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Humor is risky - perhaps a third of people enjoy it, a third
don't care and a third consider it irrelevant (at best). However, a sense of
humor may help a coach or consultant stay resourceful in the midst of chaos. Most of
what follows was mostly heard during our systemic coaching or training.
He who laughs last thinks slowest!
- Management Coaching is one-half bureaucracy,
one-third crisis, one-quarter routine and one-eighth accomplishment ...
and never enough time to check the math.
- Corporate Consultants must have equal parts of perspiration,
inspiration and resignation; and must be convincingly confident ...
especially when uncertain about the next step.
- Consulting: If you're not paid for solutions,
are you paid to delay solutions?
Domestic Coaching!
- We were both self-employed coaches seeking a
teamwork opportunity
- Our first date was test marketing and determining the
worst case
scenario
- We were late for a consumption function, so we adjusted our
process flow
- Our first month was our diagnostic period for
market research
- Our first argument ineffectively profiled an
administrative situation
- We respected each other's displayed assets and core competencies
- We evaluated each other's strategic paradigms using
expert
modeling
- Our Valentine cards listed executive summaries in
bulleted
points
- We decided on a functional merger to create a
traditional organization
- We select domestic consumables using
decision-tree analysis
- Going to bed is now a value-added win-win situation
with the co-CEO
- We celebrate our anniversaries with
performance reviews
- And now we are parents with a
new team member on board
- We and our junior executive share many
mutual learning
opportunities
- ... with endless potential for destructive testing and
constructive feedback
- We considered re-engineering and downsizing our
organization
- ... but instead we reorganized into a quality-team based
hierarchy
- Obviously, our contingency planning avoided
divestiture
- So we are marketing our combined systemic expertise
- We offer in-house skill-based
experiential intensives in domestic performance
Questions Consultants Hate (personal experiences)
- How can we concentrate our resources on all of our projects?
- Can you list all the unknown problems we will encounter?
- While you are completing this project - can you also ... ?
- I can't put this off any longer ... will you do it for me?
- Why didn't you tell us the effective solutions first?
- Can you delay finding that solution until ... ?
- Can we delay paying you until ... ?
But all you did was ask us questions - we
found the answers by ourselves!
Management: 10 (personal experiences)
- My project is important ... don't do anything more important!
- We can't reveal our communication problems to employees!
- You must strongly recommend that they keep my position!
- I can't tell them that you solved that problem in one day!
- Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting my schedule!
- I shouldn't have to tell you what I am hiring you to do!
- You must confirm what I have already recommended!
- If I wanted it tomorrow, I would ask for it tomorrow!
- If you get me promoted - I will get you more work!
- I don't have time to tell you exactly what I want!
Consultants: 5 (mixed sources)
- If you can solve it in a week, get a three month contract
- Give expensive advice on topics you know little about
- Hyphenate words-that-don't-need-to-be-hyphenated
- Call it what you like, but be ready to fire people
- Agree with all general statements
- Help us out, consultants...
Success is too important to take seriously!
Management Styles (loosely based on Dr Clare Graves research)
1. Survival: What teamwork? You're on your own!
2. Family: Teamwork is doing it the way that grandfather wanted it done!
3. Power: Teamwork is easy - just do what I say!
4. Establishment: Teamwork is doing it by the book!
5. Success: Teamwork follows the Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the
rules!
6. Consensus: Teamwork is being nice to each other!
7. Systemic: If you were team leader yesterday, today you make the
coffee!
8. Global: If it doesn't save a whale - it's not worth doing!
Demotivating Motivation (heard in
passing)
- Their mindless jobs are better than no jobs at all!
- We will cancel vacations until productivity rises!
- We remove the light at the end of their tunnel until production
increases!
Unbelievababble (from news
services)
- AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months,
saying he lacked intellectual leadership. Walter received
a $26 million severance package.
- In Oregon, USA, a 27-year-old unemployed man with
an MBA murdered three people. "There are too many MBAs"
he said, "if I had chosen another field, this may not
have happened..."
- This line waits for your true (or at least plausible) stories
- ...
Disclaimers:
- All web pages are made with recycled electrons.
- Occasionally, we test new
forms of spelling, punctuation and grammar.
- No managers or consultants were harmed during the construction of this web
page.
Martyn Carruthers |
