Some years ago, I was having a drink with the chairman – I’ll call him Gerald – of a famous London advertising agency. Gerald had picked up a chunk of new business and brought his wife along to celebrate.
Management Man
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
The consultant explosion
Have you noticed that nearly everyone you meet nowadays is a consultant, or at least pretends to be? Top theologians at the Harvard Business School (that august seminary for the corporate priesthood) are predicting that in a few years time the entire business world will consist of consultants. With characteristic prescience they are preparing graduates for the fast track in consultancy with special courses in apologetics and oenology. A pundit of my acquaintance (a high-caste consultant from Bangalore) attributes what he calls the ‘consultant explosion’ to some arcane synergism wrought by the world recession and the warm weather.
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
The Anxiety Game
As every successful executive knows, the real purpose of communications within a company is not to opine or inform but to generate and transfer anxiety. For of all the games that managers play, the most subtle and rewarding is the ‘anxiety game.’