The motivational monkey

Rent control

Herr Krebbs our new German CFO “zent” me a text which read, “Frau Ramsbottom, we haf no money to pay vendors for anozer munts (month) zo our Accounts Payable people are not happy. Ja! Please engage zem. Danke. Herr Krebbs".

Herr Krebbs is very formal, and his sense of humor is, let us say, yet to be observed at work.

Because I am busy texting my sister Claire is going through another divorce, I asked young Hugh White, the straight white boy who heads my Diversity Department to tell me what’s going in Accounts Payable. Hugh gathered the big data and sent me an email highlighting 3 points.

1) The 7 employees who process invoices (an analytic Frenchman named Pierre , a dour German named Hans, a self righteous and argumentative Israeli named Ben, and 4 ladies named Svetlana ) agree that Herr Krebbs’ is a “royal pain in the ass”. Herr Krebbs scored 6 points, on a five point scale.

2) With no money to pay vendors, the staff often “pondered the future whilst searching the internet for a job”, or visited dating sites, or both.

3) All staff agreed that were it not for HR partnership, the company would be up shit’s creek, with no paddle.

I read Hugh’s timid and benign  update and realized that the effort I had invested in developing young Hugh’s talent is, like my Dad used to say,  “pissing into the wind”.

I have decided to hire a motivational monkey who will visit Accounts Payable at lunch time, and sang a ditty  detailing what happens to the non engaged. 

The blockchain-aligned monkey will hand out T shirts with the slogan, “We don’t pay, so go away”, as well as  lighten up the mood by reciting our growth strategy for 2027.

The motivational monkey belongs to my landlord’s agile son. Rumor has it that my rent is being lowered over the next six months, in line with my core values of sustainability via lowering rent, for the next six months.

3 agile and sustainable principles of Change Management

Democracy or Idiocracy?

Change management is not rocket science.  Believe you me!

And if you manage to implement a few changes successfully focusing on user experience, you can join the inner circle of decision makers ensuring that your ass remains on the right side of the bow and arrow, as my Dad used to say.

Dad (Pierre Elliot) tended to be graphic at times.

I have implemented 2743 reorganizations in the last 5 years, all of which moved us closer to achieving our goals, so to speak. I say “so to speak” because we have not yet achieved our goals.

Last week, Comrade Carl Marks (our chief nerd) and I were having lunch, discussing CEO Stan's hemorrhoids and change management. 
The inebriated Comrade questioned the wisdom of the west having assisted in knocking off  Qaddafi. “Gloria,” said Comrade Carl, “any change manager would have been smarter than Obama and the naïve Europeans. Libya turned into a 3^rd world shit hole, run by 3 competing parallel militias after Qaddafi was ousted, just because a bunch of French and American tree huggers wanted to develop democracy in the desert, kibinimat” 

When Carl finished his diatribe, dessert arrived. And whilst (British term) I did not follow  Comrade Carl's observations on change management because I was texting my sister, I did remember my three major guidelines vis a vis (French) managing complex change.

•      Be involved in everything and own nothing. (driver-less HR)
•      Make sure that that there is someone to blame. (Our German CFO always says, I am not bplaming anyone, it is tsjust vat ze numbers are zaying")
•    Honour the term “alignment” that your days will be long upon the Earth.