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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!

The Knot of Personality

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For those of you in HR that make a career out of personality profiling, you need look no further than but down. Yes, forget your Myers Briggs, DISC, and any other expensive testing regimes that you have been reluctantly using until now as the alternative solution is literally at your feet.

This surprisingly simple, and most definitely cost effective methodology, is based upon numerous years of extensive observation of employees in the corporate office. The test subjects encapsulated a broad cross section of age, sex, educational qualifications, professional experience and fashion.

The final clue to this masterly personality classification technique came to the writer whilst meticulously studying the feet of my colleagues during a rather tedious, and most non-inspiring, business seminar that allowed my mind to be free of all corporate constraints and limitations. Thankfully, it is a skill that I have perfected over numerous corporate presentations and meetings, all utilising the time graciously provided to me by my employer.

OK, enough introductory banter, you just want to know the details! So it’s time for full disclosure.

The key to your personality profile is in your shoelaces. No, do not scoff, as this is a serious study that will in some time in the distant future, by a university that is in desperate need of cash, be fully supported by a highly dubious research paper in an obscure academic publication.

Now for the shoelace facts:

The Common Knot (aka “around the tree”): these employees are your generalist and cover the majority of the people in your business. The loops are typically uneven which suggests they tend to not tolerate the status quo.

The Loopy Knot (aka “bunny ears”): these people have an open, airy personality and tend to have a career that never progresses, but rather circles backward and forward. These people are destined for a career in middle management.

The Knot (literally a knot, no loops): these employees are hard-nosed nutcases and should be quickly exited from the business.

No Knot: here we are talking employees that wear boots. Theory suggests that they are quite simple in nature as they failed to master the technique of tying their shoelaces when at kindergarten and may have other un-yet diagnosed psychological disorders.

Buckle: these employees are a minority and have that persona that makes them stand out in a crowd. They are frequently destined to become CEO/Executives.

Bare Feet: Usually an indication of a free spirited individual. These employees are typically found in the marketing department.

So next time you are in a business meeting sitting with some colleagues, let your eyes wander under the table and focus firmly on their feet. Their personalities will be most evident and readily understood. It’s that simple.

3 Comments

by Steven Cramer on January 21, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged business, change management, creative, DISC, Fashion, fun, HR, innovation, Myers-Briggs, personality, psychology, science, shoes, university

Posted by Steven Cramer on January 21, 2016

https://thinkingfuturethoughts.com/2016/01/21/the-knot-of-personality/

The Law of Pudgification

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As the tiring flurry of those decadent end-of-year corporate parties start to loom, remember the negative and long term effects of the dreaded “Law of Pudgification”.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the knowledge and operation of this physical law, let me take the opportunity to educate you. The Law of Pudgification states, that for every food excess consumed by the eater, regardless of how many attempts are made to lose the weight from your corporately embellished stomach, the consumer’s physical body form will never completely return back to its previous slim state. The extent of this stomach deviation is called the “Residual Pudge”.

However, after extensive university studies involving many willing, and rather naive corporate participants who frequented numerous social office eating engagements, there are some common-sense precautions that sufferers of this physiological condition can make to limit the propagation of their Residual Pudge when at the corporate party.

Enlist a Friend:
Here your friend’s role is not to engage in social dialog with your corporate colleagues, regardless of how witty and attractive their personality may be to the onlooker. No, their primary objective is to surreptitiously eat all the food given to you whilst none of your work colleagues are observing. If your friend happens to be your twin, this is an additional bonus as the eating exchange will be more readily achieved (assuming you are not standing next to each other).

Announce that you have a rare and highly contagious disease:
This public declaration entitles you to the wearing of a facemask thereby eliminating any possibility of food consumption. The words “bio-hazard” in large red font branded on the mask will also highly assist in the pursuit of this objective.

Tardiness:
The deployment of this precaution requires military timing to ensure that you arrive at the office party precisely when all the food has been consumed by your work colleagues. If you happen to arrive and notice that all the room lights have been turned off and that there is no one left in the room, then you may have left your timing a tad too late. However, should this be the case, then relax as there is no opportunity for you to succumb to food consumption and you can be content in the knowledge that your Pudge has been protected.

Workaholic:
Explain to your work team that you are far too important to leave your desk and that you have six months of work that you need to conclude for the CEO before you commence your holidays. To embellish the charade, try and tear up and state in between muffled sobs that you feel miserable by not being able to attend. On hearing this, your colleagues will typically have extreme empathy for you and will quickly prepare you a large food plate that they will personally deliver to your desk, together with a vast array of well-meaning and sincere comments of sympathy and support. This ploy works a treat as you can then take the food plate home to your growing teenage boys who will quickly accept and consume your kind and caring gesture, and perceived personal eating sacrifice.

Yes, the Law of Pudgification is a problem that is found in all corporate offices around the world, regardless of the size of the business. By adhering to these simple, yet effective Residual Pudge precautions, besides benefiting your stomach, your finances will also be improved as your bodily need to frequently purchase new, and larger, business attire (for additional girth comfort) will be alleviated. However, there are two factors that cannot be controlled in the influence of Residual Pudge, those being age and gravity. But then again, that’s life!

8 Comments

by Steven Cramer on December 15, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged business, dieting, Fashion, fun, innovation, physics, pudge, pudgy, university

Posted by Steven Cramer on December 15, 2015

https://thinkingfuturethoughts.com/2015/12/15/the-law-of-pudgification/

Recognising Innovation within the Corporate Cave

I sat with a smug facial expression cross-legged on the lumpy dirt floor and surveyed my surroundings with intense pride. It was raining outside, yet no drops were seeping through my hand built stonewalls, and no streams of muddy water had eventuated within the precincts of my large cave.

My nineteen bɛərns (or was it twenty? I’d lost count over the various moon cycles) were playing happily with the latest fashion coloured pebbles that I had found in the adjacent dry riverbed. I watched them with interest as they quickly mastered the process of carving their individual hieroglyphic names into the rough rock walls with purpose and enthusiasm.

From under my long shaggy eyebrows, I peered at the mother of my children as she gestured that it was time for me to get off my naked hairy backside and go outside and slaughter a foreboding baby dinosaur, as the children were getting hungry and restless. As I was an obedient husband, knowing that any grunting retort was useless, I grabbed my large pointy wooden club, wiped the dark dry dust of my hairy torso and went outside the cave and sought out our dinner.

After a couple of days wandering the rugged countryside, I returned in a rather weary state with a large amount of dinosaur meat that was fully encapsulated within its dead body.

Now for the cooking process. I marvelled at the technology that my eldest son displayed as he used a flint rock and some dry bark to which various small sparks of fire eventually propagated. His days at the local Rock University had certainly paid off. I just wish that I had been born in the year 70,000,032 BC, rather than 30 years earlier!

After we had all eaten a large quantity of rarely cooked meat, I once again sat down crossed legged on my hairy bare bottom and watched my walls.

Now that I had some time to relax, I recalled a small box with white red headed sticks that I had found in my hunting dinosaur travels. If I were able to read, I would have seen a label on the box that identified the article as “safety matches”. How they got into the year 70,000,032 BC, I will never know, not that I really care because I have no idea as to their use, nor benefit. Instead, I jammed the box into a hole in my cave wall and plugged a wind draught that was causing the smoke from the fire to extinguish.
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Let’s now move forward to the year 2015 AD.

If we were that hairy-bottomed caveman, and we had found those matches, we would have put them to good use and initiated the fire with the striking of a strategically placed burning match head. However, if we don’t recognise new technology, or innovation, we tend to keep repeating the same old trusted and proven boring processes.

The key is to have an open mind and to continually observe and accept different ideas, or thoughts, as they may lead to a new way of doing things within your business. Diversity of thought should be encouraged, and your work environment should facilitate different employee perspectives, that way, innovation will have a chance to prosper and not be stifled.

So make sure that you and your work colleagues “think outside the cave”, and should any of your workers continually be dusting their bottom, well, they don’t have a place in your business!

Trinkets of Status

Have you ever noticed that as you get more senior in an organisation, either professionally or academically, that the size of your “trinkets of status” increases correspondingly? For instance:

A PhD when graduating has a bright and very colourful hat that is bigger than those with a humble Bachelor’s degree.
A Judge has a sturdy and “not so impressive” wig and dominant gown that conveys their esteemed authority when in the court.
The CEO drives a flashy car that somehow always remains clean regardless of how many days they spend on their private farm roughing it in the dirt.

This got me thinking…..what if these trinkets of status were distributed on a random basis to those in their organisation even though they were not entitled to exhibit them?

Would those observing these new trinket recipients view them in a different light? I suspect so, initially at least in the short term. Those wearing the trinket may also momentarily take on the persona of the rightful trinket owner and demonstrate a higher level of performance and innovation?

So why not give it a go in your place of employment? The results could be rather interesting!?

There is of course one condition that needs to be imposed with respect to the CEO’s car. Before returning it, it does need to be clean, and should there be any speeding fines, the honorary trinket person is still personally responsible for the payment!

Thoughts that might just be useful in the future

All posts tagged university

The Culturally Fitting Cordwainer

The Knot of Personality

The Law of Pudgification

Recognising Innovation within the Corporate Cave

Trinkets of Status

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Thoughts that might just be useful in the future

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The Culturally Fitting Cordwainer

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The Knot of Personality

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The Law of Pudgification

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Recognising Innovation within the Corporate Cave

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Trinkets of Status

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