Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
- TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
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...
Oddly enough there was an article by John Timpson about business meetings in yesterdays Telegraph.
How to cut down on wasteful meetings – the biggest source of inefficiency in UK business
The problem isn't just too many meetings, but too many badly run ones Credit: Alamy
Q I’m a senior manager and one of my goals this year is to cut down on meetings – both my own and those in my department. How might you suggest that I do this and what should we be aiming for?
A Meetings must be the biggest source of inefficiency in UK business.
Too often when you call a contact on the phone, you’re thwarted as they’re “in a meeting”, while PAs claim their boss is in “back-to-back meetings” all day. Your status now seems to be gauged by your membership of the important committees, while inter-office disputes can be triggered by double-booking a meeting room.
I often wonder why my fellow travellers wake up early enough on Monday to catch the peak-rate 7.23am train from Crewe to Euston.
No doubt half of them are heading for a meeting – a significant proportion no doubt heading back later without contributing to the discussion. Every day, millions of words are written for meeting minutes, most of which are largely ignored.
Much of the damage has already been done for 2020. Most organisations have already published their meeting timetable: a network of board meetings, audit and remuneration committees, operational boards, budget approval sessions and appraisals.
These will create a subset of “pre-meeting meetings” so that executives are able to have a dress rehearsal. Then there’s the time spent producing the board papers.
With so much time spent in meeting rooms, we might expect that experienced delegates would be experts at meeting management. Sadly, they have a lot to learn. The problem isn’t just too many meetings, but too many badly run ones without a purpose.
There are other faults that need correcting. Take meeting papers, which are often issued too late – and even if they are punctual, some committee members don’t read them.
Consequently, the author of the report is asked to “take us through it” and repeats everything that was put in writing. Much depends on having a good chair who keeps discussion to the point and concentrates on the things that matter. The best meetings have few members and don’t take long. Short ones focus the mind on meaningful contributions.
This all suggests that you are right to cut down on meetings, but how do you buck the trend? An easy way is to cut the schedule in half. Monthly meetings are usually too frequent, so change to six a year. Stand up meeting tables – an idea used by Asda in the Eighties and since adopted by Timpson – usually keep things to half an hour or less.
A meeting-free February might be too drastic, but you could ban them during the last week of every month.
That said, don’t have a total ban; managers still need to meet to compare notes, coordinate plans, discuss ideas and communicate decisions.
The next time you walk past a room full of executives in deep discussion, calculate how much you’re paying them to sit round the table. Even more to the point, think of how much of their time is being wasted. In some companies, the meeting schedule leaves executives less than 20pc of their job time to get things done.
- TheGreenGoblin
- Chief Pilot
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
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...
Thing is Gob she never signed nothin’, but nonetheless a good scripting and execution with funny out-of-the-box rationality.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Very clever, the old 'take-away' technique. Used very effectively by me once when some wanker came to look at a car I was selling, was so obnoxious and picky I said I couldn't be bothered with him and told him to leave. He rang me about 5 times saying he wanted the car .... and went ballistic when I told him I'd sold it someone else.
This 'interview' is good too :
This 'interview' is good too :
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Now you know the difference.
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Happened for real. Mrs PN answered an ad for a surgical post. It became obvious that they had already selected an internal recruit and they were actually offering a geriatruc position. They were quite out out when she terminated the interview as they needed a number of interviews to show due process.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
In CPT I was approached by a company director who offered me a job. I wasn't very interested as I was quite happy with the job I had, but went for the interview anyway.
We get to :
"Ja, now, is you bilingual"
"Yes" (At the time I spoke 3 languages properly plus a smattering of a couple of others.)
5 minutes interviewer switches to Afrikaans.
"Sorry, I don't understand Afrikaans" (I do now but didn't then.)
"But you said you was bilingual."
In ZA in those days being bilingual to a Dutchman meant you spoke Afrikaans and might be to string together a few words in English.
I politely declined any further conversation and left the interview. Every time I saw the man, he offered me a job.
We get to :
"Ja, now, is you bilingual"
"Yes" (At the time I spoke 3 languages properly plus a smattering of a couple of others.)
5 minutes interviewer switches to Afrikaans.
"Sorry, I don't understand Afrikaans" (I do now but didn't then.)
"But you said you was bilingual."
In ZA in those days being bilingual to a Dutchman meant you spoke Afrikaans and might be to string together a few words in English.
I politely declined any further conversation and left the interview. Every time I saw the man, he offered me a job.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
“In an abundance of caution” = our team of attorneys and accountants has assured us positively that if we keep on doing what we would prefer to do, the lawsuits will cost far more than the loss of income if we pretend to be socially responsible’.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Tweetalig ??Capetonian wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:29 am"Sorry, I don't understand Afrikaans" (I do now but didn't then.)
"But you said you was bilingual."
Wouldn't accept my CPL because I wasn't. But then again having met a few yarpies from the Vrystat, perhaps understandable. So contrary, if the aircraft crashed and was on fire, they wouldn't exit until told to in Effrikaans.
Rev Mother Bene Gesserit.
Sent from my PDP11/05 running RSX-11D via an ASR33 (TTY)
Sent from my PDP11/05 running RSX-11D via an ASR33 (TTY)
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
I chanced upon this :
Apparently it's ***** smartarse wankspeak for someone who brings business in for a company.But it dismissed claims that the legal rainmaker had breached his duties by attempting to kiss her at a previous event in May 2016.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Thanks for the explanation. I would have thought the job title referred to someone involved in cloud seeding.
Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
I had to look it up. I would have thought it was a lawyer who pissed on his colleagues!
- Ex-Ascot
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Must be a new one probably from across the pond.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
The Rainmaker by John Gresham
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
I once had this one,..."We've given you the watch, now you tell us the time..." ... It was from QF Folk, really people, come out and live in the real world.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... Oscar Wilde
- TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Right up there with comments like "come and scuba in my think tank!"Fliegenmong wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 12:57 pmI once had this one,..."We've given you the watch, now you tell us the time..." ... It was from QF Folk, really people, come out and live in the real world.
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."
- Woody
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
As of today, I’m working under my third manager in less than 12 months, due to yet another reorganisation . The results of these management restructures so far, are higher staff turnover, lower morale and the worst operational performance for years
When all else fails, read the instructions.
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Yes, I suffered that a couple of times. Responsibilities shuffled to suit a couple of managers interests. I got shafted with two managers that had no idea of either my job or my capabilities.
- 4mastacker
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Re: Business meetings, management speak, management consultants and sundry idiots...
Seemed that whenever a new sqn boss took over, the first thing he done was "re-organise" the sqn's admin office....then "re-organise" again just before he was posted only for his successor to repeat the process on arrival .
It's always my fault - SWMBO