by Rodney Marks | Jan 6, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
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.
… … … … …
money
- Something to pay taxes with.
- The buck stops here.
monopoly
- The category killer that nearly did.
- Government’s method for coping with competition.
moral courage
Like regular courage, but preceded by a fable.
morale
A happy way of corporatising depression and making it the responsibility of big pharma.
morality
My right to impose my definition of right on you.
motivate
To make the lazy work hard. Never agree to have this impossible task included in your job description.
motivational speaker
Professional with a winning personality, and a fee structure to match.
motivational psychology
The study of moving forward.
moving forward
Used by managers to keep one word ahead of their colleagues, who are merely moving.
multiculturalism
The belief that all cultures are of equal value and therefore of none.
multinational
- An entity with no legal or ethical responsibilities in any one country.
- The private sector equivalent of the United Nations, but with a better bureaucracy.
multiskilled
The ability to simultaneously do your job while telling people that you’re doing it.
multisourcing
The recognition that many other organisations are now better than your organisation at what you used to do.
multitasking
- The disorder that promotes attention deficit hyperactivity.
- Insourcing.
mythology
The foundation of the management profession, undermined by comparison with real professions, such as banking, gambling and witchcraft.
need
Means necessity when physiological; means nothing when psychological.
negotiation
The shifting mix of cooperation and competition that precedes victory by the least ethical.
nepotism
Making family values pay off.
nervousness
The unpleasant feeling rightly experienced by CEOs at AGMs.
net
Earnings after profit is taken away.
networks
An interconnected, integrated synthesis of an holistic totality.
neurotic
Accepts that 2 + 2 = 4 but can’t stand it.
‘never give up’
Perceived as tenacity by managers, intransigence by workers, stubbornness by spouses and stupidity by psychiatrists.
news
- Vehicle for the expression of personal feelings.
- Medium for the listing of possibilities. For instance: ‘Managers with MBAs may be more effective’, the opposite of which is also true.
- There is no news.
newspaper
- Something to hit the dog with.
- Useful at the base of a birdcage.
- Wards off melanoma at the cricket, when folded into a hat.
- Justification for lopping unsightly trees.
- Old-fashioned way to train bloggers.
- Helpful in the separation of fish from chips.
niche
A rut that you have come to terms with.
nightmare
A smiling politician shaking your hand.
non-executive director
An executive who doesn’t work for the company he’s working for.
non-profit organisation
A profitable business entity that would be unprofitable if subjected to taxes payable by a for-profit organisation.
nonsense
I disagree with you but I don’t know why.
non-viable option
Reducing managers’ salaries.
novels
Books with almost as much pride and prejudice as management reporting.
now
Soon-ish.
numbers
Used by the illiterate to baffle the innumerate.
obedience
Revealing lack of initiative by unquestioningly following orders.
objectives
Something against which to measure your unattained aims.
obligation
Getting into trouble for something that you didn’t do. Or did.
obscenity
Dismissing someone on the grounds of personality, irrespective of performance on or off the field.
obsolete
Manager who doesn’t use consultants, coaches or mentors.
old boys’ network
Proof that life after high school is an anticlimax.
old girls’ network
Proof that life after school is climacteric.
online
An economic reality with virtual income and actual expenditure, resulting in real losses.
open-minded
Empty-headed manager.
operations
The part of the business that actually produces things. If it wasn’t for operations (also known as production) the finance and marketing and leadership teams would have nothing – and be nothing. Yet finance continues to be patronising by requiring operations to submit plans and targets and other irrelevant signs of submission, and marketing says that if the market doesn’t know about the firm’s output, all will be lost. In fact businesses existed for a long time with the financial trivia being done in leaders’ spare time and marketing being carried out by actually serving customers.
opinion
- Temporary malleable belief, available to be surrendered for one held by a superior.
- Something a manager gives, but never takes.
opportunities
(see challenges)
opportunity cost
Opportunity lost.
optimal solution
The one where you tell most of the truth and still get to keep your job.
optimism
- Expecting everything to come out as expected.
- Excuse for laziness.
(see pessimism)
optimum
- The number of products or services required to create the largest profit possible using the smallest quantity of available resources.
- Opting to keep mum.
(see maximum)
orator
Speaker who speaks expertly.
order
- While there is chaos theory, there is no order theory, so let’s forget it.
- It’s got form.
organisation
- A collection of disorganised individuals temporarily occupying permanent roles with transferable titles.
- An amoral entity responsible to unaccountable stakeholders.
organisation chart
A graphic representation of who is meant to report to whom. Straight lines show formal reporting connections between people who have no chance whatsoever of influencing each other. Dotted lines show multiple or indirect relationships between people who know that have no power over each other and therefore work together with reciprocal respect. Not all dotted lines are on the chart. For instance, the CEO’s personal assistant has more power than senior executives.
organisational behaviour
They don’t behave.
(see success)
organisational climate
Seasonally adjusted work environment that changes from minute to minute and person to person.
organisational culture
People and culture are the essences of organisations, so you must destroy both to make an impact, create a legacy and advance your career.
organization
An American organisation. Just like a normal organisation, but with more buzzwords.
other
Neither this nor that.
output
An input on the way out.
outsource
To reduce fixed costs by increasing variable costs.
out-tray
Someone else’s in-tray.
overwork
- The fine line between working too hard – and not hard enough.
- The two-hour executive breakfast; three-hour executive lunch; the four-hour executive dinner.
oxymoron
Self-contradictory, paradoxical two-word phrase, such as entrepreneurial management, lead manager or managerial leadership.
… … … … …
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 5, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
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.
… … … … …
manipulation
Comes between managing director and manual worker.
manual worker
Someone who can see the effect of his labour, usually derided by insecure workers who can’t.
margin
The straight and narrow. See far left and far right, on this and other pages.
marginal cost
The cost of giving all workers a new ruler.
marginal utility
A ute in a ditch.
market economy
The market is the economy.
market research
An activity based on the false assumption that people will tell you what they will buy before they do, or that they even know what that would be.
market value
The fallacious belief that an agreed price can be determined before sale. It is the simultaneous denial and admission that the market value is what it is and cannot be known until then. Only through demonstrated preference can preference be demonstrated.
marketing
Matching impossible market wants and needs with unlikely organisational capability and capacity.
martyr
Someone who dies for an undying truth.
Marxism
The belief that all individuals, other than Karl Marx, are unimportant.
mass education
Training for taxi drivers.
materialism
When idealism doesn’t matter.
matrix
A way of making words look like numbers; particularly useful if you are trying to hide data.
maturity
When a market or product cycle is more grown up than any producer or consumer in it.
maximum
- The largest number possible using available resources, irrespective of profitability.
- A large maternal figure.
(see optimum)
MBA
- Mistaken Business Acumen, or Married But Available, or Mind-Blowing Asset.
- The misstep between BBA and DBA.
MBFA
Like Management By Wandering About – but more widespread.
me
Public I.
measurement
Transforming managerial behaviour into take-home pay.
medals
Unqualified qualifications awarded as receipts for membership dues.
meeting
A form of occupational group therapy, whose purpose is to console people who cannot solve a particular problem alone by proving that no one else can either.
melodrama
- The daily play of characters in the business pages, with managing director heroes being pursued by regulator villains, with industry associations cheering and trade unions booing from the sidelines.
- Vice versa.
memory
What managers lose when giving evidence before (but not after) government commissions.
mental disorder
Condition of someone found in the management section of bookshops.
mentor
Someone who meant well.
mentoring
To gossip nostalgically.
merger
- Euphemism for acquisition.
- When wedlock becomes deadlock.
- When deadlock becomes wedlock.
- The period prior to de-merger.
(also see synergy)
metaphor
- A figure of speech in a manner of speaking.
- Like a simile.
metaphysics
Sub-editors who go above and beyond.
method
A system without a cycle.
microeconomics
Economic fine print.
midlife crisis
Panic-stricken realisation that you have not become what you wanted to be, and that you don’t won’t to be that person anymore.
millionaire
- Manager with a large mortgage and three divorces.
- House-owner with neither a mortgage nor a divorce.
mind
Mythical entity with free will that replaces the soul as the spiritual centre of the individual. A bucket for thoughts, feelings, emotions, values, beliefs and memories. Source of peculiar, unconscionable, undiagnosable illnesses, diagnosed by corporate psychiatrists and industrial psychologists.
minutes
A work of fiction. The history of a meeting from the viewpoint of the minute-taker; the secretary of a meeting is therefore the most powerful person there.
misbehavioural science
The science of labelling employees who are misbehaving as having ‘inappropriate behaviour’, when they’re really just being naughty; a pseudoscience whose practitioners believe that the facts of misbehaviour are wrong.
miscellaneous
Assorted sundry heterogeneous items that would be misplaced elsewhere.
mission statement
The aims of an organisation and what sort of service it intends to provide: both pugnacious and spiritual.
mistakes
Made by managers due to information provided by subordinates; made by workers due to irrationality.
mob
- The collective noun for many kangaroos.
- The collective noun for many Australian lawyers.
- The collective noun for many kangaroo courts.
model
A theoretical construct which is meant to represent a slice of reality. There is no model of reality as a whole. All the pieces add up to contradictory realities. The whole is not greater than the sum of its parts, it is just that the elements are not contextualised and the whole created from them doesn’t look like any component part. The main beneficiaries of models are the model makers, who, unless they are in the theatrical special effects business, may be management consultants, economists, strategists, policy analysts, planners or pretenders.
modus operandi
Roman management style.
mole
Employee having a friendly chat about colleagues with the organisational psychologist.
monetary policy
Determining that a dollar is worth 100 cents.
(see fiscal policy, which disputes the math, and the maths, and the arithmetic that makes one the other)
… … … … …
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 4, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
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.
… … … … …
leisure
- Making laziness a virtue.
- Mythical, idyllic time between jobs.
lending
The process of renting money to people who can’t afford to buy it yet.
lesser evil
Bachelor of Business Administration.
level playing field
- Surveyor’s fantasy: a theodolite on a tripod.
- Where the goal posts were moved to.
liability
- A pain in the asset base.
- The amount that you paid for an asset when you thought that it was worth more.
- A lapsed asset.
- A re-valued asset.
liberal-minded
Someone who believes that everything is relative, including the claim that ‘everything is relative’.
(See idiot)
library
Place where homeless people watch TV.
lifelong learning
Slow learners.
lifetime warranty
(circular reasoning) A worthless guarantee which states that as long as the product is working, you’ll fix it, and that as soon as it is broken, its lifetime is over, and, consequently, so too is its warranty.
limited liability company
A business entity whose shareholders are limited and a liability to society.
liquidate
To make a liquid from a solid by letting off steam.
listening
Time to think of what you are going to say next.
literacy
- People who understand the literal meaning of symbols. Uncharacteristic of postmodernism.
- Numeracy for the innumerate.
literature
A body of knowledge that professionals consult after they retire.
litigation
More paperwork. A liturgy to litter, literally.
logic
The art of reasoning imposed on psychiatrists by their patients.
logistics
- A new word for very big trucks, created by the very big people who drive them, so no one’s going to argue. The same goes for supply chain management, which refers to both truck drivers and their bosses, and to other big people in the shipping and airfreight industries.
- The sequencing and measurement of queues, delays and excuses.
long-range planning
Planning that includes planning as part of its planning.
long-term
The next reporting period.
loophole
- A chance to keep your money whole.
- The holey dollar.
- The holy dollar.
loss leader
The fallback justification to which you retreat when selling something below cost.
loyalty
- The last domain of employees uncompetitive in the marketplace.
- Lack of ambition.
loyalty program
A plan to encourage customers to keep buying something when its intrinsic merit is not enough.
luck
Having a job with authority but no accountability.
(see management consultant)
Machiavellian
The art of managing people by lying to them and getting away with it, by (mis)quoting Machiavelli.
macroeconomics
Economists defending their income.
Magic
Psychological tests.
management
What managers do until they become leaders.
management academic
Someone who conspires with management students in the shared misbelief that:
- management can be taught, and
- management can be learnt.
Those who can: do.
Those who can’t: educate.
Those who can’t educate: consult.
Those who can’t consult: profess.
Those who can’t profess: train managers.
management by objectives (MBO)
Management by thinking about tomorrow instead of the day after.
management consultant
A highly educated unemployed person continually attending paid job interviews.
management retreat
- Sexual harassment without the sex.
- A temple in which the religion of management is taught backwards.
management school
Enrolled in by executives whose high opinion of their own leadership potential is not shared by their superiors. However, if your career is failing, an MBA won’t help.
management science
An oxymoronic description of management which assumes that all employees have read the same textbook: the one that the boss gave them.
managing director (MD)
The least informed person in the organisation. Just managing.
… … … … …
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 3, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
We continue on and on and on 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.
… … … … …
joint venture
Shared risk without shared returns.
junk mail
Slow spam.
just price
Price.
justice
Fair enough.
just-in-time manufacturing or production
Justification for a seat-of-the-pants management style unsupported by adequate stock reserves.
key player
An employee you can’t sack before finding a replacement.
knee-jerk reaction
The tendency to knee a jerk in the reaction.
knowledge
What information is to data, knowledge is to information. This knowing ledge is an essential platform from which to escape a profit plateau.
knowledge worker
Human catalyst who traces the progress of data to information to knowledge to wisdom, and remains unaffected by the journey.
Labour Day
Twenty-four hours during which no work takes place, in order to celebrate the eight hour day.
laconic
Manner of speaking that makes inarticulateness a virtue.
laissez-faire
- Planning to have no plan.
- Planning to have a plan.
- Lazy fare.
- The economic belief that business can do better without government help.
landlord
The lessor of two evils.
language
What distinguishes humans from animals, and what humans use to deny the distinction.
lateral mobility
Moving the unsackable sideways.
lateral thinker
A prostitute at performance appraisal time.
lateral thinking
- Horizontal thinking performed by a management philosopher.
- Being promoted sideways, and, at the end of the day, thinking that that can’t be.
laughter
Honest response to a management decision.
launch
The ritual celebration of the birth of a new product or service, at which the baby is sold to pay for contraception.
law
The logically defensible rules of conduct, which obviously cannot be a creation of government, and against which managers immunise themselves. Used to put entrepreneurs in jail and to frighten managers. Not applicable to leaders.
lawyers
- Those who prosecute both sides of de fence.
- Justification for the existence of alternate dispute resolution.
- One of three groups of professionals, wedged between prostitutes and doctors, whom lawyers visit in sequence.
lay-offs
Weasel word for transferring the impact of management mistakes to subordinates.
laziness
Poor motivation.
lead by example
I am an example of good leadership; you should lead like I lead. Then there’ll be no followers …
lead time
The time between completing one prerequisite task and commencing its successor, minus the time taken to calculate it.
leader
If a manager is someone with paid followers, then a leader is someone with unpaid followers who will jump over the cliff with them, or even for them.
leadership
- What a leader does. And a leader shows leadership. Only a leader can see this apparent paradox as truth. The corollaries of this statement are:
- if you think this reasoning is circular, you’ll never make it to the top; and
- if you’re not confused, then you really don’t understand what’s going on.
- The relationship between the led and those who want to bewitch them.
learning curve
- A rounded education.
- A metaphor of a graphical representation of exponential acquisition.
- Turning educational corners.
- An educated guess.
learning opportunity
- A failure. There is no absolute failure, except the failure to say that your failure is not a learning opportunity.
- Anything and everything.
learning organisation
Potential customer for a teaching organisation.
lecture
A one-sided exchange of ideas between two parties, without passing through the minds of either.
legislation
A refuge for the white-collar criminal to retreat behind when explaining non-compliant corporate governance behaviour.
… … … … …
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 2, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here we go again, with more of 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.
… … … … …
intentions
Potholes on the road to management.
interest
- Additional unearned money that you receive if you lend money, or the additional money that you pay on money that you borrow. The difference between these two interest rates should always be in the favour of the banks, as this is how they are funded. The cost of capital is equivalent to calculating it.
- The price of time.
interim results
Retractable conclusions about financial performance.
internet
Communication medium for networking the depersonalisation of human contact.
internet access
What it takes you to realise that the information you are looking for is in your filing cabinet.
internet security
A continuous game between anti-virus and anti-spamming software developers, and 3 to 6 year olds auditioning for careers.
interview
A face-to-face meeting with a job candidate, before appointing the one most like the interviewer, their client or their boss.
intrapreneur
A manager pretending to be an entrepreneur, without risking his own capital.
in-tray
- Open-cut recycling bin.
- Bottomless pit of tasks which would have been completed if your colleagues had been competent.
intuition
A catch-all defense when logic fails.
invention
Something created from the inventory.
inventory
Over-ordered stock.
investment
A gamble that hasn’t yet paid off.
investment banking
The opposite of consumption banking, whereby the financial institution tries to make money from its customers.
invisible hand
Spontaneous order, in that organisations will prosper without management.
invoice
A document, valuable to the writer but inconsequential to the recipient, which makes an ambit claim on the latter’s funds.
irreversible decision
One that will be enforced until it is overturned.
isms
A lower case study about the International Strategic Management Society.
issues management
Outsourcing an apology.
it depends
Disclaimer.
italics
jargon
Language used by managers to obfuscate, bamboozle and befuddle everyone, even themselves.
jealousy
I resent that.
job description
A list of some of the things that might be expected from you in your role, but not as important as the unexplained (and inexplicable) catalogue of tasks that you actually perform, especially being a scapegoat for your immediate boss’s mistakes.
job dissatisfaction, or excuses for changing jobs
- Your diligence showed up colleagues as lazy, and they white-anted you 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.
- You embrace change, and whilst terribly loyal, always look for opportunities to grow, both as a person and as a professional.
job enlargement
Giving you wider responsibilities without extra pay.
job enrichment
Giving you deeper responsibilities without extra pay.
job rotation
Swapping your crummy job for someone else’s, without extra pay.
job satisfaction
- A feeling promoted by executive search consultants when mere salary isn’t enough.
- The pleasure given to people who enlarge, enrich or rotate other people’s jobs.
- Something you spend.
- Indication of lack of initiative.
… … … … …
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 1, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
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.
… … … … …
incompetence
People-orientated, collegial, compassionate, democratic, emotionally intelligent, management-schooled, liberal-minded, flexible, open-minded, visionary modus operandi.
incompetent
Antonym of Machiavellian.
indecisiveness
indemnity
Insuring yourself against your own incompetence.
independence
Quality of the loose cannon who fires broadsides at meetings.
indifference
- Turning a deaf ear to customers’ complaints. A suggestion box without the box.
- Being cool.
individualism
Belief in the value of the individual, especially when no-one agrees with you. Inconsistent with the practice of management.
industrial espionage
Competitive research.
industrial psychology
The use of a caring profession in an uncaring way.
industrial sociology
The use of a non-caring profession in a caring way.
industry
A sector that works.
industry relations
The forced tripartite relationship between government, employees and employers, based on the misconception that they have common goals. Best to let consumers work it out.
inertia
The closest thing to stability achieved by most organisations.
inflation
- An increase in the quantity of money.
- Another form of taxation without consent.
- The creation, by government, of less from more.
information
News to abuse.
information technology
Software-hardware integration, into which randomly selected knowledge is placed temporarily, only to see it irrevocably transmuted into meaningless gibberish upon output.
infrastructure
The synthesised vertices and integrated, interconnected interfaces of the meta-architecture of a system’s physical resources, sometimes designed to dovetail with the nexuses of human resources, sometimes designed to supersede them.
initiative
Putting your initials to an action.
innocent
Not yet guilty.
innovation
Creativity you get paid for.
insanity
Inflexible idea that any individual manager is important, indispensable and irreplaceable.
insolvent
The state of being in sudsy liquid, where froth bubbles and vice versa, for the purpose of cleaning hard-to-remove stains from your balance sheet.
inspiration
Temporary insanity.
institution
Institute for incantation and decanting.
instructions
Managers telling managers how to manage.
insubordination
- Clearing your throat during your boss’s PowerPoint presentation.
- Clarifying to your boss what you thought they said.
- Free speech.
intangible asset
Something that you’re happy to quantify when selling and to qualify when buying.
integration
Compelling competing business entities to work together.
integrity
Principled rectitude.
intellectual
The official enemy of managers. The first person to be shot, come the managerial revolution.
intellectual property
Where intellectuals live.
intelligence tests
- Gauge of compliance – provides evidence of the intelligent refusal to do them.
- Superseded by emotional intelligence tests.
- Measure of proficiency at intelligence tests.
- Politically correct way of dividing them from us.
- Bag of tricks invented by psychologists; used by managers to assess entry into their profession, but excludes nobody (see idiot).
… … … … …
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.
