“It might be true that ‘kids say the darndest things,’” reports business writer Jerry Heaster for Knight Ridder Newspapers, “but kids have nothing on business types – especially business types of the management persuasion.”

The incriminating evidence abounds in a compendium of quotes he received by e-mail, generated by a contest designed to unearth real-life “Dilbert-isms.”  Leaders everywhere should both be amused and chastened by how remarkably murky management missives like these can be.  Here is a recap:

• “As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards.  Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.”
• “This project is so important that we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.”
• “What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.”
• “E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data.  It should be used only for company business.”
• “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.”
• “Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.”
• “No one will believe you solved this problem in one day.  We’ve been working on it for months.  Now, go act busy for a few weeks, and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.”
• “We know that communication is a problem but the company is not going to discuss it with employees.”
• “If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it.”

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 3:26 pm and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.