The Icarus Deception

So I am a couple of chapters into Seth Godin's new book (as promised Amazon dropped it into my Kindle this morning) and I am already gripped with excitement. By his own admission he stepped out of his comfort zone to write this, but it is already hitting a chord. He is pointing out a simple truth that we all miss; the world has changed but we have not changed with it, and if we do then it is a liberating experience.

During my childhood I remember a cartoon where the technology of the world failed and a time of magic began. The world today is akin to that. The industrial revolution set boundaries on how like should be and what 'the dream' should be. Those boundaries no longer exist but we still act as though they do.

Now excuse me while I go back to reading.

Happy New Year!

Seth Godin's New Books.

Seth Godin brings out three new books at the end of this year. Rather than try tell you about a book I havn't read yet I'll let his do that here. Preordering mine took 30 seconds on Amazon. Epic. Roll on New Year's Eve.

A good reason not to sue.

How to run into trouble in business.

1. Find a way of creating a cheaper processed food product (think beef).
2. Don't tell the public about it.
3. Sell it to schools, hamburger chains etc who will sell it to an unsuspecting public as 'normal' food
4. Wait for someone else to tell the public about it-especially how it is made
5. Watch someone else make your production process look really really bad
6. Wait for negative public reaction
7. Watch sales plummet
8. Try sue
9. Watch even more negative public reaction

With last weeks news of a worker suing Jamie Oliver for his expose on Lean Finely Textured Beef, otherwise generally called 'pink slime' by its haters, the process has once again been foisted into the limelight. Now people get to read about it all over again, reprocess the feelings of revulsion they felt the first time, and reinforce the decision not to ever buy it again.

How To Avoid Taking Responsibility

Seeing as we are all so good at avoiding responsibility I thought I would help make it easier for you by collecting some of the best ways of blame shifting for us all to use.

Committees, action groups, and investigative boards are a great way to avoid responsibility. Set one up, deliberately do not name a head, give them a vague enough frame of reference (nice technical term that, throwing technical terms around that no one understands is also a great way to shift blame), and when they fail to deliver after consuming a nice padded budget there is no one to blame because the committee will go round in circles pointing fingers at each other.

If you cannot get on a committee or use technical jargon here are a few other ways of avoiding people blaming you for something you should have done. Always have a scapegoat, pick on someone else in the organisation who you can blame, preferably in a different department. Practice the shrug, shrugging your shoulders with a vacant expression on your face is a great way to ignore an issue. It is the non verbal equivalent of “I am not the one” and is guaranteed to send people storming off in a rage, and if they are storming away from you then they are not bothering you are they. Never pick up litter, you did not put it there, you are not the cleaner, it is not your job. Likewise never actually mention to the person littering that the bin is five meters away, again its his litter not yours. Practise the turnabout argument, shift the blame back to the other person like a rapist blaming the rape victim for wearing clothes that were too alluring with an “I raped her because her skirt was too short” type excuse. Blame the equipment, it cannot fight back. Blame Econet/Netone/Telecel, everyone has cellphone issues at some point. Create long and arduous, bureaucratic chains of command. The more steps there are to doing something, the more likely someone else can be blamed. Never, never, never work through a tea break or lunch break to meet a deadline, these are your God given right and must never be sacrificed, you can always blame the poor work hours though cause there is never enough time to do everything.