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10th September 2010

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Disappearing bullshit – searching for the silver lining

Regular readers will know that something mildly amusing or just plain silly often ends the news section of ‘People Matters’. Not original, we know, but like Trevor MacDonald and News at Ten before us, it seems to work. Articles with ‘chocolate’ or ‘bastard’ in the title are our most read, according to the web stats.

This month, we have searched high and low and are struggling to find much to laugh about in the press save, as always, for the consistently excellent Lucy Kellaway in the FT. Writing on the apparent sudden demise of management ‘guff’ in the current doom and gloom she comments:

‘It is tempting to predict that the management bullshit industry will come back before investment banking does. But when it does, it may not be the same. The glory days are over: the best management ideas have already been had. Most were had by Peter Drucker a long time ago, and there must be a limit to how often one can rehash them. There have been no good fads in recent years, indeed the fad industry is looking a bit like the pop music industry. Total Quality Management was the equivalent of the Rolling Stones: solid with staying power. The more recent fads, such as Loyalty Management, are the equivalent of HearSay – derivative, somewhat naff, gone before many people have even heard of them.

Some good may come of all this, after all.

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