C.E.O., Gobloc Insulting
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Basic Literature is a corporate satire blog, updated with satirical and humorous commentary on the corporate world, including career advice, management tips, business strategies and marketing tactics.
a satirical blog about our corporate world

The Corporate Duel: Women Vs Men

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

We’re approaching an era where female may outnumber male in the the population figure, so empirically it’s a matter of time before we’ll see more woman command the top seats in the chain of commands.

 MenVsWomen

But suffering from persistent sexism, prejudice and discrimination from the incumbent side of the gender war, can women uphold the natural selection and dominate the top position in the corporate world?

Basic Literature investigates Men Vs Women as a management personnel.

Women are emotionally unstable

Mood swings associated with menstrual pain, menopausal effects and other natural feminine instincts are affecting women and women alone. Expecting professionalism from women may be more difficult than from their male counterpart.

Men doesn’t have those medical reasons to bug them, so they can think straight and professional. They solve problems faster- through table-banging, chair-throwing and fist-fighting. They’re not emotional. Just physical.

Ah..the ever notorious Taiwanese Parliament..

Women need more leave days than men

Maternity leave is a constant nightmare for HR strategists. The fact that this lengthy break is protected by the labor law, coupled with the usual parental desire to have kids, mean there’s no walk-around to this apparent shortcoming of having woman in managerial positions. They can be missing during the most crucial times- and worst of all they’re still being paid.

Unlike women, men doesn’t have to go through these lengthy leaves, so men availability is much more reliable- a critical issue in any managerial position. Instead of taking a silly long break, men prefer to have short bursts of emergency leaves especially on Mondays and any other day they feel like not going to work.

Women’s commitment lies at home.

Traditionally it has been women who played the crucial role in managing the day-to-day operation of the family. They’re so good at them that this role is inherited from mother to daughter throughout the centuries. When the kids start to give trouble at home, mothers are more likely to respond because ‘it’s the nature’.

Men, meanwhile, doesn’t have this commitment limiting their movements. So they can focus more on the job at the office- which includes sexual harassments, love triangle, extra-marital affairs, cheating, adultery, two-timing, double-crossing..things that require them to ‘commit’ more time at the office.

 

Women will always fight against the odds

Historically, men always perform better than women as leaders. Look here:

What’s the similarity among these great people: Alexander The Great, King Leonidas, Achilles, Napoleon and Genghis Khan? Well, they’re great warriors and it’s obvious none of them are women.

Now, what about these people: Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Suharto? Well, they’re all famous leaders, but for the very wrong reasons.

Oops..And they’re all men.


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How Companies Can Respond To The Crisis

Monday, March 23, 2009

I hate to play around with this issue during this unfortunate time, but I’m part of the ‘What You See Is What You Write’ concept. Open the newspaper and every 10 out of 10 articles in the business section will have negative words about the economy being used.

bad-economy

“Halp…..”

So, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll now look into how companies can react to the state of this economic recession.

 

Integration

Involves acquisition of other organizations.

In this time, credit will be tight, so humongous spending like this would be very difficult to maneuver. So no, this strategy is useless.

 

Penetration

Working the ass to penetrate the market more. Multiplying the sales of the same product to the same market.

Nay. With employees morale at the bottom, no one wants to do more of the same work.

 

Development

Develop new product for the same market or new market for the same product.

Absurd. The investment to develop new product or entering new market will take years to start paying back. In this time, as jittery shareholders analyze companies' financial performance on a quarter-to-quarter basis, this idea of a strategy is nonsense.

 

Diversification

Get involved in something new for the company.

Too risky. Company would not have the necessary experience to play around with new unrelated business…with their plummeting coffers. Dismissed.

 

Retrenchment / Divestiture / Liquidation

Shrink the size of the company either through lay-offs, partial sale of company or complete selloff.

The only group of strategies which will require less investments, provide quick return, remove excess baggage, lessen the responsibility, silent the internal pressure, all while delivering the effective message for employees to step up their effort.

The drawbacks? Well..with this strategy, more people will be out of work, the social well-being will deteriorate, the economy will worsen…but wait..those have got nothing to do with the company.

So yes. This is the only strategy that will work in the current state of economy. Well of course other strategies will work too, but with the squeeze companies get from the economy today, being greed is the only option feasible.

So retrench, lay-off, let-go, cut down, reduce, trim, bring down..whatever the word is- it’s not what the economy needs, but hey..if you care about other people, join a charity. Not a corporate company.


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Your Company: Grow Them Big or Stay Small?

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

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I know you must’ve been to dozens of seminars about thinking big, being a mega-oligarch, growing a business empire, IPO, internationalization, globalization, Fortune 500, Forbes Billionaires- and you’re now dreaming of sitting back in your Rolls or Maybach, taking phone calls conforming your billions of dividends, on your way to your yacht somewhere in the Riviera.

If the scenario above fits your dream, then you’re one of those suckers I’m about to address in my KISS principle:

Keep It Small Suckers!

You see, once your company has an employee base the size of a decent republic, and your offices are scattered across different continents, and your ticker symbol is on the main board, and a whole crap of people who are not related to you in any way are being appointed in the Board of Directors, the stakes will be too high for you.

You have to stay in control with less power, while continuously watching your back trying to achieve the impossible, all at the expense of yourself.

 

You have to stay in control…

With so many assets at stake, so many decisions to make, so few people to trust, this is where you’ll try to hold onto as much power as you can. You’ll try to be involved in every decision making process, try to be informed of every internal and external changes.

So many inputs to digest and so many multi-million decisions pending, your personal life will be relegated to the fringes- so is your family, your vacation, your health and your retirement.

 

With less power..

This is the state where you have to let go your control bit by bit and surrender them to the democratic power of the stakeholders- your employees, capitalists, governmental agencies, the public and other watchdogs.

This is the state where anarchy will oust you from power in 24 hours. This is where you actually letting go your company to someone else.

 

While watching your back…

With your revenue size comparable to the GDP of a developing country, you’ll be under the scrutiny of the corporate United Nations. Every decision you make will be analyzed by those securities commissions and the watchdogs to ensure you’re not hiding behind the corporate veil for your personal gain.

But with so many decisions to make through different corridors of powers, the chances of you screwing up would be big, so big you have to hire a whole law firm to bail you out.

 

And strive for the impossible…

With so many people to please, you’ll be skating on a thin ice. A small discontent would snowball into an anarchy. A displeased little napoleon would result to an economic blockade.

This is where you have to be as diplomatic as possible, sometimes with the help of a trick called ‘bribery’ just to keep every plan in motion smoothly and keep the stakeholders calm.

 

At the expense of yourself….

With your key divisional figureheads working in different time zones, this is where you have to literally stay awake at all time to communicate with them. And because there’s always something to communicate every nano-second in a mega corporation, you’ll have no rest until you Rest In Peace.

 

*****

Starting a company small is good. But growing it to be super big, hoping to sit back, retire early, enjoying your pay-check.. all while being the de-facto owner…. it’s too much of a dream. Because the stakes would be too high for you to play around.

So if you’re still thinking about growing a Fortune 500 company, this is how your dream should be: You’re standing in front of your Board of Directors, taking fire questioning your huge salary, on your way to the hospital for a bypass surgery. And all in your head, at that time, is: “will they remove me from office while I lie unconscious on the operating table?” And the only response to your question would be:

“I don’t care…as long I’m not behind bars”.


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