time.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 3, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Excuses for having a messy desk
- A clean desk means that your drawers and filing cabinets are full of junk.
- Looking at one piece of paper at a time is inefficient, and indicative of an inability to multi-task.
- If your desk is clean, co-workers may think that you’re about to change jobs. Anyway, I alone know where everything is. That’s called job security.
- A messy desk in and of itself is a useful excuse for many other parts of your role: files, invoices, telephone message, meeting minutes and your diary can all be lost as required, and simultaneously be within easy reach should a real need arise.
Excuses for changing jobs so often
- You have tried to broaden your experience base to bring to each new role a broad understanding of how the industry as a whole works.
- Your former boss accused you of sexual harassment, and wasn’t convinced by your feeble attempt to laugh it off: “For me, ‘harass’ is two words”.
- Your diligence showed up colleagues as lazy, and they white-anted you.
- You embrace change, and whilst terribly loyal, always look for opportunities to grow, both as a person and as a professional.
Excuses for not winning that sales pitch
- You weren’t prepared to spend the company’s money on a loss leader, and the opposition undercut you on price.
- They didn’t understand your ideas and they are so far ahead of their time.
- You thought that the submission deadline was just a rough indication.
- You chose the spaghetti bolognese at the pitch selection lunch, and it splattered all over the tender documentation.
Excuses for failing at any work task
- Colleagues let you down.
- The organisation didn’t resource you.
- The photocopy firm, or the courier, or the consultant, or the computer genius didn’t do what they promised they would.
- Whilst you are capable of carrying out most assignments, this was the one area in which you felt out of your depth.
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by Rodney Marks | Dec 3, 2016 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
In previous posts and blogs we’ve worked our way alphabetically through the management lexicon (see Double-talk Thesaurus and Double-talk Dictionary, November 2016). Now we complete this sequence of short definitions the real meanings of business terms.
An alpha leader is the dominant one, the Type A (as in the capital of Taiwan), the top dog, the psychopath, the sociopath, the narcissist, the one with the least empathy … the one who actually gets things done … whatever the cost. They’ll never be your friend, so avoid disappoint by lowering your expectations. Be happy by being mildly pessimistic.
governance n. A useful way to blame the Board of Directors for management mistakes.
long-term adj. The next reporting period.
management n. What managers do until they become leaders.
marketing n. Matching impossible market desires with unlikely organisational capability.
matrix n. A way of making words look like numbers; particularly useful if you are trying to hide data.
mentoring v. To gossip nostalgically.
merger n. Synonym for acquisition.
policy n. The answer to why we do what we do around here, when there’s no reason for it.
presenteeism n. The syndrome of having people take a day off without drawing on sick pay.
proactive v. To think about the future before it happens.
qualitative adj. Incomprehensible, word-heavy analysis.
quantitative adj. Incomprehensible, number-heavy analysis.
research n. Shared subjectivity masquerading as objectivity.
schadenfreude n. The joy of watching your competitors fail, even if it doesn’t help you.
strategy n What we’re doing next week
tactics n What we’re doing tomorrow.
transitioning v . A person or service or product on the way out.
transparency n. The style of accountability to adopt when you’ve spent the whole PR budget.
user-friendly v. phrase You can figure it out for yourself, without technical support.
values n. Something to fall back on when the cashflow doesn’t.
win-win adj. One of the four planks of our platform: the others are win-lose, lose-win, and lose-lose.
world class adj. phrase We’ve been on the internet, and have copied the very best.
world first adj. phrase As far as we can tell, if you buy this, you’ll be going where no-one has gone before.
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