Dawn of the Dead Blog
No, it's not a blog about classic horror movies, although those zombies would undoubtedly be better presenters than many of our conference room tormenters: it's our first new entry since the end of the Britney Spears Era (or whatever was popular six months ago). Anyway, it would be unforgivable, except that what we've come up with here was well worth the wait. This mission statement came to us in a self-adoringly titled annual report for a company's internal research group, A Unique Competitive Advantage:
Our mission is to provide world-class thought
leadership and market insight that will foster
innovation and enable the successful pursuit of
client opportunities, while utilizing cutting-edge
knowledge management techniques to make this
information available to all practitioners.
Apart from being a load of -- er, well, a load -- the report was pathetic even in its concept. I can't say an annual report is a bad idea, but for an internal group to publish one is presumptuous at best. Worse still is the title, A Unique Competitive Advantage, which smacks of defensiveness and a need to justify the group's existence. Just as the star employees don't need to say "I am a star employee" or "I add value to the organization", we certainly don't need to hear the research team extol its own importance.
Perhaps at my next family get-together I'll introduce myself as Jon, the Son Who Achieved the Most in School. That should have all of the clan thronging about me during cocktails.
We devote a whole chapter of our book to the power of humility, candor and being your own harshest critic, and this isn't easy to do. But when stuff like the above bubbles up from the bureaucratic strata we're reminded of how oblivious people can be to something easy and basic. Yes, there's a time and place to toot your own horn. Using the car analogy, though, next time you're driving think about how delighted you are with the guy behind you laying on the horn and direct that road rage to your writing and editing.
Our mission is to provide world-class thought
leadership and market insight that will foster
innovation and enable the successful pursuit of
client opportunities, while utilizing cutting-edge
knowledge management techniques to make this
information available to all practitioners.
Apart from being a load of -- er, well, a load -- the report was pathetic even in its concept. I can't say an annual report is a bad idea, but for an internal group to publish one is presumptuous at best. Worse still is the title, A Unique Competitive Advantage, which smacks of defensiveness and a need to justify the group's existence. Just as the star employees don't need to say "I am a star employee" or "I add value to the organization", we certainly don't need to hear the research team extol its own importance.
Perhaps at my next family get-together I'll introduce myself as Jon, the Son Who Achieved the Most in School. That should have all of the clan thronging about me during cocktails.
We devote a whole chapter of our book to the power of humility, candor and being your own harshest critic, and this isn't easy to do. But when stuff like the above bubbles up from the bureaucratic strata we're reminded of how oblivious people can be to something easy and basic. Yes, there's a time and place to toot your own horn. Using the car analogy, though, next time you're driving think about how delighted you are with the guy behind you laying on the horn and direct that road rage to your writing and editing.
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