Finally Sally Gulliver has a comrade in arms.
She has recruited a Deputy – a personable, bespectacled young man in his thirties who rejoices in the name of Will Comfort.
‘Well Will,’ Sally said on his first day, as if she’d suddenly sprouted a lisp, ‘You told me at interview that you liked a challenge. Here at Global Blancmange, we do ‘challenges’ in the same way the good people at Jelly Inc. do ‘wobbly’.’ She handed him a document. ‘Read this.’
He squinted at it: ‘Staff Survey results, 2010’.
As he read through, Will Comfort’s eyes widened. He then resorted to exclamations of surprise; then exclamations of astonishment; and then finally, exclamations rather more industrial in tone, which in my view sat awkwardly with his somewhat boyish face.
‘But this means…’ he spluttered.
‘Yes,’ said Sally Gulliver, ‘That’s right. Everyone thinks we are in fact idiots.’
‘The feedback on management, and how people manage, is appalling.’
‘Yep. If we could fix just one thing, Will…’
‘What happened when these results were communicated to everyone?’
Sally Gulliver gave him a straight look. ‘Apparently they weren’t.’
‘So we kept secret what everyone knows already?’
Sally nodded. ‘Exactly. Our people aren’t nearly as stupid as we need them to be.’
Our people aren’t nearly as stupid as we need them to be
‘So what now?’
Sally smiled. ‘Now, Will, it’s time to try and drag this company, from the CEO down, into the rich, unsettling world of twenty-first century management.’
Next Friday: People Are Our Most Impotent Asset
@BinglebyinHR
Bingleby was confiding in Richard Goff
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