A Cynic's Guide to Management

Chairman's Mouth

Although its name may suggest that this is purely an oral condition, Chairman's Mouth is in fact a disease of the entire corporate communications system. Its onset is characterized by an increasingly stilted, grandiloquent and circumlocutory style of speech and writing, along with an addiction to bizarre euphemisms and orotund phraseology.

The means by which the organization pursues its legitimate goal of survival is referred to as a 'mission'; people become known as 'human resources'; while the legacy of irrational prejudices, obsolete products, ineffective methods, obscure traditions and outmoded working practices is pretentiously described as a 'heritage'. Before long, insoluble problems are described as 'challenges', and crippling setbacks as 'exciting opportunities'.

Hugely contagious, the condition spreads rapidly, infecting first other members of the board, and eventually spreading downwards through the lower ranks of management.

1. Styles of Management
• Homeopathic Management
• Ballcock Management
• Narcissus Management
• Evangelical Management
• News Management
• Territorial Management
• Inflation Management
• Hostage Management
• Defensive Management
• Cuckoo Management
• Crisis Management
• Meddle Management
• Alibi Management
• Signal Management
• Abdication Management
• Obstruction Management
• Convoy Management
• Beehive Management
• Virtual Management
• Displacement Management
• Lifeboat Management
• Placebo Management
• Puppet Management
• Zoological Management
• Prosthetic Management
2. Disorders of Management
• Feline Obesity Syndrome
• Furor Pecuniae (Wage-rage)
• Olsen's Disease
• Motivation Deficiency Disorder
• Penile Dementia
• Gross Cranial Enlargement (Atlas Syndrome)
• Counselling Dependency Syndrome
• Chairman's Mouth
• Early Warning Symptoms
• Competitive Dedication Syndrome
• Rogue Reflex Disorder
• Corporate Disintegration Syndrome
• Pangloss Disease
• Stupor Conventii (Delegates' Disease)
• Compulsive Prognosis Disorder
• Obsessional Status Neurosis
• Impotence
• Reduced Consciousness Syndrome
• Panic Attacks
• Canute's Disease
• Compulsive Calling Disorder
• Multiple Accreditation Disorder
• False Achievement Syndrome
3. Laws of Management
• The Law of Extravagant Economy
• The Law of Proportional Incompetence
• The Law of CollusivePreferment
• The Law of Progressive Regression
• The Law of Posterior Deference
• The Law of Remedial Exacerbation
• The Law of Delegated Culpability
• The Law of Experimental Elevation
• The Law of Expectant Valuation
• The Law of Replicated Triumphs
• The Law of Transcendent Methodology
• The Law of Subsidiary Inheritance
• The Law of Rhetorical Divergence
• The Law of Preposterous Precision
• The Coefficient of Insignificance
• The Law of Retromingent Departure
• The Law of Titular Inflation
• The Law of Executive Propulsion
• The Law of Obstructive Creativity
• The Law of Conceptual Parentage
• The Law of Predictable Redundancies
• The P45 Law
• The Law of Synchronized Freedom
• The Law of Peripheral Primacy
• The Law of Mutual Munificience
4. Management Devices
• Management Fictions
• Work Replacement Therapy
• Management Euphemisms
• Management Rhetoric
• Management Perversions
• Management Rituals
• Management Mantras
• The Controlled Fiasco

Not very funny, nor interesting. Maybe because I am a lot more cynical than the author?