Bullshit

There was a workshop yesterday, which is why I was unable to blog (dammit!). It was organised by a company's senior management for a "cross section" of employees for actiona planning to improve employee engagement. There were a whole bunhc of generally unhappy employees - their office location was not nice, they felt no pride in telling people they were working with that company, had no intentions of staying on and the CEO says to them - "lets correct this together... we would like to work on this with you." Everyone was appropriately wowed. But can we be honest for a moment?? I thought not...

Meanwhile in the 'core group' (read senior management and their honchos) meetings, it has already been decided what needs to be done and how much money will be spent to make the employees feel happier than they are now. This workshop is just one of the things they are doing. So as this cross-section of employees begins to present their ideas, gently the more tangential ones are shot down and the ones that are more in line with what the management wants are lauded for their sheer innovativeness. The consultants (thats us) are thanked profusely for their effort in making theirs a happy family... well happier than they were earlier. Such a load of crap I have never heard before. The good thing is that everyone in this company now feels like they have done something to make things better at the workplace - the odd demand for better catering and nicer smelling soap in the washrooms was discarded as hilarious banter.

This my dear friends is what strategy is about. One person (the CEO of your company) thinks of what might be a "reasonable target" for the year based on some of the most ridiculous assumptions like - if every middle class indidvidual used our toothpaste we would achieve a growth of 654% this year.. "which seems reasonable", the CEO thinks to himself. He then passes this message down to this direct reports who are thinking that they are strategic heads but are essentially now mean to justify this target for their individual product groups, so they come up with things like "its our vision to be number one in this segment by surpassing all other toothpaste brands and creating world records in toothpaste usage". The rest of the people just listen in awe as to how someone could spew so much bullshit and get paid the way they do. In the hope that someday they will also get to spew such garbage, everyone else gets to work trying to achieve the target the CEO thought up for the year.

Disclaimer: No offence to toothpaste manufacturers/CEOs/employees. The views expressed in this blog belong to noone in particular.