In early Summer I will come forth with another literary effort. Unlike James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, of which there is great current controversy, The Silverback Diaries will be truthful. Well, mostly.
Still, I probably have less than one chance in three million of being invited on Oprah Winfrey’s television show, much less the book being chosen for her book club. That’s okay. I hate klieg lights.
I confess that the title of this book was not my first choice. My first choice was The Gorilla Manager: A Reality Check. However, I was embarrassed into changing it when I read an August 2004 article in The Economist magazine deriding business books with animal names, and names which numerically guide one to success, such as the Five Ways of Becoming Obscenely Wealthy.
This particular article was titled: “How 51 Gorillas Can Make You Seriously Rich”, or, subtitled in the follow up sentence, “why so many business books are so awful.” It was inspiring. And yes, most business books are awful. That’s why I realize it is a great leap of faith for you to read mine. However (commercial message inserted here) the book will be published by Vidalia House and advance orders are being accepted.
I actually have no great desire to be filthy rich. Being moderately rich is more a daydream than an ambition, something one does when he is tying his shoelaces and contemplating bellybutton lint caught in a seriously super-sized tummy. So, I changed the title – several times, and when nothing inspired me, I went for the adjective “Quirky”, which I find to be slightly more fitting than “Oddball”. However, since I already had gorillas on the brain,
I quickly moved on, but held on to the idea of an animal menagerie, finally bringing back the great Silverback.
One might raise some question as to whether the book actually is a diary, as in the sense of something one contributes to almost daily, like brushing one’s teeth or shaving. I am going to fudge a little. These are, indeed, thoughts I have written down over the years, embellished somewhat as I began that forced march others generally call writing a book. The topics were inspired more by experience than some cosmic realization that slapped me, as we southerners say, up the side of the head.
To put it even more mundanely, the book is about managing professional people, which we – that’s an imperial we – believe to be a dying art and a stone-dead science. Professional managers are the chimney sweeps of the 21st century. The late, great Rodney Dangerfield joked about never getting respect – as if he owned the category. He was pre-fat Elvis compared to managers of businesses and business teams. In that regard, this little tome represents the cavalry come to rescue wagons circled by yelping Injuns.
Let’s face it, the notable collapses of empires at Enron, Vivindi, WorldCom and a host of others did us managers a service. People are saying: Who’s in charge? Where are the grown-ups? (Enron’s Kenneth Lay certainly dressed like a grownup, even when in shackles.) We, of course, do not attempt to tackle the complexities of rogue companies. We do believe there is a starting point, and that it has to do with comity and good manners.
I know what you’re thinking: Jeez, is that his main point? Well, sort of, but it probably has ramifications you have not considered.
Because managers are devalued in today’s world – becoming as rare as a Silverback gorilla in the wild (there, he IS with us) – we believe a certain balance must be restored. Let’s face it. The hostile atmosphere in today’s business world can be the equivalent to that of
a frat house after a Friday night bash. It smells of stale beer and dirty knickers are hanging from the windowsill.
Thus, the purpose of my book is rather modest, merely to return a modicum of gentility to the marketplace, to rearrange the wicker furniture upset by dozens of Guerilla Marketing (PR, management, advertising) tomes that adorn the business bookshelves. And to show rather than instruct professional leaders how to be better managers.
The book has nothing to do with the mortal combat of everyday business battle, which we wholeheartedly endorse. It has everything to do with doing it with more finesse, more professionalism. To this end, we have outlined some 10 areas in drastic need of reconstruction, a totally makeover if you will. Some of you might find certain thoughts petty. I certainly do, but we are talking of that journey of a thousand miles beginning with that first big, fat Silverback print.
For example, we really believe that an errant and angry e-mail will be the cause of World War III. We are convinced that people who talk loudly into cell phones in public places are merely trying to impress gum-chewing girls with names like Charity Dawn. We are committed to abolishing the billable hour, thinking it is more applicable to cotton gin workers and ladies of the evening. It has little relevance for business professionals, whether the lawyer, the PR guy or the management consultant.
There is no such a thing as “casual Fridays.” We are genuinely puzzled by the concept, and wonder out loud what moment of insanity institutionalized that nonsense. In the business workplace, we have an aversion to Che Guevara sweatshirts and Britney Spears bellybuttons, which does not make us prudes, merely grownups. This, of course, calls into the question the whole need for a Human Resources department, which seems to have overtaken the legal department as the single greatest obstacle to unfettered commerce.
And, let’s face it, we are awash in language fraud. At the end of the day, we believe the bottom line is that everyone wants a level playing field. Hogwash. In business, there is no end of the day, the bottom line is that which is to your own advantage and a level playing field clearly is meant to tilt to your home ground.
Let’s get real. Your daddy used to tell you that anyone who begins a sentence with the word “frankly” would thereafter follow it with a lie. In business, that is only half the story.
These are a few of the windmills at which we charge, a serious assault for sure; but, given current realities, we realize that we will probably have the impact of a Nerf ball. However, like Don Quixote, we charge on. As noted, these thoughts are not hastily put together or haphazard ruminations, but a semi-scientific study of long and intense observation. None, however, represented a mountaintop epiphany; and, perhaps, many readers would suggest no serious intent other than to rattle a few cages here and there. So be it.
However, we do believe lateness has become epidemic. We wonder aloud at the millions of man-hours lost by endemic tardiness; not because employees are late, but because we business people rarely show up on time to meet with one another. Some price should have to be paid for wasting our most precious resource, time. We suggest, at a minimum, torture.
While management fads generate business and dollars short term, most have the lifespan of a fruit fly and the consistency of cotton candy. We will expound the belief that the whole jumble of alphabet management and business tools are, for the most part, that long-forgotten little exercise that most of us know as common sense.
It is what we all do on our best days, without really thinking about it that much. As a marketing tool, they are probably marginally effective for people who otherwise would be spending their time listening to self-help tapes and the ever-present windup motivational speaker.
We stay away, as best we can, from extremely deep business philosophies that tend to get bogged down in psychobabble. We believe in Lou Gerstner’s way of characterizing business. The former head of IBM says, “There are no mysteries. It’s about ideas, execution and keeping focused.”
We also discuss the art of communication within an organization, the leadership of people as opposed to the management of people, and the crying need for reality-based thinking as opposed to perception management thinking. We firmly believe that businesses succeed on the strength of good management (leadership), and that from only this resource can proper company culture be formed. We’re talking avoiding the mud puddles of Enron, Parmalat, WorldCom, Vivindi and, if you will, the missteps of the fallen heroine, Martha Stewart, who in the fall of 2004 entered federal prison in my home state of West Virginia.
Lest one thinks we venture up dark alleys without the slightest flicker of hope, and lest one feels we have merely thrown tacks in the superhighway of commerce, we will offer you – and of course this is hyperbole –the World’s Greatest and Shortest Employee Manual (600 words), and The World’s 15 Best Management Tips. Both are guaranteed to crank up your cerebellum and make you a better leader.
Finally, we, as you, believe the world we accidentally landed on is moving at warp speed, and needs to slow down a little. Thus, we offer emotional and relaxing safety valves that constitute neither illegal drugs nor that much energy. We believe one can put in a 50- or 60-hour week, and make it seem as if you breezed through one of those very French 35 hour spans.
While I would like to think everything within the pages of the forthcoming Silverback Diaries is applicable to every employee, they are not, but they should be applicable to every professional employee. Hence, such ideas as thinking not in traditional work hours but work within a 24-hour timespan should go down a little easier for the conservative that expects 9 to 5 from every employee.
I don’t expect everyone to take this book as gospel. After all, it is about a Silverback Gorilla and, in many ways, he is a rather quirky fellow. Many of you, however, will have seen the inside of Harvard Business School while, I confess, I barely got through school. I have made it through business life, however, and these are a few of the lessons I have learned, and observations I wish to impart.
Hang on. That publication date again is May, 2006.
Michael Willard is the author of four other books on business. His 2005 book, “The Portfolio Bubble: Surviving Professionally at 60”, was a selection of the Forbes Business Book Club.
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