But wait! There’s more … 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.
… … … … …
critical path analysis
Like those who sloppily use the terms ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’, adherents to this way of constructing services and products are captured by the metaphor of ‘business is war’, and think that the manufacture of a can of baked beans is similar to building a Polaris submarine.
criticism
Management is an illegitimate profession.
cubicle
- A cubicle with a door could also be a workstation in an en-suite.
- A cubicle with a door could be an office.
- A workstation designed to turn eggheads into blockheads.
curiosity
- Child-like quality of wonder destroyed by bureaucracies.
- Active ignorance, because you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.
- ?
customer
- A consumer with ambition.
- An annoying individual or group whose sole aim is to interfere with perfectly good processes, systems, products and services.
cut-rate
Surgery for inflamed prices.
CV
- The most creative work of fiction that a manager is ever likely to write, revealing himself to be a team player, a bushwalker, Rotarian, dubiously educated, and a good family man every Wednesday night and on alternate weekends.
- Check Value.
- Control Value.
- Computer Virus.
- Cardio-Vascular.
- Control Volume.
- Cost Variance.
- Controlled Vocabulary.
- Command Vehicle.
- Cache Verification.
- Authored by a cut-rate cynic.
cynic
Someone who sees not only that the emperor has no clothes, but also that there is, in fact, no emperor.
data
Information that is useless until contextualised by more data, as two data points make a trend. More than two is overkill.
data-mining
- Drilling down.
- Using the vertical to make sense of the horizontal.
(See core values)
data-processing
Warehousing irrelevant information.
deadline
- Something you miss, like nostalgia.
- Something to die for.
deal
- Something to do with the cards you’ve been dealt.
- Something to cut.
- Something you can agree to today, and renege on tomorrow.
- An ideal ordeal.
death wish
Desire to be CEO.
debit
Money to be repaid if and when possible.
debriefing
- Like detoxing, deconstructing and dismantling, debriefing assists stressed employees to forget their original brief.
- Making things longer.
… … … … …
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.