Management - In Laws And Out Laws

This is a sequel to my earlier post ‘Laws Made Not By Law-Makers

I came by an interesting feature relating to management in The Economic Times of the 9^th October. Here is an extract of some interesting parts in it:

I. Hot Air Ride

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced the altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a little more and shouted, ”Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman replied, ”You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be an engineer.” said the balloonist. “I am.” replied the woman. “How do you know?”

“Well” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is, I am lost. Frankly, you have not been of much help at all. If anything, you have delayed my trip.”

The woman responded, “You must be in management.” “I am.” replied the balloonist, “but how do you know?”

“Well”, said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep and you expect people beneath you   to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

II. Mind The Chair

A crow was sitting on a tree doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow and asked him, ”Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?” The crow answered, “Sure, why not?” So the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Q: What do we learn from this?

A: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up.

III. Rowing Speak

The American and the Japanese corporate offices of a large multinational corporation decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practised hard and long to reach their peak performance.

On the big day, they felt ready. The Japanese team won by a mile. The American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found. So a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.

The consultant’s finding: The Japanese team had 8 people rowing and one person steering, the American team had one person rowing and 8 people steering.

After a year of study and millions spent on analyzing the problem, the firm concluded that too many people were steering and not enough were rowing on the American team.

So, as the race day neared again the following year, the American team’s management structure was completely reorganised. The new structure: 4 Steering Managers, 3 Area Steering Managers and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.  

The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American office laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.

One-Liners:

- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

- Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the problem.

- Exceptions always outnumber rules.

- If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.

- Progress is made by lazy men looking for an easier way to do things.

- A meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours wasted.

What Boss says and what he means:

That is very interesting. – I disagree.

I don’t disagree. – I disagree.

I don’t totally disagree with you. – You may be right, but I don’t care.

You obviously put a lot of work into this. – This is awful.

In a perfect world – Just get it working and get it out of the door.

We have to leverage our resources. – You’re working weekends.

Individual contributor – Employee who does real work

I’d like your buy-in on this. – I want someone else to blame when this thing bombs.

We need to syndicate this decision. – We need to spread blame if it backfires.

We have to put on our marketing hats. – We have to put ethics aside.

I’m glad you asked me that. – Public Relations has written a carefully phrased answer.

I see you involved your peers in developing your proposal. – One person couldn’t possibly come up with something this stupid.

I’ll never lie to you. – The truth will change frequently.

Human resources – A bulk commodity, like lentils or cinder blocks

Funny Business by Glasbergen www.glasbergen.com :

Think globally, act locally, panic internally.