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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 heard during systemic coaching or training. Please send us
your examples.
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 Humor
- 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)
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How can we concentrate our resources on all of our projects?
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Can you list all the unknown problems we will encounter?
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While you are completing this project - can you also ... ?
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I can't put this off any longer ... will you do it for me?
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Why didn't you tell us the effective solutions first?
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Can you delay finding that solution until ... ?
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Can we delay paying you until ... ?
All you did was ask 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)
Disclaimers:
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All web pages are made with recycled electrons.
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Occasionally, we test new
forms of spelling, punctuation and grammar.
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No managers or consultants were harmed during the construction of this web
page.
Martyn Carruthers |
