Do you get messages about these Gestapo seminars for useless managers?

The latest one – shades of 1984 – is called How Managers Can Confront – and Stop – Unacceptable Employee Behavior

It sure tells you how to kick the rebs into line

It includes a “module” called “Progressive Discipline: The “Career Advocate” Method for Salvaging Endangered Employees”.

The “overview” says that “every manager encounters employees who cross the line into unacceptable behavior. Maybe they tell off-color jokes. Spread gossip. Act like slobs. Practice poor personal hygiene. Ridicule core organizational values.”

What kind of person talks about “core organizational values?”

You can just picture it.

“Bloggs! Stand to attention. Have you been ridiculing core organisational values, you treacherous wretch?”

God, what garbage. Aimed at people with three fatal problems.

1. Don’t know how to hire the right people.

2. Don’t know how to manage or motivate them.

3. Speak in some weird pseudo-English that only exists among the living dead.

There’s a lot of them about. Like zombies they walk jerkily about in large firms, politics and government.

Incidentally, one of the greatest TV commercials ever, the one that made Apple and Chiat/Day famous, was based on the visceral loathing normal people have for this mindless, totalitarian approach to managing people.

Watch it.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/1984-apple-commercial/9742-1_53-15243.html

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

5 Comments

  1. Rezbi

    Not surprising.

    I went for a job, some years ago, for the position of branch manager at a major retail chain.

    After the interview the guy told me I was perfect management material… except for the fact he felt I'd be too soft on my staff.

    But I was otherwise perfect for the role!!!

    Reply
  2. Glyn

    Thanks Drayton,

    I love this stuff. I find that the profiles on Linked In are a good source, particularly if you track down people from Korporat Kultur. I found one of my ex-colleagues yesterday. He is now;

    “… working with an outstanding change consultancy … They also have a fantastic incubator capability … as well as the ability to outsource sales.”

    I can't help wonder if this really means he is;
    'working as a painter and decorator … if he leaves his sandwiches near the heater they go mouldy really quickly … they put in ridiculous estimates and the jobs go to competitors.'

    Oops, just noticed the next line; “They helped me enormously at Royal Mail so I chose to join them!!”
    Oh shit!

    Reply
  3. Frank

    Loved this post, Drayton.

    Firms using terms like 'core organisational values' show themselves to be soulless entities, and thus probably without values of any sort.

    Jargon like that is a warning flag. An intellectual labour saving device, proving they are too lazy to THINK.

    I did take your advice to go watch the Apple Macintosh 1984 commercial. Loved it. I remember seeing it at the time, but had forgotten about it.

    Fascinating to discover (on further research) that it was directed by Ridley Scott and conceived and scripted by Steve Hayden and Lee Clow.

    I was also tickled to learn that when Steve Jobs screened the ad for Apple's directors, they all hated it. Shows what directors know about this side of their business, doesn't it?

    Will I be thought prurient if I say that the babe in the commercial (Anya Major) was a knock-out? Perhaps I just have a thing for female hammer throwers. (Lest I be thought weird for that revelation … I used to throw hammer myself. Took it up so that I could better coach the event. p.b. of 42.96m, passable club level, no more.)

    Reply
  4. Glyn

    Thanks Drayton,

    I love this stuff. I find that the profiles on Linked In are a good source, particularly if you track down people from Korporat Kultur. I found one of my ex-colleagues yesterday. He is now;

    “… working with an outstanding change consultancy … They also have a fantastic incubator capability … as well as the ability to outsource sales.”

    I can't help wonder if this really means he is;
    'working as a painter and decorator … if he leaves his sandwiches near the heater they go mouldy really quickly … they put in ridiculous estimates and the jobs go to competitors.'

    Oops, just noticed the next line; “They helped me enormously at Royal Mail so I chose to join them!!”
    Oh shit!

    Reply
  5. Newdell

    excellent piece, thanks

    Reply

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