Someone sent me over a copy of an email they received at work. "Hey guys! We're having a Values Week. Everyone pulling together. A shared goal. A common focus. The 'XXX way of doing things’. Caring and sharing - it's one of our corporate values. Like making a round of teas and coffees for people in your team, without being asked. And if you are brewing up, don’t forget to take your new ‘Team Tray’ to the kitchen with you!"
I ask myself, after throwing up, if this is a corporate value, why are they having to promote it with values-branded trays?
I caught a recent episode of CSI. Have you noticed that the word 'hello' in US drama has been replaced by 'hey'? Check yourself in the mirror and compare the mouth movements for hello and hey. With hey, you just part the lips slightly - one syllable. In comparison, it makes saying 'hello' look like chewing gum - comparatively hard work - while 'hey' is cool. But if we all do it, how cool is that?
I was talking to a friend at the weekend who is a devotee of hip-hop. She spends around 10 hours a week working on the demanding dance routines in a south London group. By her own admission it doesn't come easily to her and she is frustrated by those novices who just seem to have a natural flair but can't hack the discipline. "What makes the difference?" I asked and she says "An inspirational leader who knows what buttons to press and when to press them." 
It's a feature of many of our great public sector institutions that highly skilled people working at the sharp-end are undermined by well-meaning but unsighted management decisions.
Orson Welles, once referred to Donny Osmond as having 'Van Gogh's ear for music'. 
The CEOs of the three US car giants, Chrysler, Ford and GM, have bowed to criticism and travelled to the latest US government summit in hybrid green cars provided by their own companies. This is in contrast to the flak they attracted when previously they used their gas-hungry executive jets to go and appeal for bail-out funds. 
'If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.' We most often hear this from consumer gurus and usually after we've already done the deed. So, now that it's official - we're in recession, why did we suspend so much of our natural healthy caution and cast our commonsense to the wind? Because, simply, we thought, 'I'm worth it'.
The police themselves are the victims of popular myths played out in the full glare of the media. 
Ever found yourself having to present something positively that was not of your making and flies in the face of your own better judgement? Politicians seem to do this all the time to remain on message or toady their way to a better portfolio. But managers, generally, aren't too well equipped to pull it off.
I guess that most animals, if they could speak, would be this direct – especially when quizzed about their hygiene habits. Led by their instincts, appetites and fears, they don’t let reason, conscience or advertisers get in the way.
