TRAINING  &  COACHING  for  MANAGERS & LEADERS

Case Histories

Consulting Humor

Systemic Coaching ... Systemic Coach Training ... Your Next Step

Funny stories and jokes are risky - about one third of people enjoy business humor, a third don't care and a third consider humor irrelevant. However, a sense of humor can help a coach or consultant stay resourceful in chaos. Most of what follows was heard during systemic coaching and coach training.

He who laughs last thinks slowest!

• Corporate Coaching is one-half bureaucracy, one-third crisis, one-quarter routine and one-eighth accomplishment ... and never enough time to check the math.
• Systemic consultants must have equal parts of perspiration, inspiration and resignation; and must be convincingly confident ... especially when uncertain

Domestic Coaching (by Martyn Carruthers)

1. We were both self-employed coaches seeking a teamwork opportunity
2. Our first date was test marketing and determining the worst case scenario
3. We were late for a consumption function, so we adjusted our process flow
4. Our first month was our diagnostic period for market research
5. Our first argument ineffectively profiled an administrative situation
6. We respected each other's displayed assets and core competencies
7. We evaluated each other's strategic paradigms using expert modeling
8. Our Valentine cards listed executive summaries in bulleted points
9. We decided on a functional merger to create a traditional organization
10. We select domestic consumables using decision-tree analysis
11. Going to bed is now a value-added win-win situation with the co-CEO
12. We celebrate our anniversaries with performance reviews
13. And now we are parents with a new team member on board
14. We and our junior executive share many mutual learning opportunities
15. ... with endless potential for destructive testing and constructive feedback
16. We considered re-engineering and downsizing our organization
17. ... but instead we reorganized into a quality-team based hierarchy
18. Obviously, our contingency planning avoided divestiture
19. So we are marketing our combined systemic expertise
20. We offer in-house skill-based experiential intensives in domestic performance

Questions Consultants Hate (personal experiences)

1. How can we concentrate our resources on all of our projects?

2. Can you list all the unknown problems we will encounter?

3. While you are completing this project - can you also ... ?

4. I can't put this off any longer ... will you do it for me?

5. Why didn't you just tell us the solution up front?

6. Can you delay finding that solution until ... ?

7. Can we delay paying you until ... ?

All you did was ask questions - we found the answers ourselves!

Management: 10 (personal experiences)

1. My project is important ... don't do anything more important!

2. We can't reveal our communication problems to employees!

3. You must strongly recommend that they keep my position!

4. I can't tell them that you solved my problem in one day!

5. Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting my schedule!

6. I shouldn't have to tell you what I am hiring you to do!

7. You must confirm what I have already recommended!

8. If I wanted it tomorrow, I would ask for it tomorrow!

9. I don't have time to tell you what we want you to do!

10. If you get me promoted - I will get you more work!

Consultants: 5 (mixed sources)

1. Give expensive advice on topics you know nothing about
2. If you can solve it in a week, get a three month contract
3. Hyphenate words-that-don't-need-to-be-hyphenated
4. Call it what you like, but be ready to fire people
5. Agree with all general statements
6. Help us out, consultants...

Success is too important to take seriously!

Management Styles (loosely based on Dr Clare Graves research)
1. Survival: What teamwork? You're on your own!
2. Family: Teamwork is doing it the way that grandfather wanted it done!
3. Power: Teamwork is easy - just do what I say!
4. Establishment: Teamwork is doing it by the book!
5. Success: Teamwork follows the Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules!
6. Consensus: Teamwork is being nice to each other!
7. Systemic: You were team leader yesterday, today you make the coffee!
8. Global: If it doesn't save a whale - it's not worth doing!

Demotivating Motivation (heard in passing)

1. Their mindless jobs are better than no jobs at all!

2. We will cancel all vacations until productivity rises!

3. We can remove the light from the end of their tunnel until production increases!

Unbelievababble (from news services)

• AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked "intellectual leadership". Walter received a $26 million severance package.
• A 27-year-old unemployed man with an MBA murdered three people. "There are too many MBAs" he said, "if I had chosen another field, this may not have happened..."

• This line waits for your stories

Disclaimer
. No managers or consultants were harmed during the construction of this web site
. This web site was constructed with recycled electrons
Martyn Carruthers