Business Bullsh!t

[aja8888]

Today I received an e-mail from Linkedin with some job openings. Here is the "guts" of one advertising for an Engineering Manager (bold emphasis by me):

As an Engagement Manager, you are the frontline change agent in an area of the client’s business. You have overall responsibility for delivering measurable improvements within that area. You will role model the activities required to ensure the client achieves sustainable results, and you will coach your PIP team, as well as the Implementation Facilitators (IF) and Senior Managers within your area to do the same.

You will lead the problem-solving effort and ensure opportunities are rigorously prioritised to ensure the team’s effort is always aligned against the highest-value tasks.

You kick off the following activities, demonstrating how they are done, then work with your PIP team and IF increasingly to coach clients across the area to do it for themselves:

(Blah, Blah,....

 

[Beldar]

This thread shows there is too much group think. What you need is a paradigm shift to ... And keep this in your headlights - focus, not buzzwords.

I'm going to have flashbacks after reading that, and it's not even due to good drugs.

_B

 

[athena53]

Remember SIX Sigma , get that black belt ! or when we got the people from the Jack Welch institute . Who said every year we must lay off 10% of the workforce and bring in new people for new ideas . They never understood what we ever did but could hold meetings and show all kinds of graphs. Once again tough for us Cowboys.

I worked for a company that GE owned until they sold it in 2006. I got through the Six Sigma training and passed the test, but never could find a project my heart was into. We were an insurance company; we didn't manufacture widgets. There were very few ways SS applied so a lot of the projects I saw were silly. I guess Six Sigma wasn't in my DNA, after all.

I never could incorporate the current jargon into my vocabulary with a straight face. I was a disciple of Edward Tufte ("The Visual Display of Qualitative Information") who advocated graphics that maximized the data-to-ink ratio, and the GE types used PowerPoint slides with a mind-numbing array of chevrons, Red/Yellow/Green shadings, arrows...they were hideous. I guess that's why I had a hard time getting promoted.

Keep up the thread, though- some of the posts have made me laugh out loud!

 

[MRG]

I worked for a company that GE owned until they sold it in 2006. I got through the Six Sigma training and passed the test, but never could find a project my heart was into. We were an insurance company; we didn't manufacture widgets. There were very few ways SS applied so a lot of the projects I saw were silly. I guess Six Sigma wasn't in my DNA, after all.

I never could incorporate the current jargon into my vocabulary with a straight face. I was a disciple of Edward Tufte ("The Visual Display of Qualitative Information") who advocated graphics that maximized the data-to-ink ratio, and the GE types used PowerPoint slides with a mind-numbing array of chevrons, Red/Yellow/Green shadings, arrows...they were hideous. I guess that's why I had a hard time getting promoted.

Keep up the thread, though- some of the posts have made me laugh out loud!

I had a six sigma black belt on my team. A great guy, super intelligent, he single handedly made a lot of things happen and gave his teammates the credit.

Our sales guys wanted to sell six sigma, cause it was hot, of course they had no clue what it was. This poor sob was dressed up and drug around on sales calls till they realized there's nothing to sell. He kept telling me it doesn't apply to our industry.

 

[Walt34]

This thread is both hilarious and scary. I have to wonder how many of these businesses made any money!

I am SOOOOO glad to be retired!

 

[foxfirev5]

Looking at myself today I have no idea how I lasted 36 years in the corporate BS world.

 

[frayne]

This thread shows there is too much group think. What you need is a paradigm shift to think outside the box. Let’s get some buy in to take it to the next level and use a holistic approach to empower yourselves and achieve a six sigma outcome.

Going forward, we need to reach out proactively and build strong fleet dynamism. A synergistic sea change would give us the disruptive innovation we need to break through the clutter, push past the pain points, get across the event horizon to drill down and rightshore our core competencies and make it poop.

And keep this in your headlights - focus, not buzzwords.

You misspelled poop, fixed that for ya !

 

[NW-Bound]

This thread is both hilarious and scary. I have to wonder how many of these businesses made any money!

I am SOOOOO glad to be retired!

Oh, they make money alright, despite all the silliness and inefficiency. It's because everybody is equally bad.

Now, I recall in the 70s reading about how Communist countries then, mainland China in particular, were as bad as the above descriptions. An article talked about how Chinese state-run factories were so busy talking about production improvement that they did not have time to produce.

Chinese factories are now kicking ass, while we are discovering and practicing the BS that they outgrew. Sad.

 

[Souschef]

I would love to get the pictures from that video as a poster.

No problem: stop the video at the appropriate place, and use the snipping tool to turn the image into a jpg file
Enjoy!

 

[athena53]

I had a six sigma black belt on my team. A great guy, super intelligent, he single handedly made a lot of things happen and gave his teammates the credit.

The Six Sigmas who "got" the insurance business and who progressed into Six Sigma training in project management, facilitating discussion, etc. were spectacular and did very well. I just couldn't come up with a Green Belt project so I never got that far!

 

[38Chevy454]

Very funny and sadly true. Some observations to add to the discussion that many of you can relate to:
1. All the efforts to worship at the Malcom Baldridge Quality Award trophy. The big problem is that most companies that actually received it would go broke!
2. The efforts of those bureaucrats in the BS that added nothing, but would do whatever necessary to ensure they were involved and had some type of approval or other function that justified their existence.
3. Another form of the BS jargon, is the overuse of acronyms. Especially when an acronym is made up that was actually a word, or at least something that could be pronounced.

Here is a funny, thought of this while typing. Not really BS but is related to the effects of over-regulation. With an over-emphasis of safety being crammed down people's throats, an employee put a bumper sticker on his vehicle "(corp name), a Workfree Safe Zone". Needless to say the director of the company did not see the humor in it. I won't ID the company, but your tax dollars flow into there at a high rate.

 

[CaptTom]

Today I received an e-mail from Linkedin with some job openings. Here is the "guts" of one advertising for an Engineering Manager (bold emphasis by me):

I bet you could get hired for that job without a clue as to what you'd be doing. Just unleash a steady stream of buzzwords at the interview. The best part is, nobody else would know what you're supposed to be doing, either, so you could just make it up as you went. Ahh, to be young and able to start a career like that!

This thread is both hilarious and scary. I have to wonder how many of these businesses made any money!

My MegaCorp is making money hand over fist. When talking to stockholders, they seem to have more than they know what to do with. When it comes time for bonuses, however, it's all sob stories about how poorly certain business units performed, the global business climate, or some weather event in some far-flung part of the company. And how they couldn't possibly give as much as they'd hoped.

Looking at myself today I have no idea how I lasted 36 years in the corporate BS world.

For me, it wasn't like this 36 years ago. We did real work, had a sense of purpose, and worked together to get things done. Management, executives and directors all looked after employees and cared about customers.

The changes were pretty dramatic. Younger folks who never knew anything different couldn't even comprehend what we were talking about. A company that WASN'T trying every trick to screw the employee? Unthinkable!

 

[aja8888]

I bet you could get hired for that job without a clue as to what you'd be doing. Just unleash a steady stream of buzzwords at the interview. The best part is, nobody else would know what you're supposed to be doing, either, so you could just make it up as you went. Ahh, to be young and able to start a career like that.

Tom: Sad part is that I was an Engineering Manager between 1976 and 1980 in a manufacturing company that had 7 large domestic plants. During those years, engineering was busy upgrading processing equipment and finding engineers who could keep machines making product. We never used any of those buzz words...we didn't have time for that stuff.

After reading that job description, I still don't have any idea what that person who wins it will be doing.

 

[kcowan]

Going forward, we need to reach out proactively and build strong fleet dynamism. A synergistic sea change would give us the disruptive innovation we need to break through the clutter, push past the pain points, get across the event horizon to drill down and rightshore our core competencies and make it pop.

And keep this in your headlights - focus, not buzzwords.

Well done Michael. Could not have said it better!

 

[MichaelB]

Well done Michael. Could not have said it better!

Based on what you've posted about your work history and environment, I'm certain you could have said it better - and probably did! One does not reach the higher levels of corporate management by speaking plainly.

 

[kcowan]

Based on what you've posted about your work history and environment, I'm certain you could have said it better - and probably did! One does not reach the higher levels of corporate management by speaking plainly.

I am sure I would have overdone it once I got rolling! I have several chapters I could drop pretty quickly. So my admiration is genuine. Succinct and funny.

 

[scrabbler1]

This thread shows there is too much group think. What you need is a paradigm shift to think outside the box. Let’s get some buy in to take it to the next level and use a holistic approach to empower yourselves and achieve a six sigma outcome.

Going forward, we need to reach out proactively and build strong fleet dynamism. A synergistic sea change would give us the disruptive innovation we need to break through the clutter, push past the pain points, get across the event horizon to drill down and rightshore our core competencies and make it pop.

And keep this in your headlights - focus, not buzzwords.

OMG this makes me want to barf! Thanks for posting!

 

[H2ODude]

Worked in government (water and sewer utilities) and had to deal with city managers or mayors who were enthralled with all the corporate private sector BS. It would get handed to the budget office who would then try to shove it down our throats. My favorite was budget directives to produce metrics for things such as chemicals used per million gallons; oops! Sorry folks, your water is cloudy today because we were trying to reduce our coagulant dosage below last year's metric.

Ack. Who started this thread? I'm leaving!!!!!!

 

[CaptTom]

My favorite was budget directives to produce metrics.

Of all the things I learned about management, good and bad, probably the most important lesson was: You get exactly what you measure.

I think more stories about corporate stupidity start with poorly-chosen metrics than any other single factor.

But I don't want to derail this discussion into the area of common sense...

 

[JoeWras]

Yes. This is a "no common-sense" thread! Please do not inject any!

 

[DatumPoint5]

I was a disciple of Edward Tufte ("The Visual Display of Qualitative Information") who advocated graphics that maximized the data-to-ink ratio

I am/was a disciple of Tufte. Tufte invented a display object called Sparklines. I actually "took offense" when Microsoft included the ability to create Sparklines in Excel back in 2010. And then they had the audacity to try and claim a patent on them?!?! The history of this man is fascinating to say the least!!

 

[Meadbh]

I found this government news release discouraging:

Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques to conduct ground-breaking science in space

https://www.canada.ca/en/space-agen...aint-jacquestoconductground-breakingscie.html

I don’t think he should be anywhere near the ground, unless he is landing on another planet.

 

[mistershankly]

In retrospect I think it would probably be fair to say that most of us as young pups in the business world ate these kind of new programs up. Drank the Kool-aide, swallowed the company pill and pretty much went along with the program in hopes of climbing the ladder. Then when we hit the prime earning years and realize we hit the top rung but on the wrong ladder we become a bit jaded or more realistic and could see through most of the BS soup de jour programs but found that it is easier to go with the flow as opposed to fighting the system.

+1
"and realize we hit the top rung but on the wrong ladder"... this is brilliantly stated. I bet there are a considerable number of folks in the w*rkforce who can relate to this.

 

[kcowan]

We had a problem with a minor product sales because the corp wanted results. It was too late to include an incentive in the sales plan so we set out the targets and then monthly sent out a picture of the results with the country sales manager pointing to the bottom performer.

Everyone worked hard to avoid the bottom spot and that made the difference. We were not at the top but we were well into the pack.

 

[Hamlet]

"Guys, let's not try to boil the ocean here."