Welcome everybody to our monthly team meeting. I know we are all very busy people but I think it is extremely important for us to take time out to reflect on progress.
“So, without further ado can I just say that I noticed our new corporate university logo being hoisted above the old training centre yesterday. Well done – we’re obviously making good progress there… now can anyone advise me of how the ’emotional intelligence awayday’ went? Well, can you give me a complete list of those who failed to turn up, and I’ll make sure someone gives them a rocket.
“Who is handling item 4 on ‘intellectual capital’? You can’t both be dealing with it – since when did we decide to call it the ‘human capital initiative’? Well, you can tell the focus group that changing project titles is not within their terms of reference… while we’re on this subject, can we please make sure these things don’t overlap?
“Has anyone seen that new book that’s out by that Swedish guy (or is he Danish?), anyway his name is Eric Edmundsson (or is it Edmund Ericsson? He could even be Norwegian), anyway, it sounds really interesting – let’s keep our eye on that one, it could become a big issue for us…
“Moving swiftly on to item 5, e-learning. I think we’re in danger of losing ground here – at the last personnel directors’ forum, everyone seemed to have their infrastructure in place and were downloading content like there’s no tomorrow. We need to move faster otherwise we will be left behind… what do you mean the machine shop hasn’t got access to a terminal? We never planned to cascade down to that level.
“That reminds me, I have had some negative feedback from the foundry manager about his NLP practitioner’s course… I’m afraid we won’t have time to cover the item on knowledge management… I’m very disappointed with progress in this area, I’m not convinced that anyone has ever taken ownership and if we’re not careful it will go the same way as the ‘learning organisation’…
“On a more positive note, I am very pleased to announce that the new business cards showing ‘CIPD’ have arrived – it’s about time our professionalism was fully recognised and I really feel this will help to raise our profile. Thank you again for all the effort you have put in, I really value these discussions.
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“Right, date of next meeting. No, we don’t have time to look at outstanding leave entitlement now… have to dash – I’ve got an 11 o’clock with that new, drama-based consultancy, ‘Comedians in Management’. Oh, I nearly forgot, at the last board meeting it was decided to accept the recommendations of our PR consultants and change the name of the company to ‘Itwaseverthus plc’ – very progressive, don’t you think?”
By Paul Kearns, Senior partner, Personnel Works
