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Management consultants say nothing is more important in business than people. Most people say there is nothing more important in business than people. Boards of directors frequently nod sagely at each other, after the human resources manager has finished one of his presentations that half frightens them to cultured pearl jewelry death, and mutter about nothing being more important in business than people.
In fact, if useless information is your bag and you're prepared to dig a little, you'll probably find that at some stage or other the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, Admiral Hirohito and Jabba the Hutt all waxed lyrical about nothing being more important in business than people.
Rubbish.
Let's face it - when it comes to the crunch people don't really rate all that highly in the machinations of business. At best they're considered a means to turquoise necklace an end or a necessary evil. People and car insurance fall roughly into the same category. Find a computer that can make a decent cup of tea, take a dress suit to the dry cleaners, come up with a halfway logical marketing plan, design the odd advertisement and deal with customers and - goodbye people.
Well, perhaps that's a little overly cynical, but apart from a few companies that have seen the light when it comes to the importance of people and what motivates them to dizzy heights, most companies - despite syrupy mission statements - have profit solidly entrenched at the top of their priority list, followed closely by the desperate need to keep shareholders happy and well-fed; followed very closely indeed by the personal aspirations and ambitions of the head honcho and his minions right down to dancing pearl shopfloor level.
Think about it. How many "we bust our buns for our people" companies are actually just paying lip service to a management fad that sort of makes sense and more importantly, happens to be a politically correct thing to be involved in? See what I mean?
There are companies that spend millions on training and motivation. Companies that preach enthusiastically about encouraging managers to make mistakes, to take risks, to commit themselves to making things as easy as possible for their underlings to do their jobs. Preaching about managers "taking ownership" of projects, of problems. Drumming in the need for managers to "grow" their people, take succession planning seriously and all those other things that logically and historically make good business sense.
But, when it gets down the pecking order in these same companies one invariably finds contradicting management philosophies.
Give the bugger below you a hard time - don't let him come even close to pearl bracelet getting into a comfort zone. To hell with taking the rap for a cock up by one of your staff. Go all out to distance yourself as his manager. Read the riot act about making a mistake - one false move and he's fired. Don't empower them to order the tea bags, let alone make any more important decisions. Delegate downwards but take the credit yourself. Don't volunteer for anything, let alone take ownership. Pass the blame.
And above all, get enthusiastic about "growing" your staff but for Pete's sake don't actually do anything about it because next thing they'll all be capable of taking your job.
Is this perhaps why the importance of people is recognised as being paramount in business but in practice relegated to round about nine in the batting order?
Is the Achilles heel of the people principle a question of "id" - those inherited, instinctive impulses of the individual that are part of the unconscious?
Which is why by far the most difficult management technique to apply in business is that involving the motivation of people.
People are without swing machines doubt the most fragile and complex component of the business machine.
Yet so many managers, who for decades now have fully accepted that it is futile to kick a computer when it goes on the blink, still persist in applying that outdated practice to people.
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Many people feel it was premature for Barack Obama to win the Nobel Peace Prize for calling for a world free of nuclear weapons. But he was following in the footsteps of another Nobel Prize winner, mathematician John Nash. You may remember Russell Crowe played him in a movie called A Beautiful Mind in 2001.
Chantell Ilbury and I first connected Nash to inflatable bouncers the nuclear game in April 2005 in our book Games Foxes Play. In a section called "The Ultimate Gameboard", we laid out three scenarios. The one which we are in at the moment we named "The Madhouse" in that what deters any nation from launching a strike on another nation is a counterstrike. The principle that keeps the peace is mutually assured destruction (MAD).
We went on to say: "Obviously, the advent of stateless terrorism has knocked this principle on the head since terrorists who plant nukes need have no fear of reprisals in a specific spot. They could be anywhere. Meanwhile, in this scenario, new nations build up secret silos to pearl necklace have at their disposal if attacked."
The second scenario we called "Boom!" where the world in the next 50 years experiences another Hiroshima or Nagasaki. If you want to witness how devastating such an event would be, go to YouTube and click into Hiroshima atomic bomb re-enactment. Then reflect that modern nuclear weapons can be three thousand times more powerful that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It's like comparing one metre to three kilometres.
The third scenario we offered was "All Together Now" where the world is at peace with no nukes. This is what we had to cultured pearl say: "What is really needed is a new non-proliferation agreement that tackles the issue in a completely neutral manner. Hence the name of the scenario. For how can America or any country that currently has nukes take the moral high ground by arguing that other countries shouldn't have them? For any agreement to be sustainable in the long run and have teeth, the 'haves' will have to come to the party and disgorge some of their nukes.
"John Nash would approve of the scenario. In the movie, he is in the bar with friends when a blonde and several brunettes walk in. He advises that, instead of competing for the blonde (first prize for each of them), they should ask the brunettes out on the basis that this is the best outcome for the team. Otherwise, all but one of them are going to cultured pearl jewelry lose out as the brunettes, realising they are second choice, walk off in a huff.
"In real life, Nash won the Nobel Prize for his idea that games played in a co-operative fashion can lead to a higher level of equilibrium than pure rivalry. Nuclear games are no different, particularly as the West no longer has the supremacy to impose its own solution but equally has the most to lose."
Clearly, Barack Obama echoes our sentiments about what constitutes the desired scenario. Now he must turn his words into action and persuade everyone else to do the same. All together now!
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Hey Barack,
Thanks for your mail, man. Yup, it's been a crazy first 100 days here too. First let me answer your questions. Yes, Nelson is still alive. I know his great-grandson-cousin-nephew tried to sell the TV rights to swing machines the funeral, but the old geezer's still kicking it. The arms deal thing is still going on. I know you know that we really needed those warships. But the people just don't get it. And yes, you should get decent parking at 2010 next year. Don' listen those haters in Green Point. They're just pissed because we smashed up their shitty golf course.
Anyway, belated congratulations on your first 100 days as president of America, General Motors and the previously free world (though everything's so costly now, you should call it the "expensive world". Ha ha. That's a little third world humour for you. But you know that already, being one-ninth Kenyan and all). Anyway, this president thing is tough. I've been so busy dealing with incompetent staff (my god, they have expensive taste) and protesting workers that I've rarely had time to freshwater pearl dance. It's really getting me down.
I see you've been pretty busy in your first three months. Me too! Your trip to Egypt was wicked. You're such a ground-breaker, much like me (I put that Afrikaans guy in my cabinet, remember). And I like the way you handled that race row. It was good of you to invite everyone over for a beer. But I hope you checked that white guy's pockets before he left. They always steal hand towels and mini soaps when they visit posh places, you know. They're so weird like that.
Speaking of weird white people, did you see those pictures of Vladimir? What's up with that guy? Why’s he got to go and get half-naked every time he goes on holiday? He's so pasty. I sent him an e-mail last month saying "what’s up". You know what his reply was? A picture of him wrestling a polar bear. I think it was a metaphor for us leaders, you know, like we're only one man caught in a struggle with a vicious and restless creature, our voters. I'd like to blister pearl think so. But I think he's just a crackpot Russian who's had too much Vodka in the Siberian sunshine. Still, he's got better pecs than Gordon.
I’ve been working pretty hard, but also kicking back in style for the last few months. I must say, my timing of becoming president has been spot. It's one of the reasons why I got Thabo kicked out so early. With him out the way I managed to get free tickets to the IPL final (Akon was the bomb, but Lalit Modi kept trying to sell me stuff. I said to him, "Lalit, we don't need any more Tata Indicas in South Africa. Try Barack, his auto akoya pearl necklace industry is stuffed." I hope you don't mind, I gave him your number. If he tells you 20/20 is the way forward just nod and smile). I watched the Confed Cup games with Sepp and I was there when we beat the British & Irish Lions. Man, it's the life being the president here.
You must come and watch some soccer next year. You can stay at my spot in Durbs. I've just spent R45m upgrading it - sometimes it's tough having 16 wives, three dogs and a goldfish. You're pretty lucky just having Michelle. She seems nice. Bring her when you come for the World Cup. Maybe we could double date. Vladimir's coming too if Russia qualify, but he asked if we could put him in a tent in the middle of the Kruger. What a nutter.
Okay, so I have to leisure chairs go now. The people are revolting. And they're striking again (that's a little French Revolution joke. Ha ha). See you at the next global warming meeting (they serve the best snacks at those "end of world" summits. And Bono still owes me an autographed Mandela shirt. We should have those forums more often).
Peace out
JZ
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There was an interesting (closer to terrifying, actually) story doing the rounds in the Cape papers a few weeks ago. It concerned the lack of available housing in Cape Town and a proposed solution; the development of high-rise apartment blocks in various parts of the city.
This from Hans Smit, the City Housing Director: "a pilot high-rise 'town' (will be developed), comprising apartment blocks of up to pearl jewelry 14 stories grouped around shops, schools, community centres and recreation facilities, in order to test a high-density solution to the city's housing shortage." More intriguingly, Mr Smit went on to say, "It works very well in Beijing. It also gives the kind of environment in which people are happy and communities seem to grow."
Funny that this should appear now, because in my miniscule-in-comparison three story block of flats there's a worrying scene of things to turquoise necklace come quietly brewing. A new couple have moved in upstairs and, over the course of the weekend, they decided that they quite like the parking bay that's traditionally been used by the cantankerous old bat living across my way on the second floor.
She's either completely bonkers or just a terrified old dear. I can't really tell because every time I say hello - this after five years - she shrieks, tightens her grip on her shopping packets and backs away to the safety of her heavily fortified front door.
Anyway, the block's new arrivals have parked in "her" bay (in reality, a piece of pavement) for three days. However, last night I came home and I saw pasted on the front, side and rear windows of the offending car were A4 notes that did little to welcome our new friends to dancing pearl the neighbourhood. "Get out my bay. From Number 10," they blared rather bluntly. I'd love to have seen the look on Number 8's faces this morning.
These things happen when we live in close proximity. Tempers flair in tightly packed university residences, noise becomes a thorny concern and, like the Great Parking Bay Controversy of 2009, space becomes an issue. The Chinese might "work well" when living in a tin can environment, but I'm not sure South Africans are built to live in shelving compartments. We just have to look at the exuberant New Year's celebrations of fridge tossing and microwave hurling in Hillbrow each year to realise that we're not entirely sure what to pearl beads do when we get excited in a confined space.
While Beijing may be a prime example of the success of high-rise living (and I refer to Beijing because it's the city quoted in the original story), we should also remember that China is a country synonymous with oppression and dubious ideas of "freedom". In China, if you're told to live quietly in a cramped block of flats, I'm almost sure you'll pretty much do it without asking too many questions or turning the radio up too loudly. This is the country, after all, which implemented the infamous one-child policy to curb over-population. And that's worked well.
To be fair, Mr Smit also went on to inflatable bouncers say, "We have to do our job properly. We can't make a mistake in putting something like this together."
It is, of course, something that will only happen in about a decade if it does indeed happen. But I don't think any research will provide him with the answer that's staring us in the face. People just don't get on anymore.
Also, where the hell are we supposed to braai?
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There was a story doing the rounds on Sky News last week about a British organisation, in an effort to curb underage drinking, requesting that alcohol companies desist from advertising their product.
I'm not a 100% sure, but I think the same chap was also quoted in the local papers here about why South Africa should do the same. The research concluded that advertising "encourages young people to swing machines start drinking earlier and, when they do start drinking, to drink more". Perhaps.
I watch a lot of TV and I drink vast amounts of beer, sometimes at the same time. So for once I'm well qualified to comment. In between the Amazing Race last night there were ads for Smirnoff, Johnny Walker, Hunter's Dry, Windhoek Light and two separate Hansa ads.
There might have been more, but for some reason my memory is shocking these days. If you're a football fan, you can't get away from Heineken, while earlier this year we were all treated to pearl earrings the CASTLE South Africa Lions Series when the British & Irish Lions were here.
Now I'll agree that six ads for booze in the space of an hour is excessive, but surely you can't blame a few swish turns of phrase for influencing the drinking habits of minors. And miners. The Smirnoff ad has a barman attacking a snowman in an immense fridge with some sort of giant fridge magnet axe, Johnny Walker simply keeps walking, the Hunter's Dry advert with the dude strolling in the desert is rubbish anyway, the "build a braai" Windhoek Light ad is pretty clever but promotes marital disobedience more than anything else, one of the Hansa spots was a competition call-to-enter, while the other was a heartening tale of a boerewors roll entrepreneur making it to the big time.
On top of that, we all know that only homesick South Africans drink Castle in America, Heineken is purely for the urbane gentleman (this is how ads should be made), only burly black labourers and biwa pearl their one white friend drink Black Label and if you ever see Barry Hilton standing behind a bar you're more than likely about to order a Savanna, even if just to hear a deadpan one-liner. Windhoek, even though it tastes like a loaf of bread, is just about the only beer that tells us to drink it because it's of a better quality than the rest.
Yes, advertising is a pain in the ass. But sometimes it can be clever, like the Air Wors One line in the Hansa ad or the excellent Heineken ads highlighted above. And let's be honest, banning alcohol advertising is akin to sweeping the problem under the carpet. Oh, the ads aren't there, so the no one is drinking anymore. Just like everyone stopped smoking when they banned cigarette ads from mass media.
Hard drugs like cocaine don't have too many ads on TV these days, yet kids still manage to get their hands on that. Perhaps if there was a campaign featuring a group of youths enjoying their festive season by jumping into twisted pearl necklace a mound of powdery snow, with a tagline of "Blow your mind this Christmas", some of the cool will be taken out of coke. But I doubt it.
I'm indifferent on whether ads should stay or go. They offer 20 seconds of intrigue or irritation in my life. I just don't think the moaners should be blaming them for the world's ills. I can almost guarantee that most of my friends didn't start drinking because of a witty Lion Lager ad back in '95. They did it simply because they wanted to get smashed out of their minds, because that's just what you do when you start drinking for the first time.
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