If you’re a regular reader of my posts, you will know that this is the follow-up of my first post of this year where I boasted about my resolution theory. As I’m now tapping on my keyboard, it is proof that I have managed to keep to my resolution so far. How are you doing with yours?
A couple of my friends called me this week and told me in no uncertain terms that my resolution theory (the one I was so proud of in my last post) stinks and has no place in the world of normal humanity.
But I didn’t expect it to work for them. After all, I still recall the time when we found one of them fast asleep on the boardroom table just before a meeting. I thought he was dead and I was about to commandeer his bottle of Johnny Walker Black from his desk draw when he woke up. He argued that if he took a power nap before the meeting it would help him to stay awake during the meeting.
Whilst this might have made some sense to the boss, the real reason was that he wanted to stay awake so that he had a chance to win the hundred bucks we had all gambled on our game of boardroom bingo.
I wonder how many of you remember that game (perhaps you have even played it). This is where you list all those so called impressive words and phrases and you tick them off one by one as and when you hear somebody use them. Phrases such as ‘blue sky thinking’, ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘out of the box’ were very common and quickly ticked. When your list was full you shouted out the words “I’m with you on this” (the word bingo would have given the game away but it did happen now and again).
I’m not sure if the game is still played in boardrooms but I’m pretty convinced that it is played in Parliament by the guys that manage to remain awake. I suspect that they have changed the phrases though – probably to ‘structured unemployment’, ‘nationalisation’ and ‘gravy train’ or something like that.
Then there was this other friend of mine who really knew how to ransack a meeting. I remember one meeting very clearly. It was a three day strategic planning session for a large financial institution. There were 12 of us around the table, and all the participants had a list of degrees and qualifications falling off the edge of their business cards. My friend managed to swing the entire first day to arguing the difference between an action plan and a strategy using various definitions as used by different universities during their MBA teachings.
But I have completely digressed and haven’t yet got to what I promised in my last post. I did say that I was going to share with you my theory as to how to work smarter, not harder. But I’ve run out of space so I’ll have to do that in my next post early in February.
I will however leave you with this thought in terms of working smarter. If you are looking for new markets for your products, don’t overlook the UK. I can show you how easy it is.
All you have to do is take a look at my website www.vealglobal.com
Talk soon
www.vealglobal.com