Tuesday 5 May 2020

Management Training


I really could not stand all that management training and managerial speak that makes one sound trendy and "in-the-know" when I worked in London. There was always one person, (or more), who was keen to get to the top of the greasy pole of success and show off by being far too clever for their own good.

My lifetime motto has always been "you don't have to blow someone else's candle out for your light to shine". But it seems I was the only one with this attitude. I remember at an annual appraisal meeting my boss said to me once, "you don't have much ambition, do you?"

I replied, "I have ambitions, but not what you would expect!"

Despite his opinion of me, I did leave that firm eventually as a very senior manager.

Anyway, I remember once at a management training meeting, the boss, who knew us all obviously, started the meeting by saying, "let us discover what you all bring to the table!"

"What a stupid thing to say," I thought, but said nothing. Then he proceeded to ask each one in turn their skills which he wrote on the board. Someone said they have accounting experience, someone else said they have worked in HR for years, another came from a sales and marketing background, and so on. And the boss wrote all this down although he knew it anyway. I thought it was a waste of time and I was fuming inside because I had a lot of time-sensitive work to do which was being held up by this meeting. Perhaps I should not have let the devil tempt me, but when it came to my turn to announce my skills I said, "I can wrestle crocodiles!" To be fair to my boss, he said nothing, but wrote it on the board.

Then the exercise proceeded on to team working and decision making. We were told to imagine that our car broke down in the middle of a desert. We were stranded and had to decide whether to stay by the car, or to move to a sheltered place away from the sun, and what would we take with us. Some suggested we take salt tablets (?), others said they'd take a map, (do deserts have maps?), someone wanted to take a flask of water and a bottle of whisky, and so on. I remained silent wishing I was at my desk getting on with my work. The boss noticed my silence and asked me what I would take with me.

I replied, "I'd take the car door!"

They were all puzzled by my reply. The boss asked me why.

I said, "If it gets hot I can open the window!"

Again, to his credit, he did not react. I guess he did not want to get into confrontation with his senior manager.

On another occasion we had to visit the company psychologist on an individual basis. He sat me down and talked about trust. Apparently, in team work you have to trust your colleagues. Likely story; especially since they are all fighting to get at the top of the ladder.

He asked me to show trust by closing my eyes. When I did so, he hit me with his newspaper. He then explained that I should not be too trusting, and I should know who to trust and who not to trust. He asked me to close my eyes again. I was reluctant. He promised me solemnly that he would not hit me with the newspaper. I closed my eyes. He hit me with a magazine and said, "I did not promise not to use a magazine, did I?"

I counted to ten to remain calm. I asked him to show me the magazine, then I hit him on the head twice and said, "I made no promise at all. You should not have given me the magazine!"

He said nothing and scribbled some notes in his book. Then he said, "Imagine you are the policeman in a crime scene. There has been a murder. You are interviewing the young lady who discovered the body. What is the very first thing she said on seeing the dead body?"

I screamed, "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!"

He jumped out of his chair at my screaming. He accidentally knocked his cup and there was coffee all over his papers. He tried to soak it all up with his handkerchief and made a bigger mess all over his desk. His secretary came in the room to see what was going on with all the screaming. He tried to calm her down and said unconvincingly that all was well. There's nothing to worry about. She was suspicious and looked at both of us and left saying nothing.

He gathered all his soaking wet papers together and said, "that will be all, thank you!"

I left and never heard any more about that interview. I wonder if I passed or failed!

25 comments:

  1. I'd say passed sort of like the child who is an underachiever but passed onto the next grade for the next teacher. He didn't want to see you again so you passed. LOL Love the humor in this one. As for management training, I had enough of that which did not fit my vocation. I finally realized a pastor is not a CEO nor can a church be run like a business. I love the church in the small town where I live. I don't see it as exile. I see it as loving ministry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What used to irritate me, Bill, is all the fancy management speak and clichés. People used to say things to appear clever. To be honest, I got away with a lot of cheekiness. For some reason they tolerated my humour and response. It was hard work based on reaching and surpassing set targets and objectives. This made individuals very competitive and confrontational.

      God bless you, Bill.

      Delete
  2. This reminds me of a silly video I saw recently. Long-haired businessmen on You Tube. It is guys on Zoom saying all those nonsense things people say in meetings. Let's bring this to the table. Let's circle the wagons. The wigs make it even more hilarious!

    "I can wrestle crocodiles!" To be fair to my boss, he said nothing, but wrote it on the board."

    Ha ha...
    Love this! And the car door.
    🤣

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes Sandi. The management speak used to annoy me. What are the SWOT analysis on this? This means Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in a given situation or project. Every time we had a meeting we had to do a SWOT analysis.

      I introduced a PO analysis. "Why don't you Piss Off and let me get on with my work!" They said I did not take things seriously. But I was serious. I wanted them all to PO.

      God bless you, Sandi.

      Delete
  3. Management Training courses were so the bosses boss could check off a box on the Human Resources portion of his yearly to do list.
    "Increase productivity by enhancing management abilities to guide and encourage employees through conducting training lessons."

    BS, but CHECK!

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Increase productivity by enhancing management abilities to guide and encourage employees through conducting training lessons."

    I have heard this said at work often enough. Are you sure you never worked in London in my firm? We may have met and never realised it. We could make a film about it. "Two cynics in London". It would win many Oscars I'm sure.

    God bless, JoeH.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This brought back some not-so-pleasant memories of the boring faculty meetings and the team-building exercises we were forced, yes forced, to do back when I was teaching. What a drag! Only you, Victor, can take something so irritating and turn it into something funny. :)
    Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll be honest, Martha, I got away with it because I was a senior manager. The other managers and my boss could not be seen as being upset at my behaviour, although to be fair to them, my bosses never had a quick word in private with me. They tolerated me - don't know why.

      Yes, I too was forced to attend team building events. Although at times, when the exercise I considered risky or dangerous I did not take part. I was told I was setting as bad example. I said that in all teams there's an individual who does not co-operate with the others. I am playing the role of that individual to see how the team reacts. My bosses bought my excuse and I got away with it - again.

      Sorry about the un-pleasant memories, Martha. Management is full of idiots who insist on forcing team work.

      God bless, my friend.

      Delete
    2. P.S. - Martha, see also my response to Mevely below.

      God bless.

      Delete
  6. Gosh, Victor! I don't recall having seen your name on the organization's roster where I used to work. You've sure painted an accurate depiction of the egomaniacal agendas and team 'training' exercises XXX (the world's largest hotel chain) embraces. Tho' your former colleagues might not admit it, I imagine your contributions were a breath of fresh air!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Only once, Mevely ... only once ... years later I met a guy I knew vaguely by sight, could not remember his name. He came to me and said we'd met years previously at a team-building event. He thanked me for making the event so funny because as a junior, he too, was bored with the whole week and wished he was back home. Yet he dare not speak up.

      You've reminded me of another story. The management consultant leading the event asked us all to write something TRUE about ourselves anonymously on a piece of paper - e.g. I am a chocoholic, or I cannot drive a car.

      He then collected the papers, read each in turn, and we had to guess who had wrote the statement.

      When he read mine, anonymously, because he too did not know who it was, it read, "I have worms!"

      Everyone was shocked. No one could guess, or dare to guess, who it was that had such an ailment. Eventually, he asked someone to own up. I raised my hand and explained that I am keen on organic gardening and I kept a compost heap whereby I breed worms to help break down the organic waste and turn it into liquid nutrients for vegetables and other plants.

      You should have seen his face! But it was true, I was honest. I had worms.

      God bless.

      Delete
  7. Sure glad I never had to sit through meetings like that.

    At least you kept those meetings interesting and funny!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was trying to hide my annoyance, Happyone.

      God bless.

      Delete
  8. LOL, you brought lots of humour to a meaningless meeting. I like that. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Bill. Someone I met years afterwards reminded me how he enjoyed my humour at these meetings.

      God bless you.

      Delete
  9. I've never aspired to be a manager, so I got to avoid all those dull, time-wasting meetings. Thank goodness!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I understand, Kathy. Some meetings were time-wasting.

      God bless.

      Delete
  10. I am just so pleased I never had to sit through meetings like that!

    All the best Jan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very fortunate, Jan. Some "away days" were for two or more days.

      God bless you.

      Delete
  11. just guessing here, but I am betting that you surprised them all.

    We always called those meetings "the touchy feely meetings". Wastes of time and money. Didn't even have coffee, good or bad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did not like those meetings when they dragged on for a while with no particular purpose.

      God bless, Susan.

      Delete
  12. You, i would trust. Them, not so much.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm surprised you weren't fired. Or put in a crazy ward. ;) I love always love sprinkling management words at those meetings, just to see if any of them knew what they meant. Very good. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes Manny. I'm surprised I was not fired or reprimanded. Maybe they thought I was good at my job. I just could not stand the empty management speak and fancy words.

      Great to see you visiting here again.

      God bless.

      Delete

I PRAY FOR ALL WHO COMMENT HERE.

God bless you.