I trust that you’re enjoying 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. It’s in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts until you get to z, or zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
… … … … …
calling
Delusion.
capital
- What you had before you allocated it.
- The city where your profit went.
career
A life sentence for committing the crime of having a family.
caring
Making loving, giving and sharing believable.
case study
Business war story chosen to support your management philosophy.
cash flow
Key economic indicator of viability. Like sex appeal, you’ve either got or you haven’t, and if you haven’t, claims about potential won’t help.
cash incentive
Cash.
casualise
- The professional inability to commit.
- Making staff unemployed at the end of every shift.
- Making staff fight for every session.
- Making overtime over time.
- The belief in the short-term.
- Workplace dating.
catalyst
Someone who causes change in others whilst remaining completely unaffected.
catharsis
Emotional chunder.
caveat
A warning about a warning that lets you off the hook. In fact, if what has been warned about eventuates, even though it might be your fault, both preparedness and prophecy can be claimed by the caveat communicator.
caveat emptor
Let the buyer beware of the seller, because the seller is untrustworthy, unscrupulous, completely devoid of business ethics and likely to defraud; does not apply when you are the seller. Placing the words ‘caveat emptor: conditions apply’ on all products might prevent litigation.
celebrate
To make someone famous for a moment, merely for doing their job.
celebrity
Prophet in a financial year.
censoring
Filleting your truth for mine, for your own good.
centralisation
- One end of the autonomy-control continuum, popular when independence fails.
- Using circular reasoning instead of business planning.
- Being diametrically opposed to diameters.
CEO
- Chief Expert Obfuscator
- Code Enforcement Officer
- Chief Entertainment Officer
- Casualty Evacuation Officer
- Combine Expensive Operations
- Catholic Education Office.
CFO
- Manager who stops the buck.
- Manager who wears a check shirt so that, if the spreadsheet software crashes, it can be pinned to the wall with all those columns and rows adding up to the total in the bottom right-hand cell.
- Manager who ensures that the profit equals the loss.
chair
Manager who tables emotions, and then tabulates them.
chairperson
The individual responsible for casting the seating around the board table and for couching dissent as consensus.
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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.