|
About |
Testimonials |
Contact
|
|
|
Counterbalance Corporate Spin by asking Foolish Questions
|
| Reduce GroupThink in your organisation by using someone external to ask silly questions (ie those outside the norms of the organisation) But don't employ them, because they wouldn't last long! |
Who is there within your organisation to tell the CEO, the directors or even the managers that they have been trapped in their own 'spin' or delusion about how things are?
Perhaps you need someone whose job it is to put their head above the parapet to expose silly thinking, someone is neutral and not wrapped up in the organisation politic. The role of corporate jester does just that providing the organisation with an invaluable sounding board. But you must be prepared to listen.
British Airways
In 1994, British Airways employee Paul Birch was appointed as his company's official 'corporate jester'. Birch had approached his director of corporate strategy with the idea, on the grounds that an official jester might actually play a useful part in the company, just as medieval precursors had done in royal courts. Birch's thinking was that the modern board of directors is a bit like a medieval court, where no one questions the king or senior courtiers, because "they have become far too important for anybody to challenge ... as long as they can't possibly be wrong, they can continue doing the wrong things all the time and never know it".What followed was an experiment with mixed - but never dull - results. Birch, gave pointers to top BA executives on how to be less confrontational. He made a bunch of suggestions about the architecture of the company's headquarters. To promote creativity, he encouraged managers to chase one another with water guns. And most important, he said the things that most other people inside BA were afraid to say.
"One of the roles of the jester is to declare, 'Just because you're the boss doesn't mean that you know better,' " Birch says. "The jester's role is to draw attention to things that are going wrong, to stir things up."
Birch held his Foolish post for two years until 1996 when Bob Ayling became CEO and made him redundant - for 'taking the piss'.
Abbey National
David Weeks experimentally set up a variant of the Corporate Fool concept over a year on the corporate intranet reaching 30,000 staff.The typical corporate feedback to staff system tended to give 'company non responses' - full of spin. Staff knew they were being fobbed off and they were scared to give their names for fear of reprisals.
David added The Fool! as an extra interactive element to the Fun@work website he had created to stimulate, inspire, destress and motivate staff.
His Fool! sat on the fence, neither taking the staff line or the company line, trying to steer a path between. It worked! Staff began to value the ability to say what they thought and get it published. It was a way to get a voice heard, despite the hierarchy. It connected the bottom with the top missing the organisation filtering system altogether.
But it was not without its dangers - every day he was ready to take a call from senior management to 'retire' the Fool! It lasted a whole year - obviously management were too busy looking elsewhere! But this is where the grass root voice was. If you really think "people are your most important asset" this is a way to prove it.
Fool Tributes
... this letting off steam business seems to work; I felt better as soon as I pressed that 'send message' button. Sorry to hear you're leaving for (hopefully) bigger and better things, Fool, your site has been a credit to the Company. All the best mate!!!
I've been with the company 3 months today and I'm really enjoying it. I'm really just writing to say you've really been part of that enjoyment - knowing that if I'm feeling down or a bit lost, I can log in for a few moments and find out I'm not the only one who feels that way. I'm sorry you'll be gone at the end of the month, but good luck in whatever you do and thank you.
Fool - Are you leaving?? - What is going to happen to your site. Will there be another fool to step into your shoes or is it adios for this excellent forum.
Fool I'm deeply saddened by the news that you are leaving. I believe that I'm speaking on behalf of all people that visit your site in saying that you will be truely missed. You have been the one person who we could all trust and for this you are highly respected by all. What are we going to do without you? Moral I thought could get no lower but when y0u leave and we no longer have anyone to talk to. I can honestly see moral sinking to all new low.
It is with much remorse that I am writing this letter. For three months I have visited this site religously when working in the evening. Thank you so much, you really do make our lives' easier... However, I've just read the latest update and saw that you're leaving? Why? Don't you want to live the brand anymore? Fool you will be as much a loss to the company as..as....as.....erm.....eh......Vending machines....cause really we need those as much as we need your humour and good manner with the fool and other areas of the creativity website.
I was sorry to read about the Fool hanging up his hat at the end of this month. May I suggest that in replacement we have a bulletin board of questions that we can ask - then avid readers of the site that have been in that position can the post a reply on the site. This way people across abbey group can help each other (something I feel the fool was trying to accomplish)
British innovation consultant David Firth cowrote a book titled "The Corporate Fool" ( Capstone, 1998 ). It describes the role of the corporate fool as "doing the undoable, thinking the unthinkable, saying the unsayable, and driving your sensible organization mad with creative folly."