Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
We had an Annual meeting at a suitable venue round the country. Good opportunity to meet our scattered colleagues.
Taken over by Army, annual became 2-3 a year, then also a 'local' meeting every 6 weeks. These took a day including travel. The brief 'bring me solutions not problems '.
We that had been shot gunned into these Army meetings had nothing to report - problem, solution, implementation, no problem - so we kept quiet.
On a report the Colonel said my job was not particularly demanding. "As I have been doing it for 5 years, if I can't make it look easy something is wrong."
Taken over by Army, annual became 2-3 a year, then also a 'local' meeting every 6 weeks. These took a day including travel. The brief 'bring me solutions not problems '.
We that had been shot gunned into these Army meetings had nothing to report - problem, solution, implementation, no problem - so we kept quiet.
On a report the Colonel said my job was not particularly demanding. "As I have been doing it for 5 years, if I can't make it look easy something is wrong."
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Used to take great delight in waiting until some young whizkid had finished trying to confuse everyone with his latest buzzwords by asking him if he knew how to make his presentation in simple words that could be understood and if he could would he do it.
When i retired the boss asked me if i had any advice for him that would make him a better manager. I suggested he stopped the weekly management meetings that only passed on the latest company ***** and gave the other managers a couple of days work trying to implement useless improvements and collecting statistics that would never be required.
Give him his due he cut the weekly meeting to monthly and stopped the *****..
When i retired the boss asked me if i had any advice for him that would make him a better manager. I suggested he stopped the weekly management meetings that only passed on the latest company ***** and gave the other managers a couple of days work trying to implement useless improvements and collecting statistics that would never be required.
Give him his due he cut the weekly meeting to monthly and stopped the *****..
- ian16th
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Attended a Time Management course once.
The 1st item was; Time Cannot Be Managed! It happens.
The 1st item was; Time Cannot Be Managed! It happens.
Cynicism improves with age
- TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Apart from technically orientated courses or those with a definable and empirically verifiable outcome, like an examination or a completed artifact or something like that, the only life management course or school that I have ever heard about or seen that made a modicum of sense was this one...
"Hard cheese" indeed!
"Hard cheese" indeed!
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Coupla years back one hot-tempered capt I knew in my last mob was advised to attend Anger Management sessions or risk getting the arse at Contract renewal time (which was coming up).
Thing is, a bit like me, he manages his anger quite well by blowing the sh!t out of those who fully deserve it. Still he attended one in town at his own cost...and ended up blowing the living shi!t out of the counselor something fierce!
He got his contract renewed though with some assisting input from his mates.
Thing is, a bit like me, he manages his anger quite well by blowing the sh!t out of those who fully deserve it. Still he attended one in town at his own cost...and ended up blowing the living shi!t out of the counselor something fierce!
He got his contract renewed though with some assisting input from his mates.
- Ex-Ascot
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
I have been trying to find the clip of Only Fools and Horses where Cassandra invites her boss to dinner. Del invites himself. Her boss drops in all the crap business speak. Can't find it on YouTube. It' s the one where they play Trivial Pursuit after dinner. I have it on portable HD but clipping it and posting it here is way beyond my pay grade.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
That reminds me sah - forgot to mention I watched a few episodes of Only Fools and Horses. Damn funny!
It’s not up there with Fawlty Towers IMO but akin to Steptoe & Son in humourality level - so it didn’t cause me to bust a gut like Basil always did - but provided a few good belly laughs nonetheless.
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
We used to have a WORM every week in the Briefing Room. Weekly Operations Review Meeting, attendance mandatory for OFSO. Utterly boring. One German, who loved his own voice, which never changed in pitch or inflection, would send us all to sleep. Then the OFD, the Operations Flight Director, would pick on someone, usually me, to answer some spurious question, the answer to which everyone already knew and didn't give a toss about. I used to get a member of my staff to come and rescue me from the meeting "as there is an urgent query to be dealt with" but couldn't do that every week.
- ian16th
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Shouldn't have 'Weekly Meetings', people only invent things for the agenda or to make them look active/important.
You should only have meetings when there is a need.
You should only have meetings when there is a need.
Cynicism improves with age
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Which is just about never, so that would eliminate 99.9% of all meetings, meaning that most people in most organisations would become redundant.You should only have meetings when there is a need.
In my last job - and it's clear why it was my last - I either refused to go to meetings or sat and made abrasive remarks until I was asked to leave.
I was asked to write the minutes after one meeting and I wrote as follows :
Please refer to the minutes of department meetings held on the following dates
xx/xxx xx/xxx xx/xxx etc.
It's all in there. At today's meeting nothing was said that we haven't all heard a dozen or more times before.
Nothing was decided or agreed.
For the minutes of next week's department meeting, please refer to this document.
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Slasher wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 6:17 amThat reminds me sah - forgot to mention I watched a few episodes of Only Fools and Horses. Damn funny!
It’s not up there with Fawlty Towers IMO but akin to Steptoe & Son in humourality level - so it didn’t cause me to bust a gut like Basil always did - but provided a few good belly laughs nonetheless.
Capt have you seen 'Men Behaving Badly' You will like that. Just working our way through it again.
We have every single episode of Fawlty Towers and all but a few of Only Fools and Horses. It has probably been posted here before but this is a British TV comedy classic.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
I never even saw Upstairs Downstairs, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Bounder nor The Goon Show. But I understand they were all good English programs.
Benny Hill I liked a lot.
Benny Hill I liked a lot.
- ian16th
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Rumpole of the Bailey is well worth getting, though it did suffer from series fatigue in its later days.
From what I've picked up about you from your postings, I cannot understand why you would like the Benny Hill Show.
From what I've picked up about you from your postings, I cannot understand why you would like the Benny Hill Show.
Cynicism improves with age
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
My Dad was a huge Benny Hill fan. My mother and I couldn't stand his shows.
- TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Captain Slasher has always struck me as a Paul Hogan kind of guy...
Now there's a business leader I would follow.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
When I took over my last job I was told I was overdue an H&S meeting. Ten years later I had yet to hold one. I said H&S was an on going issue. Guys reported a problem, solution implemented.
However when my site manager was fired I found a man with a dickie ticker, working on his own, on kit for which he wasn't trained, cutting iron bars which dropped in the floor. He was wearing moccasins, no safety glasses or gloves, and the power cable was on the floor where the bars were dropping.
I suggested to the acting site manager, who was not on site, that he should get a grip. Prat argued.
However when my site manager was fired I found a man with a dickie ticker, working on his own, on kit for which he wasn't trained, cutting iron bars which dropped in the floor. He was wearing moccasins, no safety glasses or gloves, and the power cable was on the floor where the bars were dropping.
I suggested to the acting site manager, who was not on site, that he should get a grip. Prat argued.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Nah Gob. I’m more your heroic Leo Wanker type.TheGreenGoblin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 2:23 pmCaptain Slasher has always struck me as a Paul Hogan kind of guy...
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Oddly enough there was an article by John Timpson about business meetings in yesterdays Telegraph. Once a month is too often. Try a meeting without chairs. Don't read out the previous minutes!
- TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Sums it up perfectly!
Does anybody remember Colin's sandwich? Same splenetic sense of humour. Irony personified here...
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."