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.
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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).
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