If the National Leaders Were Muppets.

Based on the leadership debate, I got wondering what each leader would be like as a muppet.  I’m sorry, but that’s just how my mind works.  Okay.  Here we go.

    

Stephen Harper.  He is the leader of the band of misfits.  All of the band members have their own bizarre personalities and agendas, but somehow, Harper gets them all to play together to with a fairly consistent quality result. 

Parliament is the gig man… Hit it!!... Yeah dudes ....you sound so melodiously righteous when you actually vote for something that’s good for Canadians. Wait...Hold it...someone missed their cue.  From the top guys!
        

What can I say about Gilles Duceppe?  He is Sam the eagle.  If you don’t get this, you never watched the muppets.  Sam is the quintessential patriot with absolutely no desire to listen to anyone else’s point of view.  He is Quebecois and is as outrageous as the French Knights in Monty Python's Holy Grail.  "You don't frighten us, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you, so-called Harper-king, you and your silly English K...kaniggservatives."  If it’s his way or the highway; how are we going to fit Quebec City on a truck?

Jack Layton was a hard one to choose.  I did this one based on personality rather than looks.  Everyone likes Jack Layton, but when he speaks it is beyond comprehension.  He is the one leader who everyone would like to vote for if he was in a different party.  He is like the brother in law who everybody loves, but wouldn't trust to go to the 7-11 for milk.  Reporter: “Jack, explain how the NDP would tackle the macroeconomic impact of the financial meltdown on the auto sector?”  Jack: “Dun't vurry iff yuoo boorn zee tup, joost toorn it upseede-doon und blame-a zee Gonzervative und Liveral Bork Bork Bork!”

Michael Ignatieff.  Ahh…Iggy.  There are so many muppets with great eyebrows that it was hard to choose.  In the end however, it was the count that was the match.  “One tax increase….Two tax increase……Fifty three tax increase Ah ah ah ah….” I am not saying that Iggy is the epitome of evil or the devil incarnate...well okay, maybe I am.  But trying to find him in the House of Commons is like trying to find the Count at high noon on a sunny summer day.  Just saying.

All this being said, Canadian politics brings out the best of us.  It is typically Canadian.  Funny, engaging, outrageous and rarely takes it self seriously.  Nobody gets shot by a rifle, registered or not and no one ends up on Oprah or with their own reality show....Actually, I could see it.  Duceppe's Quebec where a zany Francophone politician tries to separate by digging a ditch around the province and re-routing the St. Lawrence.
I digress.  Here is the Reasonable Prophet signing off.

         

Making a Difference

For anyone who has known me for a while will attest, my job has defined who I am.  Because of recent events, I have been forced to make a change.  Day to day we all strive to do well at our jobs without burning out, but keeping with the metaphor, how many of us actually achieve something above putting out the fires?

I have been lucky in accepting a position which allows me to make a positive difference in people's lives.  I help them towards a new career by providing them with an opportunity to train towards a career in the trades.  If I had it to do all over again, I would choose a trade.  I have been an amateur cabinet maker who has actually done some custom commissions and enjoy the fulfillment that both my client and I enjoy as a result.

I have spent the majority of my career concerning myself with sales figures and where I placed on a company spreadsheet in terms of results.  While measurable achievement is a method of performance ability, it is in essence transitory at best.  In fact, my resume reflects over 15 years of effort for companies which no longer exist.

One memory in particular represents what my commitment to my employer resulted in.  I interrupted a week long vacation with my young family in order to attend a sales meeting in Toronto.  My wonderful wife never complained and took my children to the zoo in Toronto.  I spent all day Wednesday in a stuffy board room (or should I say bored room)  while my family was out making memories.

I no longer remember what the product was that I was that I was learning about, and the company I worked for no longer exists.  What a waste.  My company not only ruined my vacation, but this "mandatory meeting" simply was not as important as my rest and time with my family.  People talk about selling out, but in this case I feel as if I was held up and robbed.

We have such a short time in this life to make a difference in people's lives, and up until this point, I have not been able in my professional life to commit to that obligation.  Now I am in a position to do so.  The monetary compensation is not immediately as great as in my former position, but I feel much more satisfied and happy.  Is that not really what it is all about?

The Man Behind the Curtain

Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856–March 21, 1915), widely known as F. W. Taylor, was an is regarded as the father of scientific management and was one of the first management consultants. (Wikkipedia)  He felt that it is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.

He said “Hardly a competent workman can be found who does not devote a considerable amount of time to studying just how slowly he can work and still convince his employer that he is going at a good pace.” 

Taylor’s theories led to labour unrest and eventually was outlawed by the US federal government in order to prevent what they feared as an occupational Civil War.

The sad thing is, that this hundred-year-old theory is still being embraced, and in fact worshiped, by the current business community. Rather than becoming and means to an end, the system has become an end unto itself. More effort is currently being expended on systems analysis, and system improvement that is being spent on research and development.

Taylor's methods were to promote improvement in an early 20th century manufacturing process. Many parts of this process were labour-intensive and dependent on low skilled workers. This is no longer true today. The companies that we look at as up-and-coming are typically based on new ideas rather than improving a current product. For example: Google, iPod, Facebook, twitter and so on.

Companies that treat highly skilled employees as candidates for Taylor's methods have done so far as to decrease the cost of production to the detriment of the product. An example of this is outsourcing.  Dell computers outsourced their customer service to India. The client backlash was such that they had to repatriate and retool in North America based helpdesk

.

This does not mean that systemization in itself is bad or should not be a desired company goal, rather, you ask that it should not be the only company goal. Product research and development, intelligent and creative marketing, and a motivated and loyal employee team will produce higher levels of productivity, and a better end product than micromanaging.

Taylor is quoted as saying: “In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first...”  When people are placed first, client and worker satisfaction, increase, when the system is given priority, simple cost savings may appear, but in reality those savings are erased and surpassed by increased healthcare costs, training costs, hiring, and other HR costs.

 
Rather than manipulating the levers of productivity from behind the curtain of business school best practices, forward thinking, entrepreneurial, management seeks to understand the big picture on all levels. Business no longer operates in a social political vacuum. Corporate values must meet global objectives and planning must go beyond the next two quarters. The 21st century business looks to the long run.

Taylorism belongs to the 19th century. Micromanagement and short term business planning belong to the 20th century. It's time for us to move on.

Metrics on the Rocks

I am doing a research degree on German anti-Semitism and just finished reading an essay on the compliance of the German people to increasingly macabre laws and censures. They did this in order to maintain their unique membership and familial connection to a socio-political safe house. The essay outlined the cost of fitting in.  The current business management style is becoming similarly bizarre

This brings to mind the MBA mantra of management: IF YOU CAN'T MEASURE YOU CAN'T MANAGE IT!

The theory is that through comparing other organizations or other individuals performance to a baseline of acceptable metrics, one's position in the business world social economic grid is measurable. Like an ancient Mariner's method of dead reckoning, one's position on earth is only relative to observable known landmarks on land and then extrapolated using time and distance to get a fix. When there are no other means for navigation, this is what upon which one must rely.

Once the charts (maps) got better, the timepieces got better and the sextant was invented navigation became much more reliable. The modern invention of Loran C [long-range radio trends location] and digitized charts became popular and available, the need for a basic understanding of time and space became unnecessary and with the introduction of affordability of GPS, the sextant parallel rules and chart were subjected to the museum.

So it is with business intelligence. The dead reckoning of one's past performance and achievable goals have been replaced by the reliance on industry metrics gathered and summarized by non-interested third parties were once position is measured by industry norms and performance-based computer extrapolation models.

So where am I going with this? Is this not progress?  What is the point?

If the financial/strategic planning function has become so reliant on the short-term gains promised by prepackaged performance metric-based business intelligence models, they will not question their navigation tool even though they hear the breakers beating on the shore while their Business Intelligence software screams that they are in deep water and are in no danger of grounding. The ship's crew will follow the navigators prescribed directions to steer the ship on the Mad skipper's course.

Around the "navigation station we hear: "We've had a 20% growth for the last two years and we are a 'motivated startup' with a 'strategic plan' that is a 'no-brainer' for the venture capitalist. Therefore our sales forecast this year should be 60% growth! We will be lowering expenses, minimizing our investment and maximizing our tangible assets which puts us in the upper right quadrant of entrepreneurial high-risk leverage the venture capital success module."

Here is truth. Who are your clients? Are you giving them more than they want or what they bargained for? Are your employees excited by their personal contribution to the enterprise for which they work? If the answers to these questions are unclear it's time to break out the sounding line, the binoculars, and start listening for surf or foghorn.

The verdict is a reality check.  Does the GPS identify the shoals and reefs or does it provide a beautiful multi-media presentation which proves that the Titanic's course in the North Atlantic is an efficient course marketed as a short excursion to obtain special ice for the cocktails?