Wednesday, October 26, 2005

You might be a self-deluded manager when...

Very nice essay in the New York Times today: "Scare Yourself Silly, but the Real Terrors Are at Your Feet" by Abigail Zuger, M.D.

Although I'm not familiar with the underlying psychology of such self-delusions, I think I should do some research on this. Do managers do the same thing? It strikes me that they often do. When your business isn't running like you think it should or things get so overwhelming that your positioning statement is "we suck less" (a client actually said this once, in front of his new CEO, who was not the least bit entertained): you're probably self-deluded.

Hey, we could do a "You might be a self-deluded manager when..." that's like
Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck when..." schtick. Let's give it a whirl:

You might be a self-deluded manager when you get paid $10 million a year and think the problem with your business is the union, union wages or employee health care costs.

You might be a self-deluded manager when you explain the failure of your product on end-users who are just too stupid to know how to use it.

You might be a self-deluded manager when you design a product for people you've never met and never want to meet.

You might be a self-deluded manager and a bigot/racist/troglodyte when your new product philosophy is "well, that's what those kinds of people like."

You might be a self-deluded manager when it's easier to identify people not in your target market segment than people who are in your target market segment.

You might be a self-deluded manager when you insist that on-line education is the way to go, even though every two-bit competitor is thinking the same thing. All of you might be self-deluded if you think you can charge more for all of your on-line classes than local live classes with no proximal competition.

You might be a self-deluded manager when you charge your employees $260 a year for parking, but wonder why they don't buy your customized state license plate for an extra $50.

You might be a self-deluded manager when you forbid employees or customers to have coffee in your organization's new building, but you have a coffee maker in your suite.

Wow, I think this dog can hunt. Either there's a fun paper here or a good start on material for my stand-up comedy routine when I don't get tenure...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, you're like that kid on the 6th sense...

Anonymous said...

Coffee in the new building? Who, where? Is it good coffee at least?!

Anonymous said...

*cough cough* Hmmmm some USF...self-deludedness in there???!