Useless hearsay vrs bigdata-what impacts Sales performance

Paltry?

Chief nerd Comrade Carl Marks lurched into my office today, huffing, puffing and cursing in Russian. "Kibinimat, did you read the email from Juliette Caesar"?

Juliette is the Head of Sales. Her "numbers" this quarter are "as poor as a church mouse", as my dad Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom used to say.

I opened my PC and read her email, which was far too long (over 100 words);  it violated our b brief policy.

"The major factors impacting the poor sales results are 

• 307,989 revenue impacting software bugs, 
• poor documentation, 
• products lack perceived added value, 
• poor reviews in domain literature, 
• attitude problems of the R&D manager Comrade Carl Marks who insists on feigning a Russian accent, 
• lack of linguistic skills of the customer service staff, 
• constantly changing specs for the next release." 

Juliette added: "The paltry sum our sales team receives is the cherry on top of the cake. The HR EVP, Gloria Ramsbottom, appears to be a mindless clerk focused on her own power."

I never knew that Juliette had such observation skills. 

Imho, Juliette will be "down for the count" before our Christmas party, which the Chinese, Jews and Muslims will attend, as per our global company diversity policy.

Dad used to watch Friday Night Boxing, piped in by cable TV from the States. I would always hear him yell, "Christ, he's down for the count, tabernac".

What is clear to me is that Ms Caesar did use some big data to make her argument, but she also used some useless hear say, as it were.

My suggestion to Ms Caesar and her mainly white and perfect English speaking team sales team will be to listen to a webinar on the power of positive attitude and spread some positive vibes around. 

That`s what my coach says to me all the time.

He used to pump gas.

2016 strategy must be based on bigdata

                                                                                                     Leading the way!

Today's 2016 strategic session was semi wow, and if I am frank as well as earnest, it was non wow.

CEO Stan had always shunned from strategy, like the US president. This is where the similarity ends, claims Diversity Chief Hugh White, who pointed out to me that Stan is white as a lily and not a good public speaker.

But Wifey had attended a lecture for the wives of CEO's and the lecturer, who loves to send 10000 motivational tweets a day, claimed that "one of the key roles of a CEO's wife is to ensure that hubby stays focused on his strategy". Thus, Stan is focusing on strategy.

By the way, none of the men I ever dated cared too much about strategic issues. They always appear focused on "something" else. (Dad warned me about that).

Stan asked all of us to present our strategies.

Comrade Carl Marks from R&D has strategic plans for new and esoteric features which are "cloud based" and "leverage big data". Stan countered, "Comrade Carl how about a strategy to get your fucking product to work"?

VP of Sales, said her strategy was to find new users "who have not heard about our product". Northern Syria, Iraq and tunnels under Gaza appear to be good markets. VP Sales said to Comrade Carl, "You better get that product working, Weirdo". 

Then it was my turn. My strategy includes cheaper labour costs, smashing potential union activity, ensuring that high performers do not get overpaid, improving my texting skills and upgrading my Honda Insight within one year to a Toyota Prius. Of course, I always focus, every single Thursday, on making us into a people company.

Stan said that big data, Comrade Carl's eccentricities, Sales' pessimism and my "excessive practicality" have driven him to take a key strategic decision:  "Gloria, we need a mission statement, and hire me a spokesman, for internal communications"

Compensation of HR professionals

Dad was SO right!

My Dad, Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom, used to tell me, "Gloria if your job entails kissing your boss's arse, you'd better get well paid".

Lucky me! Due to my HR business partnership, I never need to kiss CEO Stan's butt. 

I do work hard on"People Day", which is every 2nd Thursday -that is when I solve people problems.

However, I am very well paid, netting about $150,000 a year. I earn every penny. As EVP HR, I work very hard:

1. I text 18 hours a day, on 3 phones, blindfolded.
2. Even when I fly (business class), I do email, even in my sleep.
3. I get calls at all hours of the day from Wifey, CEO Stan's better half, who reads too many management articles.
4. I manage the collateral damage that Cynthia Axe causes by "dint" of her role as downsizing czar. Czar is not a French word. I learnt the word "dint" in a spelling "bea".
5. I listen to the asinine whining of Hugh White, the white heterosexual who runs Diversity.

Clearly, the fact that I speak French adds to my market value, although French is a dying business language, almost like Russian.

Hugh White and Cynthia Axe earn $40,000 a year. Over the next two decades, in alignment with my core value of self preservation, they will given a raise.

The salary I get does not buy my loyalty. Hardly at all. I can only remember 233 cases when I acted against `my better judgement``. I remember only 7 or 8 cases when I fired people who were setting up a union.

Dad used to tell me `you are worse that Fibber McGee, Gloria``.

No salary increases does not lead to low morale! Mais non!

Salaries and engagement  have nothing in common-mais non!

Dear Readers,

First of all, a special thank you to the many people whose native language is not English who manage to read my blog, despite my sophisticated use of the English language.

Did I tell you that I sell university accreditation for English language courses; for each blog of mine that you read, you gets 3 points at most diploma mills where my "Basic HR" class is taught. Email me for more details.

Each year in September, we  have salary reviews and increases; for the last 6 years, however, this has not been "fully routinized" and in some cases, people may have been downsized and rehired at a lower salary due to administrative misunderstandings*. 

CEO Stan has asked me to prepare a "supporting strategy" following the decision to leave salaries at their present rate this year. In line with my core value of obedience, I DO have a plan which I have prepared, and I will present it providing that CEO Stan gives me a discrete spot bonus.

On the same day when we announce our plan to maintain salaries at the present competitive rate, all employees will attend a picnic on our company lawn, coupled with a working lunch devoted to career planning. 

Mr Cynthia Axe will attend the picnic. Whilst wearing shorts and other appropriate attire, she will nonetheless open a recruitment fair for her Early Bird Retirement Plan for any employee who wants to "share" his or her thoughts on our "no increases for the company's good" policy.

FYI-Employees will bring their own lunch to this picnic. Diversity Chief Huge White will also give a lecture on Stress, Work-Life Balance and Sex Drive.

For those high performing employees who demand more money and threaten to quit, I will "cool the mark" .

How's that for a strategy! Mais oui.

Gloria

*דובר צה"ל בודק את האירוע

The Dangers posed by High Performance

Hi performers need my special attention

Although CEO Stan and I generally communicate by text, today, Stan sent me a email with an attachment about our high performers! Mais oui!

In the email, Stan pointed out some non-sustainable issues around the high performers in our company. And I quote.

a-There are too few high performers from the "Big Data A Team", Engineering or Sales, as opposed to a plethora of high performers in HR, such as Cynthia Axe.

b-High performers tend to earn "too much money" and are "overly eager" to be promoted "all the time".

c-Instead of motivating mediocre people to become high performers, everyone seems to wonder why they themselves are not high performers.

d-What message are we giving to our company, given the fact that the erratic #IoT chief, Comrade Carl Marks, has been classified as a high performer since Joseph Stalin was premier of Russia.

e-Some high performers, like Thor Smartahss from the algorithm team in the Faroe Islands, have "too many ideas".

I suggested to Stan to draw up a plan that "will enable us to leverage high performance without upsetting the apple cart". Now I need to figure out what this means. I will use big data.

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

New retention strategies for #IoT nerds

New retention tool-Gangnam style

I remember reading in a "news-by-text" item that described how North Korea's leader Comrade Kim Jong Un (one) used a heavy hand against his Uncle Jang when he "re-positioned" his beloved Uncle, Gangnam Style. 

I am so glad I read that item.

Heavily influenced by Kim Jong Un (one), our CEO Stan told me to "raise morale or get demoted".

Stan and I exchanged text messages this evening and we agreed that "length of service" will be a key indicator of morale. We also agreed that my  focus on improving morale will be in the Internet of Things Group.

I got some interesting Big Data from that white heterosexual boy who runs Diversity, Hugh White. 

White told me that 99.9% of the work force in that group are foreigners, mainly from India, Russia, the Ukraine, Lahore, Israelites, Faroe Islanders , Egypt, China, Quebec, Scotland and Thailand. Less that 1% have landed immigrant status. (Lahore is a city, not the French word for prostitute).

Hugh White and I delved into a deep discussion, Gangman Style. I prefer not to discuss  the content of discussion, in line with our key value of Discretion. (Our values are updated weekly.)  

Hugh was treated for injuries sustained when his head hit an object. Finally, we reached concrete agreements and the following text was sent to all engineers today:

• In line with of core Values of being a  People Company, Hugh White (the white heterosexual who runs Diversity) has opened a "Passport Safekeeping Service". Kindly deposit your passport quickly with Hugh (White) before the year ends, in line with our core value of Responsiveness. Minimal $5 a year custodian fee is charged, with Faroe Islands, Quebec and Scotch passports discounted at $4.50. Check to be payable to GLOBAL- HR-BUSINESS-PARTNERSHIP.

Hugh's Passport Safekeeping Service will have opening hours between 0800 and 0810 every five years.

Employees who cannot fulfill this request should contact the Head of our Involuntary Early Bird Retirement Plan, Ms Cynthia Axe, when she returns this afternoon from Pyongyang.

French company doing due diligence-I am not at ease

The French never axe anyone

A group(e) of French investors is doing due diligence on our company.

This is very good news, except for a certain Ms. Cynthia Axe, who heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan which enables the the constant right sizing of our "capabilities".

I know that the  French only hire people and never fire anyone, which will enable Ms Axe to move on and spend more time with her family.  However,  Ms Axe has no family. 

The French investors claim that our focus will be only on the French market, and that we shall be a "mid size" or "family-like" business, if they invest. 

They are snooping around and use the term "savoir faire" all the time. That means "know how." This makes me feel global, but not sustainable. Non wow, so to speak.

Perhaps I could work for the World Bank, Apple, Google or Ottawa City Hall. Or, perhaps I can become a coach! I took a course that enables me to use "VGC" after my name: very good coach.

My listless mind is not at ease.

Not at ease