When a product fails, leaders often suffer from acute stress

Завтра завтра

Our beloved but eccentric Emerging Technologies VP Comrade Carl Marks, suffers from managerial hallucination and identity confusion. Why? Well, our new semi wow product hit the market with 39,986 revenue impacting bugs. The product collapses when more than 5 users are logged in.

Furthermore, we are getting semi wow press reviews. Due to customer complaints, our law firm has advised us that they will raise their retainer from 10 hours to 600 hours monthly.

In our management meeting today, Comrade Carl was mumbling to himself in Russian! 

Our furious CEO Stan asked Comrade Carl 3 questions in front of all of us:

  1-What is the detailed road map for bug fixes?

  2-When will Comrade Carl hire people who speak English?

  3-Comrade Carl, are you under the ``influence``?

Comrade Carl kept mumbling to himself in Russian, saying zavtra zavtra. No one knew what he meant. 

Stan told Comrade Carl to "speak English, for Christ sake, because no one speaks Russian except a few Russians and the Israeli foreign minister."

Comrade Carl got up to address the management team, and showed us all a slide which said: Завтра завтра, не сегодня" - так ленивцы говорят.

Then Comrade Carl said that he wants the management team to focus on the real issue: "what is the value of HR if they cannot recruit some service people to solve these minor service issues"?

Comrade Carl did not wait for an answer-he went to the parking lot, and smoked a joint with his team along with Sanjay, Sanjay, Sanjay, Svetlana, Svetlana, and Mike.

Stan sent me a text: "Glo, Comrade Carl needs coaching"

Ciboire, maison de fous

Harnessing talent

Updating the Reverend Axe

Cynthia Axe managers our Early Bird Retirement Plan. She is a uni-lingual American who has been chosen least popular employee for 87 quarters straight.

The Reverend Oliver Axe, Cynthia's father, sent me postcard from Oklahoma, where Cynthia was born and where the Reverend Axe tends to his flock till today.

The Reverend Axe worries about Cynthia's "moral fibre"; this is a term Dad (Pierre Elliot)  never used. My Dad (Pierre Elliot)  was in the Royal Canadian Airforce, and not a preacher, thank god.

I wrote a very polite letter to the Reverend Axe that his little "petit choux" Cynthia, is executing her role well. 

However, I spared him the details of the text I received from CEO Stan today which read, "Gloria, did you harness the talent of young Ms Axe; please keep me abreast." 

I did not tell the Reverend Axe that recently, Cynthia received a new Blackberry Passport from Stan which stores lurid texts messages, as well as small, medium and big data.

I am not the worrying type, but when Stan uses terms like keeping abreast, or harness or Young Ms Cynthia Axe in one breath, I stop to think. I did not share these thoughts with the Reverend Axe.

I need to put this incident out of my mind. Luckily, I have so many texts to answer, that I do not think for too long. HR managers need to manage the contradiction between being, doing and thinking. I am pretty good at this; I just do.

HR - RH adapt agile process for new smartphone allocation

Ramsbottom and Ms Axe

Ms Cynthia Axe (Head of semi-voluntary Early Bird Retirement) asked CEO Stan for a new Samsung Note 9 Stan, always the man, fell into the trap, as he told Axe: "I have no problem with that, Baby-just have Gloria sign off on it to ensure we follow procedure". 

My Dad (Pierre Elliot) would have said that Ms Axe dressed like a slut the day she asked for the new gadget.

Cynthia Axe sent me a text updating me. I sent

Cynthia's text to Purchasing and asked them to "sign off" as long as this is according to procedure. Procurement texted the request to Supply Chain, and Supply Chain forward the request to Hugh White, from Diversity. 

Supply Chain wanted to know if Ms Axe was a member of a persecuted "minority" group. The white heterosexual who runs Diversity, Hugh White, texted me back the purchase request, and I "forwarded" it back to Stan.  (All in all 76 texts were sent on this mission critical issue.)

Today, I saw Ms Axe flashing her new smartphone. 

Stan and a certain Ms Axe also had lunch at his mahogany table, and I will not go into details about how Ms Axe dressed. (Had I dressed that way at Moose Jaw High, my hide would have been tanned).

I will however note that Stan kept abreast of all Cynthia said...unlike most men Axe dates. I will also note that I snapped a picture of the two of them and sent to Wifey. This is big data.

Squeeze the vendor till he chokes, in line with one of our core values.

Shocked

This morning when I woke up I had an urgent text message from both Cynthia Axe and that hen pecked white heterosexual who runs Diversity, Hugh White; it appears that Comrade Carl Marks hired an OD consultant who is to begin work on Monday morning! Tabarnac.

I may not have mentioned it, but I dislike OD consultants more than I dislike anything else, except mid size data. Ciboire, HR business partnership excludes the need for OD, as anyone with half a brain knows.

Using my Blackberry 10, I texted CEO Stan and cced Comrade Carl, mentioning in "passing" that I had not signed off the consultant or his fees, which comes from my talent management budget. Stan apologized and told me to "interview him by Skype this weekend" whilst Carl sent me a curse in Russian, "youb tvoyu mat".

I interviewed this consultant and I had 3 "asks".

1) What is your detailed plan, hour by hour, of the entire project?

2) What questions are you going to ask whom, why, when and how?

3) How many seconds go by until you text me an update about who said what?

Based on the answers I received from the consultant, I sent his budget proposal to Sarah Barracuda from Procurement/Supply Chain.

Sarah

Kindly kill this asap; this may be a good time for me to ok your daughter working for us this summer. Lets talk after you update me.

A bientot!

Gloria

---

The vendor was pronounced dead at 1042, before he could reach Groote Schuur Hospital, which is a strange name.

Gloria considers career change-from HR manager to hair dresser.

CCM

There is no reason in the world why employees should not be engaged.  However, sometimes I encounter non- wow situations, which call for HR intervention. For example, Let's look at HR vrs Engineering to compare levels of  engagement.

                               Engagement in HR

• Thank heavens there are no engagement issues in HR.
• I love my work; “people” is my middle name on Thursdays.
• Cynthia Axe (Early Bird Retirement) feels axe-hillarated at the end of each week that she meets her downsizing quota.
• Every time that Diversity Chief Hugh White learns something weird about someone’s sexual life, he is engaged for days,as if he had found a big data mine.

                            Engagement in Engineering

There is, however, an engagement problem in Engineering.  

• Our new product now has 45989 identified bugs; even worse, the product “reboots” when more than 30 users log in.
• Comrade Carl Marks, R&D Chief, believes that these technical issues are “service related”.
• Nevertheless, CEO Stan has insisted that Comrade Carl’s engineers deal with product stability issues until HR hires a service manager.

Ciboire, I should have become a hair dresser.

                               Wifey Intervenes 

I received a text from Wifey (Stan’s wife): “Gloria, use spot bonuses to motivate Comrade Carl’s people. Wifey.”  

3 seconds later, I got a text from Stan, “Have you acted on Wifey’s text? Stan”

                             Gloria acts

I convened a meeting of my HR team to deal with Wifey's proposal.

Cynthia Axe “declined” and white heterosexual Diversity Hugh White was in court, defending our company’s stellar Diversity Policy, after someone anonymous complained that “Diversity should be more than hiring a Scot at the switchboard”.

I put together a spot bonus program to reward engagement.   

•     For each product stability issue solved, an engineer with receive an extra cheese coupon, to be used with pizza ordered after 11 pm at work (on Fridays only).
•     For every 100 revenue impacting bugs solved, an engineer will get a trip to Moscow (February) in an unheated dacha on the Volga River.
•     Comrade Carl Marks will get a discretionary budget deflated 4000 rubles to slip into his staff’s pockets, in “collaboration” with VP HR Gloria Ramsbottom and in full alignment with Hugh White. The allocation of this slush fund is big data.

This post is dedicated to Comrade Ilana from Israel and Monsieur Thibadeau from Quebec City, Gloria’s loyal fans. Spasiba and merci.

AS

HR and Internet of Things clash

Readers,
I have always believed in the need to pinpoint the added value of HR.
Here is an illustrative case study.
Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux

  To: Stan, CEO

   From: Comrade Carl Marks

   CC :Gloria Ramsbottom, HR

Could you kindly define HR manager Gloria Ramsbottom's "added value"?  

I have ordered  IT to block Gloria's internet password until we all have a definitive answer. I need big data.

Thanks and ogromnoe spasibo! 

Comrade Carl Marks

-----          ----------          ---------- 
   To Gloria, HR; Comrade Carl

   From Stan, CEO

   CC 

Gloria, send Carl your job description now.

Carl, give Gloria access to the internet in a timely fashion. What does spasiba mean, for Christ sake? 

Stan

The Upside of Downsizing

Every cloud has a silver lining

My father Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom would have asked me, "Glo, how can you be an HR manager, sprouting slogans and firing people all year around? What's gotten into you, ma bichette?"

Well, Dad died when Trudeau was Prime Minister and Obama was still in Hawaii, so I don't really need to answer papa directly.

However, I may have told Dad that there are many upsides to downsizing, and here is what HR needs to do to provide context for positive downsizing, which is a word I love.

1) Focus on future growth

2) Set up an "Early Bird Retirement Plan"

3) Re-engage people quickly using slogans which change weekly.

4) Leverage the skills of people like Cynthia Axe, and "fly above the clouds" during (pendant) the week when heads roll, so to speak.

5) Use the word big data.

Dad used to punish me when I spoke back to Mama and I do not want to think of what he would say were he to hear my bullshit answer.

I loved Papa and I miss him, but I get paid well.

Use Internet of Things to debug product

A service issue

This has not been an easy day for R&D chief and executive vice president Comrade Carl Marks.

Comrade Carl released a new product with more than 30,000 bugs and then insisted that fixing these bugs is "a minor service issue". 

Because we have no service department, our CEO Stan had a panic attack, and then after getting some input from me, Stan acted with cunning and spoke to Comrade Carl.

At 8 am today, CEO Stan called Comrade Carl's live in girlfriend Carla, who happens to be Stan's daughter, and they discussed financial issues. (Comrade Carl knocked up young and innocent Carla a year ago, and they have a child). 

Anyway, to make a long story short, Comrade Carl will "assume" ownership of the product defects for "one month, until that "bitch Ramsbottom" recruits some service talent".

At 1000 am, Comrade Carl  instructed to his engineers (in Russian, Hindi, Cantonese, Hebrew and other tribal dialects) to start fielding service issues via a TSD, a temporary service department. 

Comrade Carl stated: " Don't worry! I will go out on a limb and say that within 3 weeks, our TSD  will solve all these so-called product defects leveraging internet of things".

Diversity Chief Hugh White (a white heterosexual) jumped to his feet and cried out: "Comrade Carl, using the term "out on a limb" is against our core value of diversity".

Comrade Carl stormed out of the building and smoked a joint in the parking lot.

Big data!

Follow me @GRamsbottom

Personality disorders of senior managers

Narcissist and Marxist

Our new big-data based product has encountered “some” non-wow issues with key customers.There are reported 38,007 bugs, 87% of them impact client revenue.

Our clients have bombarded our company with complaints about the product, and one (key) client has suggested to our CEO Stan that he insert our new product into his rectum. (Sorry).

Chief nerd and product architect Comrade Carl Marks addressed the issue of what he called "acute product stability calamity disorder" in our  management meeting:

"Kibinimat, this is not an R&D issue; why doesn't Gloria Ramsbottom from Manpower just speed up hiring a few skilled "service people" to iron out the creases?" (Comrade Carl was wearing a Confederate Flag as well as a picture of Putin on his T shirt).

In our HR weekly meeting in my office over lunch, Diversity Chief Hugh White suggested that Comrade Carl has a “narcissistic” personality. Cynthia Axe, our downsizing diva, claims that Comrade Carl is a Marxist, not a "Narcist". 

Hugh White claimed that the Confederate flag is a matter of personal choice from a diversity perspective.

We all know Comrade Carl is aligned with the proletarian and has some Marxist ideas. 

My late father, Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom, was somewhat left wing as well; Dad voted NDP, starting from the days of Tommy Douglas. When I explain to my staff who the great Douglas was, Hugh White said: "He was like Obama, but White".  Hugh White is the white heterosexual boy who runs diversity.
Douglas was also Canadian, so no one knows about him.

Who is the most unpopular employee for 24th straight quarter.

Cynthia Axe heads our Early Bird  Retirement Plan

Cynthia Axe was chosen most unpopular employee for the 24th straight quarter. Ms Axe heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan (aka Load-Shedding) , which has been described by some as "involuntary".

Cynthia commissioned a coach who is supporting "The Rebranding of Ms Axe". 
As part of her branding strategy, Ms Axe started working Sundays as a parking lot attendant. Furthermore she set up a LinkedIn page, and, Axe has asked me and Comrade Carl Marks for a letter of reference.

Comrade Carl wrote: "Cynthia keeps abreast of performance levels and her action is swift and accurate. You can count on her to put skin in the game". Comrade Carl Marks

I wrote: "A certain Cynthia Axe has a zeal for executing her job with vigor, creating a unique user experience.  Axe is an obedient follower and knows an HR thought-leader when she sees one; thus her long term service with me. Her texting skills are above average making her highly employable. Her popularity is a challenge, but she responds well to fear and coaching. Ms Axe is almost as intelligent as the average bot.

Mais oui!

CEO demands answer based on big data: Am I surrounded by the right people?

Une question difficile

At 05.59 this morning, just as I was catching up on email, I got a text from my CEO Stan: "Gloria, am I surrounded by the right people? Is our company built to last? Are we all aligned? Please send me big data asap."

When Wifey reads a management blog, she nags Stan to death. When I read this text message, I knew that Wifey had kept Stan awake all night, and not because of Wifey's sexual appetite, or lack thereof. (Stan once told Comrade Carl  Marks that Wifey "may have been born up there in Canada, in the Arctic Circle, where it is really cold").

I texted Stan and assured him that he is indeed surrounded by almost the best of best, certainly in HR. I mentioned to Stan that my ability to judge the quality of Comrade Carl Marks' staff is limited because none of  his engineers speak English, except one Scotch engineer who is incomprehensible and a White African engineer named de Villiers who is very introverted and doesn't say much about anything except big data.

Stan texted me back, "Wifey wants to know if you, Gloria, are surrounded by the right people".

Today, I plan to put on "corrective action" both Hugh White (the white heterosexual who runs Diversity) and Cynthia Axe (who runs our unpopular Early Bird Retirement Plan). 

They will have 3 days to shape up.

My only fear is that Hugh White's Russian born wife, Ludmilla, may beat Hugh up, and all that Diversity bs would be shifted to me.

I do not fear Ms Axe's reaction. She got a new I-phone and she will not quit so fast. Ms Axe knows that if she does quit, she would end up being a big data call-centre  attendant in the Faroe Islands.

To be on the safe side, every Thursday will be "talent management day". 

Slogan Index for 2018

                                             

                                                                              You get what you measure

My father Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom used to count the number of times that my mother Constance would nag him at meal time. After 2 nags, Dad would gently say, "shut the f--k up, Constance. One more strike and you are out, ciboire".

Measuring things was Dad's way of keeping control of his life.

Inspired by my Dad , I decided to quantify the use of mission-critical leadership and HR slogans in our beloved company.

Here is July 2018 top slogan index, including the number of times each slogan was used, along with a few comments in the spirit of HR business partnership, whatever that means.

Internet of Things: 343, 841,986,888 times. (Ever since CEO Stan complimented Comrade Carl's idea of burying our software bugs in the platform of internet of things, this slogan is more popular than sex is in Phuket.)

Engagement: 238,909 times. (CEO Stan told Comrade Carl Marks from R&D that "your God damn  big data engineers need to engage, and speak better English")

Cloud-based: 89776544368 times. (Hugh White, the white heterosexual from Diversity, claims that clouds, being white, are not diversity compliant.)

Blockchain: 34,000,005,000,879,930 times. (HR used this term most of all, in the context of figuring out what it means).

Industrial Action: No one used this term. (Several Russian engineers, however, did throw a Molotov cocktail under CEO Stan's car; in the group of protesters was a certain Comrade Carl Marks, EVP of R&D.)

HR Business Partner: This is NOT a slogan. CEO Stan used the term once, and I used it 6000 times. 

Btw, I also quantify the value of our human capital. Our nerds' capabilities are linked to the value of the democracy in the middle east.

I plan to detox myself from some technology

My skirt is not  wearable technological-stop looking!

Sometimes I feel that I should be in Finance, so that I toy with numbers and not with people. (My father, Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom, used to claim that financial analysts are "a band of thieves, ciboire".)

HR buzzwords like  cloud based technology and HR analytics are taking their toll on me. But as long as I am the first lady of HR, I need to follow the trends, so to speak.

• Did you know that "Wearable Technology" may replace big data and internet of things as an HR buzzword in 2016? 
• During last week, 88% of our staff  used the term "big data" 12 times by Friday noon, whilst only 14% has mentioned the term "wearable technology."
• However,"wearable technology" was up 77% on the previous week, and "big data" registered a 2.3% fall in the frequency of use. The reintroduction of the drachma was factored in.

Last week, there was an "Expo" of wearable technology and I went there "after hours". I happened to see Mr Hugh White from Diversity looking at a shirt that which makes him look Scandinavian Chinese and then Afro American, changing back and forth every 10 seconds; I also spotted a certain Ms Cynthia Axe trying to have an "axe" built into her arm.

For the record, Hugh White is Caucasian and Cynthia Axe goes sleeveless.

I wandered by the Blackberry store. I did see the new white Blackberry Classic, however I did not enter the Blackberry store; technology can become too addictive. The French are beginning to understand this. 

I plan to become a spiritual type. I may plan to detox myself from technology "en France".