by Rodney Marks | Jan 12, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here ends the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne) … not with a whimper, not with a bang, but with a full stop.
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. The book is in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts – past, present and future – from eh? to zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
… … … … …
Index
It’s a dictionary.
Afterword
We’ll talk about this later.
Encore
Here we have about 20,000 words, many of them different. There are also a few numbers, reflecting our mathematical mellifluousness. Hopefully, the content is readable and the format acceptable. For example, among other things, we have tried to put all parenthetic thoughts where they belong.
Also, because our writing is usually a bit messy, we spent a long time handtyping, with correct syntax, grammar and stuff, all for your reading pleasure.
It is a given in this work that meaningless, non-descriptive words are onomatopoeic, and that those words which only have phonetic meaning sound just as they are said. Proof: the word “spot” is vacuous, and is like the sound that a spot makes.
Conclusions
Like words and phrases, these are hard to define.
Recommendations
- Look both ways before you cross the road.
- Invest in gold.
- Group things in threes.
Editorial committee
Affirmative action: Marietta Mann
Agriculture: Sandy Playnz, Beau Vine
Astronomy: Buck McCluster
Aviation: Aaron Orticle
Chemistry: Dan Gerus
Comedy theory: Hugh Moore
Corporate governance: Haydn de Mudd, Rudy Koulis, Perry Pheral
Economics: I.T. de Pendes
Electrical engineering: Anton de Mitteran
Finance: Rhet Eyerment, Seymour Mahoney, Adam Marp
Food technology: André Mayne de Zërt
Futurist studies: Thom Morrow
Gaming: Jacques Podt
Genealogy: Charlie Sarnt, Bob Zyrunkl
Government: Beau Rocraci
Holistic research: Jan Ited
Hospitality: Rob de Geste, Alf Resco
Housing: Mort Gauge, Ulysses Voyd
Information Technology: Artur Pfischel
International affairs: Haydn Zich
Knowledge management: Noel Hedge
Leadership: Mike Bleave, Harry Diculus, Dick Tait
Legal studies: Laura Byding
Logistics: Frank de Poeste
Management: Lou Dicrus, Lou Natick, Lulu
Management consulting: Matt Ricks, Val Yuad
Marketing: Chris Tallein
Mathematics: Cal Kyulaszn
Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions (MICE) sector: Motti Veight
Military history: Gen. Al Rounder, Admiral Rusty Stern
Mining: Doug Macquarie, Phil Macquarie, Rich Vain
Museum studies: Art Easte
Not-for-profit management: Phil Anthropei, Al Truism
Organisational behaviour: Seren Dipitee, Shelby Wright
Philosophy: Rayson Detra
Pluralism: Juan Sidednesc
Political science: Con Volluted
Psychology: Guy Dance
Publishing: Lex Icon, Dick Schonery, Eddie Torriolle
Standards: Ben Schmuck
Systems management: Cec Temik
Transport: Kerasch Dumhi, Ilya Ford
Water and waste management: Phillip de Poule, Sue Ridge
Work-life balance: Candida Cockburn, Pauly Dunbuy
Further reading
Recommended.
Font
The Generic typeface used in this volume is the work of Fontov Wisdom, the noted Eastern European fine artist, radical calligrapher and thief. The Generic font is based on the classical English alphabet prior to before the introduction of vowels being introduced in 1066. It is strongly influenced by the painterly style of pre-Raphaelite public transport graffitists, whereby each letter flows to the other, and each word connects fluidly with the sentence structure. The decisive clarity is reminiscent of the Mauritius dodo quill that Wisdom used in his famous mural inside the Moscow pissoire.
Paper
The caustic text is printed on acid-free paper, for balance. The paper is made from mostly -recycled toilet paper, which, in turn, was made from old growth Radiata pine, grown in shallow soil above sea level in south-west Tasmania. Its subtle aroma has been known to seduce bookworms, bibliophiles and lexicographers into purchasing softcover first editions, when normally they would order a copy via inter-library loan.
Order form
Please feel free photocopy this section, the only part of The Management Contradictionary not subject to copyright.
For one or two copies of this book, please google the publisher or the authors. To buy in bulk, negotiate.
In previous decades, a reader would complete a photocopied form and fax it off; later, such a form would be scanned, filled in onscreen and emailed as an attachment. These days, online ecommerce has taken over, and books can be purchased through Iinternet bookstores. Or maybe not. Check it out: it might work.
Perhaps just ask a real person at your local bookshop.
So, that’s the form.
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 12, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Herein book publishing is satirised with anti-humour, anti-jokes and antidotes.
We’re nearly finished with the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne).
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. The book is in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts – past, present and future – from eh? to zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
… … … … …
Dedications
To RM and RS: BM
To BM and RS: RM
To BM and RM: RS
Disclaimer
It’s not our fault.
Acknowledgements
The Devil made us do it.
Table of Contents
- Unsolicited testimonials
- Dedications
- Disclaimer
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents – you are here
- Preface
- About-face
- Forward
- Forehead
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Reintroduction
- Technical terms
- Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) issues
- Style choices
- Personal note
- Important note
- Gender-neutral language
- How to read this contradictionary
- The Management Contradictionary
- Index
- Afterword
- Encore
- Conclusions
- Recommendations
- Editorial Committee
- Further reading
- Font
- Paper
- Order form
Preface
This is it.
About-face
That was it.
Forward
Let’s go!
Forehead
Mop it before reading.
Foreword
See Preface.
Introduction
Welcome, and thanks for buying this book.
The reader should be reminded that if a word in this lexicon is unfamiliar, then perhaps the authors made it up. After all, we are the dictionary.
Reintroduction
Welcome back, and thanks for funding our writing time.
Technical terms
- ‘See’ means ‘see’.
- ‘Compare with’ means ‘compare with’.
- 1, 2, 3 and so on mean that each definition is separate.
- a, b, c and so on mean that each element is part of the larger definition.
- If V1 is for vision, V2 is for values, M is for mission, S is for strategy, and O is for the organisation, then:
- {[(V1+V2) – M] x S} x O = Management.
- If the cost of S is more than the value of O, then no amount of M will do.
Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) issues
The authors stress that any increase in personal or professional stress sustained as a result of reading this book is the full responsibility of each and every reader. If you are not prepared to accept this condition, please immediately donate the book to your local yoga centre.
This work is highly toxic. It does not contain any throwaway lines. Do not recycle.
Style choices
Yes.
Personal note
It is the strong belief of the authors that a full appreciation of this contradictionary will result in a larger economic pie being created, and that even if each player in each market ends up with only the same percentage of the whole, the way a rising tide lifts all ships, then so too will everyone be, synergistically, better off. Many of our readers will be involved with pie charts and in cooking the books; and, in those senses, we too are cooks. We hope that you enjoy the grilling and the roasting.
Important note
End of Important Note.
Gender-neutral language
Sometimes the word ‘he’ is used to mean ‘he’ or ‘she’, but often its just means ‘he’. However, we recognise our prejudice, and future joint writing projects include feminist editions of this book, and of the Bible.
We further acknowledge that there are continua of the genders of masculinity and femininity within the sexes of male and female.
It should be noted that the authors are not totally responsible for the limitations of the English language.
How to read this contradictionary
Start at A and go to Z.
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 11, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
The Management Contradictionary was written by Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane and published by Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne.
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. The book is in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts – past, present and future – from eh? to zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms. It was reviewed by some imaginary friends. Note the aptronyms, the nominal determinism, the comical binomial nomenclature.
… … … … … … …
‘Thanks for the review copy. I got my money’s worth, that’s for sure.’
Lex Icon, Times Literary Supplement, London
‘Please wait. Your call is important to us.’
Eddie Torriolle (voicemail), New York Times Review of Books
‘If I was interested in management terms and knew how to read, this is without a doubt the book I would buy. Highly recommended: * * * * * (five stars).’
Harry Diculous, leadership visionary
‘Exhaustive but not tiring, blunt yet refined, sharp yet touchy, comprehensive yet comprehensible, simple but not simplistic, timely yet ageless, funny yet serious, understandable yet learned, amazing but not corny.’
Haydn de Mudd, corporate governance authority
‘The authors are on-song yet unsung.’
Perry Pheral, business ethicist
‘A must read! Please send me a copy, or an original.’
Noel Hedge, Hon. PhD
‘I’ve never had so much fun under the covers and between the sheets.’
Candida Cockburn, work-life balance expert.
… … … … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 10, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
We continue another extended blog (web blog) in the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne).
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. The book is in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts – past, present and future – from eh? to zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
… … … … …
task-orientated
Facing the task.
task-oriented
Facing the East.
taste
Lip-service to culture.
tautology
Repeating the same thing twice.
tax accounting
That set of accounts which shows the smallest possible profit, and preferably a loss. There are completely different sets of accounts to show your staff, your partners and yourself – the latter including any untraceable cash receipts.
taxation
Differs from other theft only insofar as it is generally misunderstood to be just.
team player
Person lacking initiative.
temperature of an organisation
Cheeky medical metaphor measuring managerial anal-retentiveness, manifested as the manager’s belief that he is a thermostat rather than a thermometer.
(see cranial-rectal extraction and climate)
temptation
Manage us not into temperance.
test market
Market.
testamur
Written proof that you’ve wasted your time seeking institutional approval from a college or university, or from society, when you could have been seeking approval from a real live person, for money.
Theory X
Employees are lazy.
Theory Y
No they’re not.
thinking
Talking to a better class of person.
thou shalt not
Serious sanctions-supported suggestions.
threats
Indirect incentives.
thrift
- Drinking Australian champagne.
- Naming it so.
throughput
- Transformation, often on a transcendental level.
- What you put through something.
- The process between input and output.
- 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.
time
Either a denominator or a numerator, depending on where you did your math. Or in a pluralistic society, maths.
time and motion study
A method to test whether employees move intertemporally.
time in lieu
The organisational cost of irritable bowel syndrome, brought on by indigestible management decisions.
time management
Management.
Times New Roman
This is a formal font enhanced by curly bits and is the style of choice for snail mail. When it is crucial to say things that can be retracted, Times New Roman is your tool.
to-do list
Something else to remember.
tolerance
Absence of principle (except for that one), which knows no limit (except for that).
totalitarian
Holistic manager.
toxic managers
A waste of office space.
TQM (Total Quality Management)
Continuous self-flagellation.
traction
A word used to describe the uptake of ideas, as in ‘Getting traction leads to action’. Similar to ‘Hitting the ground running’.
trade association (also industry association)
A group of employers claiming special needs over those dictated by the marketplace.
trade unionists (also labor unionists)
- Economic illiterates who falsely believe that they can increase wages they don’t pay by advocating the punishment of those who wish to accept deals the union does not endorse.
- A group sensitive to criticism.
tradition
Dancing with the dead.
trainee
Chairman of the Board.
training
Education that has a purpose.
trance
State induced by attending an AGM.
transference
Psychiatrists telling clients they are mad.
transformation
The belief that you are not yourself but that you will be one day.
transitioning
A person or service or product on the way out.
transparency
- Accountability adopted after the PR budget is spent.
- Something that you can read from while maintaining eye contact with the audience.
trend analysis
Codifying the past; fashionable tool for measuring how quickly history will continue to set theory.
tried and tested
Wearing a tie.
trust
- Management naivety.
- Management naiveté.
truth
A debased concept that used to mean ‘in accordance with the facts’, but now means ‘it works for me’. In management, subordinated to power.
turnover
Because it’s best that you don’t see it.
Type A managers
- Taiwanese capital executives.
- Cause themselves heart-attacks.
Type B managers
B-grade managers who spend all day alphabetising their tasks.
Type C managers
- Cause heart-attacks in others.
- Create growth – in themselves.
unconscious
That which is unknowable but psychoanalysts assume and managers fall into. Final resting place of the conscience.
undent
To move to the left what had been moved to the right.
(see Liberal Party of Australia)
underling
- A New Age person.
- A bed of couscous at a pesco-vegetarian restaurant.
undesirables
Principled board members.
unity of command
A claim that all the organisation’s leaders have the same values, vision and mission, and that they are familiar with the latest justifications for implementing any necessary draconian measures.
unity of purpose
Fire!
universal
Something that applies equally to everyone and everything – like management theory, McDonald’s and democracy.
university of life
- Cultivated ignorance.
- If you graduate from the university of life, you die.
- Graduate from the school of hard knocks.
- Excuse for having failed high school.
- A person qualified by a degree of chip-on-the-shoulder.
unskilled workers
Managers with pre-career MBAs.
upmarket
A position attractive to brand-conscious consumers.
user-friendly
Self-explanatory.
utilitarianism
The theory that goodness is good.
utility
A really small unit of measure, so tiny that even the concepts of management theory can be quantified using it.
utopia
Workplace without managers.
value judgement
- A good thing.
- Good in some situations.
- They exist, for better or for worse, and sometimes for neither.
- A bad thing – science must be value-free.
values
Something to fall back on when the cashflow doesn’t.
variable costs
Expenditure items that you can’t do a darn thing about, but at least you can get them off the balance sheet.
veil of ignorance
Deaf ear, blind eye, transparent résumé.
venture capital
- Capital you’d almost venture to use if it were your own.
- Money you don’t need to return.
vertical integration
Popular among firms with CEOs who are control freaks – such as former CFOs – who like owning all elements of the production and distribution chain, irrespective of profitability.
very good
A balanced scorecard in search of excellent.
vice versa
Versa vice.
virtual knowledge
Knowing knowledge and ideas related thereto.
virtuous organisation
Good and service replacing goods and services.
vision
- The management retreat at a beautiful resort, number two in the sequence: values, vision, mission. Don’t forget the butcher’s paper, whiteboard and PowerPoint
- A representation of how the organisation would look without debt, cash flow challenges or shareholders to report to.
- A perfect response when you don’t understand the detail of a problem: ‘Is this congruent with our vision?’
- Something that the CEO has at a management retreat, after too much alcohol and caffeine, followed by too little sleep.
wage or wages
Payment dispensed to dispensable employees. The plural makes it seem like more money.
wait
Time between milestones.
walking the talk
Tap-dancing and fire-walking with the masses.
war
- Destructive crater of management metaphors.
- Failed crisis management.
- Successful issues management.
warehouse
Palatable location for placing over-ordered stock in orderly lines.
watch
Used for measuring the economic worth of an MBA subject.
way forward, the
Useful to employ when asked about plans for the future, as it gives you time to think of an answer.
weaknesses
Always denied by mentioning strengths.
wealth
A financial state rarely felt by the wealthy, as the human appetite for security is insatiable.
weasel words
Words deliberately designed to avoid meaning or commitment: the impactful behavior of demystifying cultural embedment.
website
(Currently under construction. Please bookmark this page and visit us again soon)
what works
Thinking that feelings are more important than thoughts.
whistle-blower
- Someone who publicly announces his retirement.
- Referee.
- Arbiter.
- Judge.
- Adjudicator.
- Mediator.
- Conciliator.
- Umpire.
- High priest.
- Moraliser.
(see martyr)
white-collar
The uniform of the clerical class, worn so that they will not inadvertently be required to do useful work, which would be embarrassing all round.
white-collar crime
- Crime that pays.
- Getting away with it.
- Not getting away with it.
winners
White-collar criminals.
win-win
One of the four quadrants of a particularly useful negotiation theory matrix. The others are: win-lose, lose-win and lose-lose.
wisdom
Rational self-interest, which, if enacted, would eliminate war, religion and management.
wit
- Someone who says that management is a joke.
- Management (adjective) jokes (noun).
- Management (noun) jokes (verb).
- managementjokes.com
witness
Also known as a fool, because his testimony will be discounted.
work
Something managers get done through other people.
work experience
- Anthropology for the young.
- Sociology for the youngish.
- Psychology for the young at heart.
- Zoology for the not-so-young.
workaholic
Successful senior executive with a chauffeur, driven to work.
workaphile
A workplace romance without a partner.
work-life balance
A see-sawing, pendulous arc of a continuum, always as wrong as it is right.
world class
We’ve been on the internet and have copied the very best.
world first
As far as we can tell, if you buy this, you’ll be going where no one has gone before.
wrong-clicking
Clicking the right-hand button on a computer mouse, or the right button on a notebook computer touchpad, which reveals uncertainties. Also known as right-clicking.
WTO
World Trade Organisation; not Well Thought Of.
www (wise weasel words)
A random compilation of malicious gossip and unsubstantiated anecdotes, as useful as a clock to a pig.
ex-spouse
Someone who would correct your spelling and alphabetisation when you are out of line. Or alignment.
young
Those who undermine the old.
youth
A growing market.
penultimate
- One after the antepenultimate.
- Two after the preantepenultimate.
- This.
- Given that there are a range of options and opportunities and possibilities to discuss just before the final point, it would seem to us – and this is something from which we, the authors, would find it hard if not impossible to resile – that, at this point in time, in the development of management language, there is a need to set clear boundaries and say, ‘This far, and no further’. But maybe just one last thing.
zero-based budgeting
Budgeting for zeros.
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 8, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
This is a super-duper edition in the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne).
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. The book is in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts – past, present and future – from eh? to zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
… … … … …
public relations
When your relations with your public go badly, hiring a PR firm won’t help.
public sector
A bite out of the private sector.
public service
An oxymoron that describes the self-sustaining, amoral bureaucracy that supports the political party or coalition of the day – and its politicians.
public transport
Arriving late.
purchasing power
The blackmailing of suppliers into squeezing margins and taking all the risk, by demanding loyalty, then threatening to withdraw their orders.
purpose
If there is light at the end of the tunnel, it could be glaucoma.
‘put steps in place’
Outcome avoidance strategy.
quack
Pseudo-expert whose ducks are not all in a row and who is not even a duck.
quadrant
Consultants feel comfortable with four of anything, which is two more than managers feel comfortable with.
qualification
The experience of the inexperienced; the skill of the unskilled; the education of the uneducable.
qualitative
Incomprehensible word-heavy analysis.
quality
A standard that is temporarily satisfactory. Later on, you’ll be ashamed of what you deemed quality. And so on it goes. Continual improvement leads to self-hate.
quality control
The quality quota allocation process, through which it is determined how much quality is necessary for a product or service to be deemed to have the quality of quality.
quality of life
If there’s a heartbeat, you’re working.
quantitative
Incomprehensible number-heavy analysis.
question
- A place to use my answer.
- Often begins with ‘who’, ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘when’ ‘what’ or ‘how’, and ends in a metaphorical interrogative, which, if you’re literate, or even numerate, will be perceived as a question mark: ‘?’
racism
The belief that all races are the same – even in their differences.
radical
Management academic with tenure.
raise
An increase in an employee’s wage or salary, based on their negotiation ability.
raison d’être
The reason for our debt.
rational
You agree with us.
rationalisation
Turning your whine into sour grape juice.
reactive
Normal management practice: to respond to real situations as they arise.
reality
Putting the ‘I’ into realty.
reasoning
Valuable technical skill, reasonably discarded when promoted to management.
reasoning, circular
(see circular reasoning)
reassessment
Doing a personality test for the second time after failing the first one.
rebrand
To brand again after branding failed the first time.
recognition
Rethinking someone’s achievements out loud.
recycling
Reverse garbage and vice versa.
red tape
The bloody ties that bind: something bureaucrats unwind in and everyone else gets wound up in.
redundancy
What happens when your boss finds out what you actually do.
re-engineer
Engineer again to redesign you out of your job.
reference
Fictional praising of underperforming employees in order to remove them from your payroll without a redundancy package.
reform
Correct.
refund
Getting your money’s worth.
regression
- A demotion.
- Output over(-)time [and cost {and so on}].
reinforcement
Incentivisation of managers so that they behave like rats.
reinventing the wheel
Reinventing the wheel.
relationships
Temporary alliances between individuals, groups or organisations, which last as long as their interests are overlapping.
relativism
- It all depends …
- A form of nepotism.
relativity
The notion that all issues are merely part of larger ones.
relevance
The standard by which all education is judged irrelevant.
remuneration
Renumeration.
repeat business
Business.
repeat customer
Customer.
reporting mechanism
Managers burying feedback through the use of a mobile phone, gossip, a suggestion box or physical assault.
repositioning
Changing potential buyers’ perceptions of a product or service by taking it upmarket or downmarket or varying its consumer context vis-à-vis its competitors, without altering it in any substantial way.
repression
Smiling at interviewers you would like to murder.
repurposing
Finding a new reason for an organisation to exist. Often a useful distraction if things are going badly. For a business, acquisitions are effective on this front. For a government, war will work a treat.
reputation
Suffers when one is promoted; destroyed when one becomes CEO.
research
Tantamount to the approximate verisimilitude of shared subjectivity masquerading as objectivity.
research and development (R&D)
A twin organisational function with its own inbuilt scapegoat subgroup. Research can blame development, and vice versa. A self-destructive loss centre used as window-dressing to quell criticism that the organisation is doing the same old things all the time.
reserves
A balance sheet item with a zero next to it. This shows that the organisation is aware and responsible. Where did the obscene amount go? To the managers themselves, for being so prudent.
resignation
Career limiting move, and perhaps employment suicide. Not recommended, as the victim forfeits redundancy and other payouts. Wait for them to sack you. Either way, your résumé is diminished.
resources
Consumable process inputs.
responsibility
(anachronism) Entailed by the freedom to choose to deny that we are free to choose.
rest
A cover for lack of passion, direction or incentive that serves as an excuse of last resort.
(see holiday)
restructure
A way to fire people you don’t like. Favoured by management consultants because it is a project that requires no facts, logic or evidence to support it, and thus guarantees more employment for consultants.
results
Should be hidden until things improve.
résumé
Lying in acute chronological order.
retiree
- Someone who chose the wrong job.
- Someone at the stage before death.
- Subject of your jealousy.
retrospectroscope
Device used by CEOs to predict the past.
return on investment (ROI)
How much you expect to receive in exchange for your investment. Usually you would hope for more than you put in, but as deals progress, many investors settle for a break-even result, making much commerce merely occupational therapy.
reverse engineering
- Using the solution to retrofit the problem.
- An engineer going off the reserve.
rights
- Ritual, self-serving incantation of ‘What do we want … when do we want it?’
- What lazy people go out of their way for.
risk
The uncertainty that there isn’t any.
rituals
Management conference where the important issues are resolved at the bar.
robotics
Replacing squeaky wheels with well-greased ones.
role model
- When your biography is hagiography.
- Female executive with a low-cut dress.
roles
The masks we hide behind to make us look like we know what we’re doing.
rule of thumb
That people see things differently. If you make a fist and extend your thumb, some people will think that you are saying ‘OK’, and others are offended that you are asking them to ‘sit on it and rotate’.
rules of the game
Machiavelli’s The Prince.
sack
Something organisations give people who spend too much time in it.
safe
Receptacle used by managers in which to store such precious items as subordinates’ psychological test results.
salary
Payment in exchange for work, to employees who believe that they are indispensable.
salary packaging
That happy state in which pre-tax and after-tax earnings coincide.
sales
- An individual or group who or which creates the need to buy when, if that need had been inherently present, the sale would have gone through already.
- The process by which people are turned into customers, creating in them an awareness that they need something that they didn’t even want before the sales process began.
scandal
- PR failure.
- PR success.
schadenfreude
Taking pleasure in a competitor’s troubles, even though their problems do not help you. One of many unattractive human attributes. So it’s not your fault: enjoy!
science
Body of knowledge based on logical reasoning discovered by dead white males; under constant attack by those who find it difficult and suspect it might be true.
secret fund
Entrepreneur’s answer to government, spouse, ex-spouses and other creditors.
segment
Making a pizza of marketing.
self-centred
Being into yourself rather than beside yourself.
self-control
Emotional unintelligence.
self-esteem
Liking the person you love most.
self-help
- Insourcing.
- People helping themselves to help themselves.
selfishness
Living alone.
self-leadership
Telling oneself to follow oneself and refusing to do it.
semi-autonomous work group
A collection of co-workers looking for direction.
seminar
- A forum where the lecturer asks the questions.
- Turning a conference into a seminary.
senior management team
Oligarchy that thinks it is an aristocracy.
service
- (noun) The value-add that differentiates products; missing from most sales processes.
- (verb) To repair or maintain a product that should not need repairing or maintaining.
sex discrimination
- Taste.
- Being able to tell the sexes apart.
- Chastity or celibacy.
sexism
The belief that the sexes are the same – even in their differences.
sexual harassment
When a co-worker makes you think that harass is two words.
shared values
When there aren’t enough values to go around.
shareholders
- People with a legitimate interest in a firm.
- Suckers like us who believe that we can overcome share-trading transactions costs.
(see stakeholders)
short-term
As far as you can see.
simile
Like a metaphor.
simulation
A game just like the real thing, except that it isn’t, and everyone playing knows it and plays accordingly.
skill
- The missing link in management.
- Dyslexic assassin.
slavery
Industrial democracy.
social construction
The Pacific Ocean, until you are dropped in it.
society
What remains when individuals disappear.
sociocultural
The social and cultural layering of organised life, helpful in stratifying employees, suppliers and customers, so you know who – or whom – to send to the opera, who to send to the football, and who is going to be unimpressed by either or both.
spam
For more copies of this excellent book, please use the order form in the back.
span of control
The unbridgeable distance between top management and the people at the bottom who do the real work, measured in strata titles.
specialist
Opposite of manager; hence lowly paid.
speculation
An articulate punt, just shy of an educated guess.
spelling
Irrelevant pedantry.
Spillane
A management term redefined to reveal its true meaning.
spin doctoring
- Doctoring the truth.
- Sugaring bitter pills.
- The second best medicine.
spiritual intelligence
- Praying for a higher intelligence.
- When spooks come visiting.
- Praying to a higher intelligence.
- Preying on the foolish.
spy
Human resource manager.
stable workforce
Suggestive of a lack of other job opportunities.
staff
Disempowered junior employee, several strata below someone with authority.
stakeholder
- A Dracula-like figure ready to drive a pole into the very lifeblood of the organisation, for its own good and for the good of the industry. (Stake holder)
- A horticulturalist. (i.e., ditto)
- In the broadest sense, anyone at all.
- A dyslexic short-order chef. (Steak holder)
- A plea to not ‘stay hotter’. (Stay colder)
standards
Raising the bar and then leaning against it.
standing in the shoes of others
- Footing the bill.
- Where one of you is redundant.
- Getting in the way.
- Being orthotic.
- Empathy with soul.
- Being rapport cousin.
- Being a foot soldier.
- Being a shoe thief.
- Being brought to heel by toeing the line.
- Justification for putting on socks.
statement
Announcing a sentence.
statistical significance
A result that is significant statistically but not in any other way.
statistics
Originally this meant data that support the State and its leaders, but this deceitful, selective application of quantitative information is now entrenched in organisational life with the same purpose. Three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population. 86.43 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
status
Suits.
step up
Something managers are inclined to do in an escalating manner.
stereotype
- Double trouble.
- An understudy.
- An HR profile.
stoic
Whatever.
strategic management
Thinking about having someone else somehow doing something sometime.
strategic planning
Thinking about somehow doing something sometime.
strategy
What we’re doing next week.
streamline
Fishing for efficiency.
strengths
Qualities managers own up to.
stress
- Quasi-medical condition used to avoid work.
- Overstressed feature of managerial life, but only in the sense that managers impose it on others; the absence of which in humans is found only in cemeteries.
strike
When workers prove their worth by not working.
structure
The concept of converging and diverging parallel lines connecting the interfaces of the vertices of the dovetailing of the nexus of the organisation’s scaffolding.
(see Marksism, or at least look for it)
subordinate
Someone lower than you in the hierarchy, whom you are happy to remind of this fact.
success
Failing a course in organisational behaviour.
succession plan
Will.
suggestion box
- Recycling bin.
- Safety valve for disgruntled employees.
- Safe deposit box.
- Lost property storage.
suicide
A goal pursued by half the human race. The other half pursue homicide. The balance are to decide on deicide.
superego
A very big ego.
supervisor
A very little ego.
support activities
Bottomless pit of demand for resources, often best left underfunded.
suppression
Choosing to repress.
surplus
An accidental profit hidden from government.
survey
A research tool demonstrably invalidated by asking people what they want instead of what they do.
sustainability
Ability to exploit in the future.
Swiss cheese
The management metaphor alluding to many small failures lining up to cause a catastrophe. Turning a big block of Swiss cheese will sometimes reveal a series of interconnected hollows all the way through.
(see ‘all your ducks are in a row’)
SWOT analysis
Key strategic planning session tool, illegibly handwritten in multi-colours on butchers’ paper. Emphasises strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as the road to the Holy Grail, without which there’s nothing to do but adjourn to the bar.
synergy
- Venture capitalists + mergers and acquisitions (M&A) lawyers + firms with which they have no relationship = money for venture capitalists + M&A lawyers.
- Marketing + finance = operations.
- 2 + 2 = 5.
- Organisation A + Organisation B = you lose your job.
- Coal + solar = wind.
system
Something with inputs, throughputs, transformations and outputs, the outcome from which should add value to the organisation.
systems thinking
Not so much the circuitous, annular, radial or circumlocutory process of creating a thinking system as a cyclic practice.
tactics
What we’re doing tomorrow.
tangible asset
Something valued because of an expected intangible benefit beyond its ephemeral tangibility.
target market
Market.
task completion syndrome
task force
A committee that gets things done.
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 8, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
In this bumper edition, we continue the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne).
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. The book is in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts – past, present and future – from eh? to zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
… … … … …
PA (personal assistant)
- Someone to give your work to.
- Someone to talk to.
- Someone who keeps your gate.
- Someone who makes your long list short.
- A masculine Ma.
pain
What you feel when your PA is not IN.
paperless office
- Evidence of off-site storage.
- Office you haven’t moved into yet.
paradox
When a lawyer says: ‘All lawyers are liars’.
parameter
Something that is bound to border on constraint.
parent company
Archaic organisational entity which implies subsidiary/head office rivalry and internecine warfare based on the centralisation of power.
participative management
A common hallucination, two drinks short of a shared vision.
partnership
A coalition of equals that uses the democratic decision-making process of majority rule. If it is a partnership of two, then one partner is redundant.
part-time
A way for organisations to cut down on their wages costs whilst attracting goodwill from a hoodwinked public. A part-time job structure is given to people with things other than work in their lives. Let us assume that two part-time workers are notionally half-time. They would usually work 60 percent of a full-time role each, due to changeover debriefings, felt guilt, and dedication, giving the organisation a 20 percent productivity bonus. This scandal must be exposed.
pathfinders
Managers who can find the way to the executive washroom.
patience
What you need in order to hang out for the next anti-climax.
payback period
The length of time that it takes to be back where you started from, before you risked what you did. If you had been risk averse, you’d be there already by doing nothing.
payment by results
Fiction; never happens.
pedant
- Internal auditor with a penchant for purple.
- A self-censor.
peer group
Mutual excuse for conformity.
pending
Purgatory
per capita
A numerator for any productivity measure that requires humanisation.
perfect knowledge
The only thing we’re certain we don’t have.
performance
- Sometimes used to denote positive achievement, but generally ignored in favour of personality.
- Acting as if you’re working.
performance appraisal
Personality appraisal.
personality
What poorly motivated people have to fall back on.
personnel appraisal
A politically correct from of verbal abuse.
pessimism
- Expecting everything to come out as expected.
- Excuse for laziness.
(see optimism)
philanthropy
Advertising targeted at the poor.
philosophy
Traditionally the love of wisdom, superseded by the love of power.
plagiarism
- Applauding the illiteracy of internet scribblers by stealing.
- A tribute without attribution.
- Finding intellectual property before it is lost.
planned obsolescence
- The state of redundancy in which something needs replacing as soon as it’s paid for. Excellent for IT gurus and marketers.
- The only successful evidence of planning.
planning
A game plan to avoid work by prognosticating; variations include: strategic planning, business planning, financial planning, scenario planning, contingency planning, as well as Plan B and planned obsolescence.
plant
Along with the other physical resources of an organisation – property and equipment – plant constitutes the genuine asset base available to be frittered away by strategists, financiers and marketers.
‘please wait, your call is important to us’
Fuck off.
pleonasm
Half of the management profession. Truncated tautology – any management phrase beginning with ‘strategic’.
plot
Under the boardroom table.
police
Management consultants with guns.
policy
The answer to why we do what we do around here when there’s no reason for it.
politeness
Insincere form of address used by gatekeepers and other frustrated actors.
political correctness
Opinions one may express without receiving a slap to the head.
postmodernism
Nihilistic anti-philosophy and undergraduate fetish that claims that nothing is important except itself, and equates a pair of boots with Shakespeare. The triumph of bullshit over science. The standard by which nothing is judged, including itself.
postmodernist
Someone who believes that it is true that there are no truths and that it is a fact that there are no facts.
potential
What you, yourself, had before you were actualised.
poverty
The absence of wealth creation programs.
The presence of wealth creation programs.
power
The central concept in management, as the disinclination to talk about it suggests.
practice
- Something managers correctly profess to do but which still doesn’t make management a profession.
- What’s left of management after the recognition that it is neither science nor art.
pragmatic
Doing what the boss wants.
pragmatism
American philosophy of self-indulgence based on the assumption that truth is what works; much favoured by managers to legitimate their feelings and contradictory ideas: ‘Does it work for you?’
precision
An incisive précis that cuts to the quick.
predatory pricing
Being so competitive as to force the competition to resort to name-calling, having crippled their production, marketing and financing processes.
pre-preparing
- To prepare on someone else’s time.
- Foreplay without the post-play. Or the play.
presenteeism
The syndrome of having people take a day off without drawing on sick pay.
press conference
A meeting between various in-house and external media people, at which agreement is sought on which version of the truth to tell their audiences.
press release
Periodic escape of information.
presupposition
Something that you were supposed to have supposed already, supposedly.
price
The maximum the seller can sell it for and the minimum the buyer can buy it for.
price cutting
Sacrificing profit for turnover, sales and market share, in the hope that being busy will make those you report to think that you are effective.
price fixing
Sensible agreement not to confuse consumers with too much choice.
price sensitivity
The falling off of demand at the slightest whiff of news of a price increase. Best to conceal the real price by bundling products and services, making price comparisons impossible. This technique is widely used in the IT and health insurance industries, among others.
price war
Just like a real war, but just.
principals
In schools or professional partnerships, leaders with responsibility but no authority, continually struggling with impossibly competing priorities.
principles
- What you stand on as you disappear into the quicksand of corporate life.
- Dispensable ethical standards.
priorities
Tasks with varying levels of importance and urgency that you will get around to as soon as you’ve finished your work.
private sector
That part of organised society that is neither nonprofit nor government, but funds both.
proactive
Always thinking about, planning for and resourcing your team to be aware of the myriad possible events that could affect your business, thereby atrophying all spontaneity, innovation and creativity.
probability assessment
Valid about the same proportion of times as tossing a coin will result in its landing on its side.
problem
What managers are paid to solve but actually create.
problem finder
- Psychiatrist.
- Management consultant.
- Perfectionist.
processes
Things to put in place.
procrastination
- Management style in favour of crastinating.
- Default management style.
producer
The consumer’s best friend.
product
Unlike a service, something tangible and worthwhile.
product differentiation
Making the bells and whistles more important than the train.
production
The act of creating a product. Production processes are best left to engineers and concealed from the rest of the so-called management team.
productivity
- Obtaining the same output from reduced input.
- Obtaining more output from the same input.
- Doing more or the same with less.
- The quotient of output over input.
- None of the above, but something nebulous that can be increased to turn an organisation around.
profession
- Any occupation that requires pre-career and ongoing training, is accredited or self-regulated, pays its members less frequently than every week or, in the case of some professions such as poets, artists and actors, never.
- ‘The Professions’, on the other hand, relates to accountants, auditors, actuaries, lawyers, doctors, dentists and the like, as compensation for their being the butt of most good jokes.
- Not management.
Professional
Anyone other than a professor who professes to belong to a profession. Not a manager.
professional disagreement
A misunderstanding that each party to an agreement is paid for, even if all viewpoints are wrong.
professional relationship
A relationship based on money.
profit
When income is greater than expenditure, the executive salary bonus system needs overhauling.
profit centres
Those parts of an organisation worth keeping.
program
A document that assists you with the plot. Subtitles are better. If policy is the strategy, then a program is a tactic in the implementation of that strategy; if strategy is the ‘why’, a program is the ‘what’.
progress
Moving experience, for which there is no temporal evidence, in which the future is thought to be better than the past.
propaganda
- Having a good look at something.
- A press release.
prospectus
Prospect: us.
Protestant work ethic
We’re working on it. Pray for us.
prototype
That test product or service, with at least one fatal flaw, bug, glitch or fault line, which is worth leaking to your competitors.
provision for bad debts
- Quantified pessimism.
- Qualified optimism.
- Marketing’s mistakes transferred to Finance’s problems.
- Honest assessment of clients’ honesty.
- Permission for Accounts Receivable to fail.
psychiatrists
Professional drug dealers and the new jailers. Modern witch-doctors. Inventors of imaginary illnesses.
psychoanalysis
Putting the anal into psychology.
psychological determinism
We’re not to blame.
psychological tests
Putting the litmus paper of the psyche into the snake oil of tyrants; widely used by managers to control other managers. A self-destructive enterprise if ever there was one.
psychology
A study of ghosts in the machine; popular with managers who use it to manipulate others, but are its first victim.
psychotic
Unlike the neurotic who upsets himself, the psychotic upsets others, and is thus locked up in the executive suite.
public policy
The general foundation of government practice as generally publicised to the general public. The real basis for government practice is, of course, never released, and always denied, even in the face of Freedom of Information legislation. When confronted with the facts, bureaucrats can happily shift focus, change the face of the issue and recontextualise by saying that the full picture cannot be known due to national security matters. And they can parade a General to verify that assertion.
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
