Too Hot in the Office?

Business Man in Office With Fan

Outside, the temperature is a whopping 48 degrees Celsius (118F). Thankfully, those working in the corporate office are happily benefiting from a massive air-conditioner that is steadily pumping out a chilled air woft that ensures optimum employee comfort.

But what if the prized air-conditioning unit should randomly fail without any thermal warning? For those of you that are the Office Safety Warden, on your list of significant staffing impact problems and threats, this one ranks well above fire, floods, or running out of coffee (well, maybe not the last one).

Thankfully, the Federal Directorate of Office Work has developed a Hot Employee Management Plan (HEMP) that provides a readily followed process that will quickly extinguish the unwelcome heat malady that could potentially engulf those hard working employees, and keep any “hot under the collar” tempers well subdued.

1. Remove Clothing
Step 1 is the most logical and most easily enforced, but this step will require the initial distribution of a CEO approved HR Policy, signed by all employees, so that each person knows just what level of clothing can be removed without causing any offence, or embarrassment .

2. Pedal Power
Most progressive offices have a desk equipped with a pedal powered fan that is situated under the employee’s desk that can be readily activated when required. For those employees that are a tad lazy, I’m sure you will be able to readily motivate a colleague to pedal your fan with the right financial incentive so all needs are met.

3. Mobile Phone
It is common for most employees to travel to work by car. This Step encourages employees to sit in their air-conditioned cars and then join any urgent business meetings via a conference call utilising their mobile phone. However, as Safety Warden, before you recommend this solution, please ensure that there is a strong exhaust fan in the underground carpark. If not, you may be facing another problem that could be much more serious.

4. Changing Clothes
Those colleagues in a tailored suit should be quickly encouraged to replace their long woollen trousers with shorts, or a kilt, thereby allowing that wanted air-flow relief.
For additional information:  Claim your Pantaloon Freedom

5. Holiday Room
For those employees lucky enough to work for a progressive organisation that has a “Holiday Room” located in their corporate office, all is good, as each worker can readily book some desirable cooling time at the “beach or the snow”.
For additional information: Holiday Room

But, should all the above Steps fail to provide the requisite temperature relief, then Step 6 should be immediately implemented to ensure the short-term protection of your workforce. That being, invoke a mass office evacuation which commands all employees to go home, thereby removing them from your legal responsibility!

You should then instantaneously adhere to the little known Step 7 (restricted to Office Safety Warden’s only), which requires you to go to the pub and have a nice cold beverage (or two), and with time, you will quickly forget all about the subject of air-conditioning! And remember, tomorrow is another day, and with it, there will hopefully be lots of rain.

 

For Seekers of Sleep


For those that have recently travelled on a long-haul flight in what is dis-affectionately known as “Regrettable Class” (RC), or more commonly classified as “Economy”, you will vividly appreciate the nerve-wrecking perils associated with the simple act of trying to go to sleep.

Unlike those First or Business Class passengers snuggly residing in their seats of decadence where they can nonchalantly stretch out to quickly achieve a state of blissful slumber, the hapless RC traveller enjoys has no such luxury.

These sleep disadvantaged people who make of the bulk of the passengers, reside well at the back of the plane, strategically out of sight of those with the larger and more comfortable seats. Those with the RC allocated Boarding Pass must endure hours of slumber torment before they can eventually stagger off the aircraft in their unwelcome zombie state.

Now should you be the CEO of a large international airline fleet, I would suggest you take notice as the following comments may alleviate an array of potential lawsuits that may soon be coming your way. In the world of equal human rights, the plane may indeed be the last bastion of inhumane class demarcation, particularly when it comes to the parity of sleep.

The RC Seat
Should you be a contortionist, the painfully narrow RC seats provided will ensure your complete satisfaction. However, if you reside in the other 99.99% of the world’s population, you will be greatly disappointed. To put it bluntly, after being reluctantly strapped into these seats for 17+ hours, a jagged boulder is decidedly more enticing to your gluteus maximus and will provide a far greater opportunity for restful slumber.
To make matters worse, the seats are not evenly balanced, so one bottom cheek is never in vertical harmony with the other which can lead to other potential problems, particularly after consuming a tad too many meals.
Following many thousands of years of practical research, mankind seems to agree that the best method for attaining a successful sleep is to lay down in the horizontal position which might explain the phenomenal design success of the bed. But, for some strange reason, airlines like to awkwardly strap the RC passenger into a slender fitting seat with the economic knowledge that they just know better.

The Snorer
Now should the RC passenger actually manage to beat the extremely one-sided odds positioned against them and do mysteriously achieve an unexpected hour of exhaustion induced sleep, there is always the loud snorer who abruptly ends the long-awaited erratic experience.
Yes, it’s time for those that snore to be placed into an isolated soundproof section of the plane where they can expel those noisy audible tones in reckless cacophony. As a suggestion, this could be near the lavatories where they could compete with the explosive air gust vacuum thud of the onboard toilet flush.

The Solution?
If you have ever travelled in a submarine, the answer is obvious, that being, the bunk. Just think about the advantages, the most obvious one being the horizontal aspect which happily facilitates and encourages sleep.
A sleeping RC passenger will also require less food, mainly because they are contently unconscious.
Bunks would also assist with space optimisation, complete with the added benefit of providing greater social interaction for those who like to engage with other like minded passengers in an array of mutually agreeable activities.

So, should you be an RC passenger reading this blog post, may I suggest that you participate in your preferred choice of social media and ask your habitually flown airline to consider the above suggestions (in my instance, Qantas). And who knows, maybe one day in the not too distant future, RC class will no longer be the trepidation of any sleep seeking traveller?

Sweet dreams.

The CEO’s New Clothes

It was day one of the new CEO’s appointment. A rather traditional dark grey suit, pristine white shirt, black medium length socks, complete with matching leather polished shoes were carefully selected by the incumbent for the momentous occasion. He looked resplendent as he beamingly sat behind his large impressive desk in a voluminous office that just oozed with status and authority. Yes, he was indeed the man!

As the week progressed, all of his direct reports, collectively, and individually, sat opposite him in business attire that directly mirrored his conservative fashion prowess, complete with continual nods of unquestionable beaming loyal approvals.

In a similar manner, their subordinates also quickly followed suit and continued the same fashion replication to the point where each employee now looked like a cloned version of their manager.

Now, the CEO was no fool, in fact, far from it, and a cunning plan of innovation was carefully hatched. From that day forth, he decided to wear the exact same clothes for a month. No item of clothing would be changed, apart from those that respectively should not be mentioned.

Over the days and weeks, a certain grubbiness came to gradually prevail over his attire, complete with an ensuing woft of persona that slowly increased with intensity.

He noticed with a somewhat predictable consternation a look of increasing shabbiness now starting to prevail throughout the entire organisation. Those pristine white shirts of his executive team were now witness to numerous blotches of large brown coffee stains, there were accumulated smears from too many self-indulgent lunches and dinners, and the severely wrinkled corporate flannel was now more noticeably beige in colour than white.

At the end of the month, the CEO thankfully wore a fresh set of clothes, and a quiet shout of thankful glee was heard rippling throughout the entire organisation, also from their customers, whose numbers had correspondingly dwindled over the weeks due to a severe lack of attention on their business.

Packaged in the sweet fresh smell of his new clothing attire, the crafty CEO now strategically pondered the learnings from the last four weeks from a perspective of corporate innovation:

  1. An organisation that has a workforce of clones is doomed to fail.
  2. Never mask any prevailing wofts, be they good or bad, that quickly permeate throughout the business as they are a clue that something is indeed amiss.
  3. Never wear the same clothes each day as personal creativity is the source of true innovation.
  4. Surround yourself with loud vocal thinkers, not those that quietly nod in constant agreement.

The following month, a brief memo from the CEO was quickly distributed advising that “a large number of the executive team had unanimously decided to pursue other career interests and that they had now left the building”.

From that day forth a plethora of brightly coloured paisley shirts, bespoke tailored suits, and even the occasional pair of spiffy shorts, were commonly seen thereby ensuring the ongoing innovation success of this particular company.

So should you be a CEO reading this blog post, do take note as the key to innovation does indeed lie within your wardrobe, and that of your employees.

Those Pesky Weeds of Innovation

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As CEO of a large, conservative company that has been in operation for over a century with little or no business growth, how do you know if you have those pesky weeds of innovation in your business? The following are some clues to help you quickly identify them before they can take root and grow.

Ideas: Should you hear an employee uttering the blasphemous words “I have an idea”, then they need to be dismissed immediately before that frightening innovation virus can contaminate your workforce.

Fashion: Luckily these recalcitrant employees are easily identifiable by their annoying clothes, colourful shirts, bow-ties and the occasional hat. Just ask HR to quietly usher them to the exit with minimal fuss.

Laughter: Fun in the office should definitely not be tolerated and should result in the employee being speedily placed on disciplinary action with the threat of instantaneous termination for a repeat offence.

Unauthorised Fonts: Yes, there are strict corporate guidelines that must be followed. Any employee daring to use any other font rather than the long standing and approved black Times New Roman needs to be quickly educated on the 100 year old corporate values that have served the company well, and are based on tradition.

Customers: Any customer having the nerve to complain about our products not meeting their requirements do not deserve the privilege of being supplied by us, after all, we know what’s best for their business. How dare they tell us otherwise!

Career: Any employee seeking clarification on their future within our business obviously does not appreciate the honour of working for us (or should I say for me).

My fellow CEOs, hopefully the above insights have provided you with sufficient information to nippily identify any annoying employees that might be creative, or have mad ambitions of creating a culture of innovation in your company. The key is to act swiftly before their offensive ideas can take hold and spread. God forbid!

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

 

The Culturally Fitting Cordwainer

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Looking for a corporate culture that fully supports your creative career aspirations and life travels?

If the answer is yes, then your fitted, bespoke solution is literally below you, and is one that happily accompanies you wherever your corporate desires may fleetingly wander.

Whatever your innovation need, whether it be that of a classy professional, purely social, discretely indoors or an outdoor adventure, a matching array of versatile accessories are readily available to the discerning buyer, constructed in a plethora of colours, materials, comfort levels and various purchase prices.

The origin of this personalised inspiration is your fashionable cordwainer who after years of meticulous training has mastered the requisite design skills to provide the right shoe solution that is perfect for your feet.

Now shoes are key to your creative success, but there are some exceptions to the rule:

The Naked Foot
Those who dare to walk the corridors of the corporate office with foot nakedness may attain a state of relaxed mindfulness nirvana, but this will be short lived when viewed below the business trouser, or skirt, where a certain professional visual standard is expected from the onlooking beholder. The naked foot does indeed have its rightful place, but alas, it is not yet accepted as part of the regulations for approved industry attire, despite the invigorating freedom of thought.

The Sandal
In Roman times this form of footwear was most socially acceptable, but today, corporate office feet standards have now significantly changed. However, should you be an English University Lecturer who habitually wears a dull tweed jacket, thick beige corduroy trousers and smokes a pipe with voluminous gusto, then you may continue to look the part whilst we silently smirk at your personal misfortune.

Pointy Toe
Stop! The pointy toed shoe is now classified by the FBI as a dangerous weapon, and one that has caused many employee injuries from deliberate kicking outbursts directed at that annoying colleague under the table.

The Boot
Now should you be an Australian National Party politician, then this rule does not apply because it is presumed that you wear your boots for strategic media appearances so your electorate thinks that you come from a large farming community, eventhough you have always lived in the city, and would not know the front from the back of a sheep.  For all other corporate office workers, the wearing of a boot suggests that you have not yet mastered the shoe-lace tying process which may be systematic of other analytical shortfalls in your intellect.

So should you be a CEO or HR professional reading this blog post, the answer to business innovation is delightfully simple. Just hire a Chief Cordwainer Officer (CCO) and your corporate culture will be long wearing, fully protected and continually well heeled!

 

What’s on Your Corporate Clothesline?

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How would you describe the visual appearance of your corporate clothesline?

Is it one that has that look of shabbiness, where all the lines are no longer taut, are a tad tired and fatigued with excessive service to your organisation?

Are all the clothes hanging about rather too precariously with an outlook that is faded, tattered and torn and now ready to be used as an unwelcome, and rather smelly sleeping accompaniment in the corporate watchdog’s kennel?

If so, your business desperately needs a creative clothesline refurbishment where your employee’s innovative skills can be readily hung out to dry with pride.

The solution is to realign the skills of your employees where they all hang about with the requisite corporately aligned tension that comfortably meets their individual needs. No longer will some employees feel as if they are dangling too close to the bottom of the clothesline where some competitive vermin and other nosey corporate animals can undermine their self-esteem and confidence.

For those employees not willing to move and sway with the prevailing climatic winds, just surreptitiously loosen their holding peg, and with time, any remaining fragments of residual cloth clinging to the clothesline will eventually succumb to your new corporate gravity of change.

However, do make sure all your departmental positioning pegs are regularly updated and aligned with those that operate efficiently, are colourful, not crazed, and you will retain those important employees that are deemed strategic to your long-term organisational success.

As a CEO, you want your clothesline to be viewed by any visitors to your business abode as one that readily complements your organizational culture, and that highlights the impressive garment diversity of fashion wearers that happily attach themselves to your corporate hierarchy.

No longer will you need to spend lavish sums of money on endless internal and external organizational surveys to measure the mood and innovation prowess of your employees, just have a daily glance at your corporate clothesline and all will quickly be revealed.

Yes, the answer to your innovation is literally flapping in the wind.

 

The Brave New Office

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In a rather obscure, and regrettably, often ignored, paragraph in the classic 1935 novel supposedly written by Aldous Huxley titled “Brave New Office”, there is a clue as to the true source of sustained business innovation. Unfortunately, many corporate leaders have deliberately not heeded this now wise futuristic premonition and their leadership has suffered the perilous consequences.

Huxley outlines a corporate office in which humanistic creativity is directly linked to electronic devices for their inspiration and ongoing mental stimulation.

The paragraph states, “It was time for me to develop a corporate business plan so I carefully followed the detailed directions stipulated by my CEO (Central Emotion Organiser) and sat in the padded ideation chair located in the soundproof chamber, fastened the thought stabilisation seat belt around my waist and gently placed the mind activation headphones on my ears. I was now in complete isolation from the surrounding office and could only hear the thoughtful messages being directed to me by those ultimately more sagacious than myself.

Using the electronic thought pad placed within easy reach, I dutifully typed the words of communicated instructions that I obeyed without any need to question their authority or reasoning. Once done, I then touched the send button and the masterly corporate business plan was immediately replicated and distributed throughout the organisation for implementation by my fellow workers.

The whole process took less than 60 seconds to complete. Who could have imagined that many years ago, those in the corporate world that we now call “creative savages”, used nothing but the archaic ideation tools of their own mind, complemented with the incomprehensible use of a hand driven ink device that engraved odd-shaped letters on a fibrous paper medium. In the words of my CEO, totally unbelievable!”

The year is 2017 and I now look at all the electronic thought enhancement tools the corporate office now uses to drive innovation. We are all totally reliant upon our computer, iPhone, E-mail, TV, and a plethora of other associated and interlinked communication devices.

Why not try something brave, and definitely not new, in your corporate office?

Yes, it’s most likely hidden in the back of your stationery cupboard covered in a deep layer of cobwebs. Once you find it, it’s called a pen and a writing pad. To use it, just let your thoughts go free, unhindered by any electronic support device and scribe in free hand any ideas presented to you. With time, I promise that you will get used to it, you might even enjoy the positive emotive sensory feeling associated with writing!

Go on, free the creative savage within you, and redefine your Brave New Office.

Jazz – The Poignant Innovation

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Looking for business improvisation in your office? Well, focus on music as it provides a poignant innovation key.

According to one of the world’s greatest jazz musicians, the answer is to deliberately focus on the “white”, and not the “black”. Most traditional players of music are captivated by those pesky black notes, carefully placed with much thoughtful deliberation by the composer on the five well regimented lines of the staff. The orchestral focussed musician then, without any allowable hesitation, follows without question the vast array of strategically positioned crochets, quavers, semibreves, and even the occasional minim, with a well-practiced systematic bow, blow or beat of their beloved instrument. The result is a perfect and consistent replication of the musical selection, just as the composer had stipulated.

However, if you are a player of jazz, you tend to not be a musical conformist, but one that focuses more on the creative freedom represented by the unrestricted white score background devoid of all black notation. These innovative musical entrepreneurs utilise their deep, fundamental understanding of their instrument to collaborate in joint mutual harmony with a range of other diverse thinking performing colleagues to create the true essence of improvised jazz.

To complement the jazz player’s unhindered creative style, no formal orchestral dress attire is typically worn. Rather, you will observe a selection of them occasionally wearing a diverse range of coloured paisley patterned shirts, stylish mod-suits, denim, boots, dark glasses, and even a stylish hat.

Now consider the corporate office with all its conservative business rules and regulations, its staff brandishing the standard business suit, shirt, cuff-links and ties, analogous to the large, classical symphony orchestra lead by the CEO conductor. But don’t get me wrong, as for many businesses to succeed, this long standing and proven tradition is essential in ensuring that all employees are working off the same musical score, are working together with a common objective to manufacture a high quality performance that is appreciated by the expectant shareholder audience.

But should your business be striving for the development of a culture in which innovation can flourish, consider how a “jazz room” environment can be established where your employees can mix with other likeminded paisley clad individuals, can experiment with corporate melodies previously untried or heard, and are free to let their creative talents loose without any critical judgement or fear of failure. With time and practice, the result will produce some new and dynamic sounds that may be the start of a new direction for your business.

So what’s the key to business improvisation?  Try to not always focus on what you typically see, but allow yourself the opportunity to expand your creative horizons and explore the innovative vastness of what could potentially exist in the background.

 

The Cardigan Effect

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If you are still searching for that illusive light bulb moment of inspiration that illuminates you on how to develop a culture of innovation within the corporate office, well, cover your shrinking expectant diluted pupils and look no further!

Those organisations that publicly acknowledge that they have attained this cultural goal of ongoing creative status fully understand, and vehemently practice, a little known law that many of you I’m sure have never heard of, or have ever been exposed to. The law is never discussed in any external academic of business journals, or in a public forum. Those CEOs that utilise this law protect it, and value it on an equal footing with any other prized intellectual property that they own.

The power of this law is like that of a welcome virus, and when unleashed without any senior management constraint within an organisation, it quickly takes hold and generates an uncontrollable innovative forward momentum.

The law is known as “The Cardigan Effect”. So how does it work you may gleefully ask? Let me explain.

The “cardigan” is a metaphor and is used to describe the relaxed, unhindered mental behaviour of an employee when they are not in the corporate office. When exhibiting “cardigan” behaviour, the employee speaks their mind openly; they have an opinion that they happily express with their family and friends. They solve problems, have suggestions and are not scared to challenge the status quo. They may be introverts, extroverts, or anything in between, and are content in realising and accepting their own unique persona.

But when many of these employees enter the corporate office, they remove their snug and comfortable “cardigan” and take on the excepted foreign characteristics and behaviour of the organisation. They become a different person, and all their inherent creativity becomes stifled, suppressed or non-existent.

Those organisations that have mastered the “Cardigan Effect” to drive a culture of innovation within their businesses allow, in fact fully encourage, their employees to wear their personalised “cardigans” in the office. The have created a work environment where their employees want to be their natural selves both in, and out of the office, there is no behavioural separation. However, there is one defining and strategic filter used for this “cardigan” behaviour, that being the organisations corporate values. Here the corporate values are not used to hinder the individual’s creativity, but rather to ensure consistency and a reference point for behaviour.

So how does an organisation create a work environment to fully reap the ongoing benefits of the “Cardigan Effect”? Well, it starts at the top with the Senior Executive team happily wearing their very own personal (not company supplied or corporately branded) “cardigans” publicly in the office. Some of their cardigans may not be that fashionable, may be a tad dirty, or may have a hole in the sleeve, if so, that’s even better. They need to consistently “walk the talk” and wear their “cardigans” everyday, not once off as part of a fad or promotion which most employees recognise quite quickly.

So on Monday as you dress for work, why not leave your usual corporate attire in the wardrobe and pull on your old and trusted “cardigan”. But more importantly, make sure that your home persona accompanies your “cardigan” as you enter the office. Then watch and behold just how fast this new and highly welcome innovation fashion trend quickly prevails!

Pinocchio’s Law

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A comprehensive population study has recently been completed, by a soon to be prestigious university, that will provide society with a foolproof DNA roadmap ensuring the long term wellbeing of mankind’s want for cultural innovation.

The analysis results were remarkably simple by their nature and have confirmed that people just needed to open their eyes as the source of innovation was, literally before their faces. The researchers wisely named their innovation theory “Pinocchio’s Law” owing to the direct, physical and observable correlation with their university findings.

The results indicated that when an individual fabricates a story, lies, or promotes an untruth, their brain stimulates a corresponding creative growth hormone that initiates increased nasal development. For those people that have mastered this technique, their noses will typically be abnormally long. This also assists in explaining the timeless conundrum as to why babies have small noses, as they have not yet perfected the skill of deception.

Another strategic correlation linked to an individual’s deception ability is that of innovation. An innovative mind needs to be able to think differently and to quickly fabricate events in order to achieve a plausible scenario, even though it might be highly fictitious.

So for those of you that want to spawn a race of innovative offspring, the answer is quite simple. You just need to find a reproductive partner with a nose that is significantly longer than yours, or at least of a matching length.

However, for those of you with a spiritual, sinless and purity of thought inclination, you too have a visual clue to assist you in finding that perfect life accomplice. Yes, you need to seek out people with a short stubby nose, and the chance of any negative humanistic deception tendencies will be minimised.

Yes, “Pinocchio’s Law” can also benefit those in business. Should your CEO have an unusually large nose, well the verdict is simple, don’t believe everything your are told!

In summary, bigger is indeed not better, unless you like deception.

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