rm ([personal profile] rm) wrote2006-04-01 04:39 pm

hehehe

I am coding this Financial Times article about how "scariness" is "in" again in the work place. It even provides four tips from a Professor Roderick Kramer on how to boost your "S-factor" (this is about where I started giggling):

1. Intimidate people by invading their personal space.
2. Get angry, even if you really aren't.
3. Keep people guessing by acting sullen and silent. (and this was where I decided I _had_ to share this with you all)
4. Know the facts, and even if you don't, pretend to.

According to the article, "Professor Kramer argues that the good intimidating leader may sometimes bully people, but it must be to achieve an end, rather than to simply enjoy the humiliation of the person at the wrong end of it."


I, meanwhile, am a big nerd who cannot. stop. laughing.

[identity profile] anathemadevice.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
uh... April Fools?

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
Na, it's a totally real article.

[identity profile] heron61.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 12:17 am (UTC)(link)
Great, imitating Shrub is now the hip new management strategy. Our world, or at least our nation is surreal and mad.

[identity profile] feyandstrange.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 12:45 am (UTC)(link)
I almost got rice up my nose laughing. Oh, that's great.

damnit, I need a Slytherin icon. (I adore your "My House can beat up your House one, by the way.)

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 01:50 am (UTC)(link)
I'm so glad someone gets it. It's like a management text written by Snape.

[identity profile] feyandstrange.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
OMG, we should *write* that. "Management Techniques from Harry Potter". We'd make a million.

Dumbledore: Positive feedback but very hands-off;

Snape: Sticks, not carrots, high expectations;

...maybe some others just for the sake of fleshing it out.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
Dude, we so should.

And there are plenty of examples of utterly incompetant management too. OH my.

[identity profile] feyandstrange.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
If we look at ii as Dumbledore being the ultimate in hands-off positive-only management, and Snape as the apex of hands-on micro-managing negative-only style, and use those examples to point out why you want a balance of both techniques... yikes.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
We really really should do this. Why hasn't someone already? We can't be this brilliant, it's too bloody obvious!

[identity profile] feyandstrange.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe we're just that lucky, and anybody else is still writing theirs?

Or maybe whoevr owns the copyrights won't give permission. Hmm. It's *got* to be saleable though.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 03:15 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe everyone is waiting for Book 7 -- since we won't really know what Snape was trying to do until then, or where Dumbledore falls both in terms of effectiveness or insanity.

[identity profile] feyandstrange.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
I think in terms of "teaching Harry" or "managing Harry", we've got everything we need. With Dumbledore gone, the odds of Harry being under Snape's management again seem pretty unlikely.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 03:30 am (UTC)(link)
True enough, but the success of anyone's techniques in terms of the 40,000ft view still utterly remains to be seen.

[identity profile] feyandstrange.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
Harry Potter and the Management Parable.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-04-02 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
Think of the case studies! Think of the fanfiction that could be used to explicate hypotheticals!

Ow... my brain.