Analysis Paralysis

Have just come out of a client deck review.  Despite the name, it has nothing at all to do with shipping, the 'deck' in question being industry speak for presentation.

I have a big presentation coming up with a colleague, Carl.  I think it is fair to say that Carl likes PowerPoint, I mean, he REALLY LIKES PowerPoint.

In the good old days BPP (before PowerPoint) you knew in advance how your day was going to turn out in a deck review because the presenter would walk in with a stack of paper or Acetate slides under his arm.  Immediately you could tell whether it was going to be endurable or not.  Best Case scenario would be 20 slides.  This is best case but also fantasy case because NEVER in the history of Consulting has there been a 20 slide presentation.  Consultants talk of them but only in folklore - "Yeah, at my mate Guy's firm, they have a policy of 20 slides or less" or "I once went into a pitch with 2 slides and got the gig".  Beware anyone who tells you such things, they are dangerous fantasists and not to be trusted.  Best case scenario could also, surprisingly, be more than 100 slides, this because it meant you would have plenty of time to call your bookie on imaginary toilet breaks, plus there would almost certainly be sandwiches.

Nowadays, we have thumb drives, which, although technologically marvellous, give no clue as to whether sandwiches or Turf Accountant consultations would feature in your day.

So today we were treated to a 'Carlathon'.  Hours of inane turgidity, coupled with insanely unnecessary screen transitions ( after a certain time, the site of bullet points cascading unnecessarily onto the screen one at a time drives one to thoughts of suicide or murder - whatever would relieve the situation quickest!)  I have known Carl for three years now and would say that, underneath it all, he is probably a nice man.  Intense to the point of monomania, hideously intense, pathologically humourless, and the proud holder of a Master's Degree in the bleeding obvious, but essentially harmless.

The first two hours were taken up by 'Analysis'.  Now, I am not saying there is no room for analysis, my industry is built upon it and our clients certainly need more of it (to protect themselves FROM themselves often) but there is analysis and there is 'Analysis'.  Carl's brand  is to (as mentioned before) state the bleeding obvious repetitively in ways that make you wonder if Carl is stupid or whether he just thinks you are, example "Our client wants to increase sales" - No?, Really!?

The fun dimension to this is that the client himself has a penchant for retaliating in kind.  We are now having an email 'Slide Blizzard' where the client's slide changes and Carl's changes to the changes are whizzing through cyberspace but not, regrettably, colliding with each other and sinking into the ether.  (Why do they call it 'Ether' - is it because so much of what is done on it sends you to sleep?)

Carl has just said he has some some more thoughts (more? I don't seriously think he has had ANY yet) and that we should "pull an all-nighter" to "put this baby to bed".  Does anyone know if Bookies are open 24 hours?

Concorde

Travelling into Paris Charles DeGaulle last week I had a brief moment of alarm (there is nothing particularly unusual here, travelling to Paris frequently alarms me). The cause of the momentary panic on this occasion however was, during the taxi from the distant runway (and, boy, isn't it distant? Although it is not as bad as the new one at Schiphol which is, I'm sure, actually in Belgium - we had to re-set our watches as it is actually in a different time zone to the airport!) I saw out of the corner of my eye, a semi-airborne plane directly at right-angles to us.

The plane in question was of course an Air France Concorde which, like the BA one at Heathrow, is on display in a semi-airborne pose in the airport's outfield. Which raises the question (no, not THAT question, i.e. why did they retire the most wonderful piece of technology invented in my lifetime) but the question of why display the aircraft there - where no one can really see it, or stop to gaze longingly at it?

They have one at Manchester, and the Mancunians had the great sense and self-awareness to realise that a Concorde out in the open in Manchester would turn into a huge pile of Orange dust in a heart-beat given the 'Excessive Humidity' (in other countries they call it rain) for which Manchester is famous, and so they, very thoughtfully, built a shed around it so it would be indoors.

This is the point though, the Concorde at Manchester can be viewed, up close and personal as the modern magazines like to say. You can gaze lovingly at it (OK, perhaps it's just me), go on it - people even GOT MARRIED on it.

That must have been a strange affair don't you think? A wedding on a grounded Concorde in a shed in Manchester. Do they do the speeches over the tannoy? Do they bring the champagne out in plastic beakers served on a trolley? Do they do a safety briefing beforehand? "In the event of a panic-stricken Bridegroom, Oxygen masks will appear automatically from above your head". Surely it will restrict the dancing? Concorde had famously narrow aisles (not much room for an inebriated Uncle to swing a 6 year old girl around). So, in the interests of scientifuc experiment, if any readers are planning on having their wedding on a Concorde, the present Mrs Guru and I are available (purely in the interests of research you understand) - you just wouldn't feel 'propery married' unless it was on a grounded supersonic airliner in a shed would you?

Mind you, at least it would be indoors and not stuck out in the middle of an airfield rearing up at slightly confused middle-aged executives, and for that, I am most grateful.

Thank God it's Monday!

It was with some relief that my derriere hit my office chair this morning as I have just endured a weekend of my dear Lady Wife's 'socialising'. Please do not get me wrong, the present Mrs Guru is a sainted woman who is universally adored by all - THAT is the problem.

She tends to 'adopt' waifs and strays and was an avid Social Networker long before Bookface or whatever it is called came along. Usually this is of little consequence to yours truly. I get regaled with stories of how 'this person said such-and-such', or that someone else's husband may (or may not) be about to be entertained at her Majesty's pleasure (British slang for put in Prison), but in the main, it is fairly painless for me (after this long in my current firm I have perfected the art of LOOKING like I'm listening when actually I am doing no such thing).

This weekend was different though, because this weekend was the occasion of THE BARBECUE. I use the upper case characters advisedly. THE BARBECUE is a ghastly occasion where yours truly barely warms the insides of sausages whilst simultaneously cremating their skins, and all from a position hunched under the partially open garage door (protection from the (inevitable) rain storm you see).

In other parts of the world, Australia for example, Barbecues are a natural part of life, no big deal, a minor occasion, a chance to socialise and relax with friends. In Britain a Barbecue is part Tribal Ritual, Part Salmonella Infestation and part Rain Dance (it has been scientifically proven that the British could, at one fell swoop end all famine. Merely take, say two dozen British men out to the Sahara and either scatter them across the terrain with Mobile Barbecue units, or else dress them in White and make them play Cricket. In either event, torrential rain is guaranteed within minutes - this is foolproof, it has NEVER failed yet). It is also, and this is a very strange thing, some kind of male right of passage.

British men, I suspect ALL men although I am not qualified to say so, get very strange around a barbecue. I think there is something about a barbecue that taks directly to the caveman part of our brains (something that the current Mrs Guru believes to the majority part of our brains and which is situated somewhere beneath our navels but above our knees). Men cannot resist the lure of the Barbecue. At first I was standing station, under the garage roof, trying to keep sleet off the burgers, when I realised that I needed to go inside and get the sausages. I must have abandoned station for almost 45 seconds - in any event, I deserted for far too long because when i got back there were FOUR men stood where I had been, all hunched under the garage's open door, all vying with each other to prod the burgers with a fork.

I, of course, was miffed, it was MY house, MY barbecue and MY burgers and I had been shamelessly usurped. What is it with these people? They must have been watching my every move, waiting for me to desert station before pouncing like, as Scott Adams would say "Frat boys on a Drunken Cheerleader". In such situations it is very important that one exhibits a little dignity, shows a little class, unfortunately, my subtle attempts at calm, controlled reassurance "Thanks Gentlemen, I'm back now" were met with stern stares, I swear, one of them actually GRUNTED (if he had only said "Me like Fire, Me play with Fire" the effect would have been complete).

After some unseemly jostling, a couple of the guys were persuaded to step aside (never ceases to amaze what you can do with a carefully placed elbow), the runts now out of the picture, the rutting contest was now being played by yours truly and two others. I am sorry to say that things got a little unseemly, there were bouts of British Middle Class rage (e.g. "I say old boy, steady on, you nearly put that fork in my eye", "oh sorry, dear Chap, didn't see you there" (whilst repeating the same gesture)). It got a little unseemly after that! The rest of the event passed off fairly peacefully if with not a little tension. There were plenty of female mutterings, nothing I could exactly pinpoint, just muttered comments like "worse than the kids", "how old are they?" and my favourite "his son's just the same".

On the plus side, this event MAY have persuaded the Sainted Mrs Guru to think twice before organising a similar event in future. Unfortunately, the two beaten finalists have had the last laugh, one has invited us to a DINNER PARTY and the other, clearly a very mean man, a DINNER DANCE. Does anyone know if they sell knuckle-dusters on eBay?

Tom

International Meetings - a recipe for embarrassment

Just back home from another week's slog, slaving away at the coalface of Business Process Improvement. Once more was able to continue the recent trend of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, on this occasion almost sparking an International incident as well along the line.

I was leading a workshop on account prioritisation, fairly dry stuff you might imagine but I was soaring like an eagle, using rhethoric, allegory, puns, metaphors - you know "making it live". The trouble was that my delegates were seated in a huge 'U' shape before me. It was a cosmopolitan, pan-European group of senior managers from a majot vehicle group who had absconded to Sweden for a little R&R (thinly) disguised as a 'Strategic Marketing Retreat'.

So there I was, a colussus in my field, straddling my subject with flair, panache and not a little style (think of a younger, not dead Errol Flynn and you will not be far off) when I noticed that the two French guys were whispering to one another for the entirety of my presentation. I know the French have a reputation for this sort of thing - I realise that the Hundred years war was never officially ended (and therefore we can conclude that it ain't over yet) but this, I felt, was pretty poor form, even for those schooled in the Gallic method of presentation skills.

Drawing upon the skills and technique of Mrs Thackeray my Junior School teacher I paused, mid sentence and stared at the two offenders, at which point they promptly broke off their muttering s and, for perhaps the first time, looked directly at me. Good, I had their attention at last, I thought "what would Mrs Thackeray have done next?" - quick as a flash I got my answer and I went for it, I raised an eyebrow!!

Satisfied in my calm, quiet yet clearly supreme authority, I continued whence I had left off, only to find that, almost immediately, my Gallic interruptors were at it again, muttering and now even glancing at me whilst continuing to talk away behind their hands.

I paused again, and again - this process went on for some time until fuming now, I reached for the final, most potent club in Mrs Thackeray's bag "If you have something to say, I think it only fair that you should share it with the whole group", I smiled benignly and raised BOTH eyebrows this time - hah, THAT ought to do it. There was a baffled pause from my French colleagues so I entreated them some more, "Please, tell everyone what it is that you two are chatting about" - Wow, Mrs Thackeray would be proud, she taught me well. Finally, one of them broke the deadlock, "Well Monsieur Tom" he started "I am translating your words for 'im, I am 'is interpretor". We broke for coffee then, it almost choked me.

My strangest Assignment yet

When one has spent a few years as a revered Businessman and pillar of the community, it can be tempting to assume that one has, to a certain degree, seen it all. I have long thought that one of the (few) advantages of the odd sprinkling of 'Salt' in the overall "pepper' of one's hairstyle is that it confers an air of wisdom, of gravitas, of having been around the block a few times and successfully found one's way back.

So imagine my chagrin last week when I was put onto a new client assignment, that of organising an Open Day FOR A CREMATORIUM.

Forgive my naivete dear reader, but it rather took me aback to get such an assignment, but no in all seriousness (to be fair, Crematorium staff do not go in for jokes too much for obvious reasons), there IS to be an Open Day and the client wants our firm, i.e. yours truly, to spearhead the planning and organisation of this 'not to be forgotten experience'.

It gets odder, it appears there is a 'Crematorium of the Year Award' too and my client has finished second more times than he cares to remember and wants to use "Initiatives" arising from the Open Day, as a major part of a Strategic 'Push' towards the top spot he so craves - is it me?? I have a real worry that the client is going to invite me to next year's award ceremony if he is successful in his quest - how wierd would that be? What awards do they have "Best Garden of Remembrance, Best Cremation? Flue of the year? What award do you get? I imagine a little golden coffin, perhaps with a golden star on the top.

So we had our first 'Kick-off' meeting at the end of last week, I am to work on this project assisted (I use the term advisedly) by my new Junior, Lance.

Now I don't want to be too scathing about Lance, after all, he is some (poor) mother's son but really! He wants me to 'Connect' with him on Bookface and says he wants to 'Tweet me'! I thought he had a speech defect, treat me to what? But no, apparently he wants me to start a Profile on something called Twittering so he can send me 140 character snippets of what he's up to. "140 characters"? I told him, "I want full page reports of what you are up to not tweets or whatever" - this, it has to be said, did not go down well, I believe I heard the word 'Luddite' muttered more than once.

So we had the Kick-off, an experience that was simultaneously bizarre, unreal and mind-fizzingly mundane. Lance suggested we have an 'interactive experience' which, against all odds, the client seemed to quite like! What sort of interactive experience you would want of a crematorium one can only guess at. I clung to the idea that it was all just a poor taste joke and thought I would enter the spirit (no pun intended). I suggested we should do a SWOT analysis (the consultants' favourite knee-jerk) which was eagerly accepted as a serious contribution. What would one say are the "Opportunities" for a Crematorium, perhaps there would be a homicidal maniac move into the locality and start a homicidal killing spree? That should drum up some business. What about 'Threats', perhaps people would start leaving their departed loved ones out for the bin men instead of going down that old tired model of burial/cremation. Question, would they do it on a Grey Bin day or a Green bin day? Green surely? Grey would be too disrespectful don't you think?

Buoyed by the positive response to my SWOT idea I got into the spirit of the thing rather, although I did get some funny looks when I suggested we have a bouncy castle and face-painting! To show his total lack of an irony gene, Lance made the comment that a bouncy castle would be inappropriate and in any event could not take place because the only appropriate site had already been claimed by the 'Build your own coffin from household refuge' Exhibit.

Perhaps there WILL be room in that Grey Bin after all...

Meetings as a displacement activity for real work

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We had a 'Team' Meeting this morning. I put the word 'Team' inside apostrophes because we only actually EXIST as a Team in the mind of the Senior Partner (I wonder if he likes to think of us as a team because it saves him having to learn our names!).

Today was one of our twice-yearly 'Development Retreats'. This is a two day junket at a really nice Country Hotel somewhere in the Midlands where we get PowerPointed at by the firms' Head of Corporate development. All the while, the Senior Partmer looks on from the sidelines with the air of a semi-malevolent Patrician. He doesn't actually take part in proceedings, but watches what he like to refer to as 'His charges' being put through their paces.

Now, if I seem ungrateful and negative, I apologise. The venue is superb, there are no clients in the room but there ARE free coffee and pastries - in my world it doesn't get much better than that!

The training itself is in something called Myers-Briggs Type Personality Indicators which is actually interesting, or rather Would be interesting if the firms Head of Corporate Development was NOT leading it. The poor man had a sense of humour bypass, presumably at birth, he is the kind of individual who could go to a cocktail party where the only guests were Chartered Accountanst and Actuaries and have the other guests saying "I don't know, he doesn't have much of a personality".

His presentation skills are, what is the PC-Training word for it? Ah yes, his presentation skills represent a developmental opportunity for him. He drones. He repeats himself. He repeats himself (sorry, it's catching) and he suffers from an affliction that High Masters of the Communication Arts (such as yours truly) refer to as 'Mixed Bullet-Point syndrome'. I knew about his other shortcomings (they are, after all, legendary in the firm), but this last case is new, or, that is to say, one that I have not noticed before today. Let me demonstrate Mixed Bullet-Point syndrome to you (so that you might get irritated by it too - no need to thank me).

There are three defining characteristics of Mixed Bullet Point Syndrome;

1) Lists are not sequentially numbered corectly
b) This makes them irritating such that the audience (if they have been imprisoned in a room with the writer for too long) starts to fantasize about killing the presenter, and
4) Attention is drawn away from what the slides say by the wondering of such imponderables as "What happened to number 3"?

It transpires that I am an ENTJ. Not yet had my full de-brief on what this means but they seem to be implying that I am gobby, opinionated, like to be in charge and think that I am constantly surrounded by idiots. Wow! It's good this system, I think I'll pay more attention this afternoon.

It would be a great job, if it weren't for the clients...

Just returned home from a final client meeting (with the emphasis on the word final). I fear I had what I am coming to describe as a 'Jack Nicholson Moment'.

The project was a nine-month sojourn around some very nice parts of the world. It was a Marketing positioning research project to find the ideal indication for a new skin cancer drug. Although skin cancer is far from nice, the project had, until last Friday, been very good for me because I had to interview world leaders in the field to determine the best market for my clients' new drug. Luckily for me, the world experts on skin cancer reside in nice sunny countries and so, dear reader, I have been merrily trotting around Florida, Sydney, and (for reasons unclear even to me) Coventry!

Still, all was well, the physicians had been very generous with their time and had all agreed on one irrevocable conclusion (a feat in itself since, usually, if you have three surgeons in a room that is enough for five opinions), there was a very clear space for my client's product, No, there was a screaming need for my client's product - Good Times!

It came down to testing which of two possible types of Skin Cancer the product should be marketed for and the results were, as I say, overwhelming. Indication A got 9 votes, Indication B got Minus 8 votes (they actually thought it would cause harm).

So, full of the calm bravado that the soon to be doomed often display, I presented my findings to the client. At the end, I sat down, awaiting the certain applause and ready to bask in the shower of adulation they were sure to heap upon me.

"We kinda (they weren't American but seemed to want to talk like they were) hoped it would be indication B" the CEO said. "Well I'm afraid it isn't" said I "but the great news is they would all use it yesterday if it were available for indication A", I grinned my best Tony Curtis grin in triumph. "Well, we REALLY need it to be indication B" was the sad reply.

We see-sawed with this for about fifteen minutes when (exasperated now, Tony Curtis grins a dim distant memory), I raised my voice "Look, it is what it is, it's good news why can't you be happy with that"?, at which point, things went VERY Pear-shaped. The CEO it was who finally triggered the moment I went critical and waved 'Goodbye' to my career - triggering my 'Jack Nicholson in 'A Few Good Men' moment' when he said (after only 25 minutes of this nonsense) "Look Tom, don't get mad, WE ONLY WANT THE TRUTH". I know, I guess you are ahead of me, I should have paused, done some dep breathing and relaxation exercises, my therapist would probably tell me to think of Mountain streams or fluffy kittens or something - instead I heard the veritable Mr. Nicholson's voice booming from my mouth "THE TRUTH?...YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". The meeting ended shortly after.

And THAT is how you get from Tony Curtis to Jack Nicholson in only two moves.

The Senior Partner wants to see me in the morning - I wonder what it's about?

Tom