Deloitte chief wins worst-ever email accolade
A hilarious column from the ever-entertaining Lucy Kellaway in The Financial Times yesterday. 'What is the worst motivational memo ever written?' she asks. She cites as a contender 'a sublimely bad memo' written by a Royal Dutch Shell manager ('lead me, follow me, or get out of my way' etc) obtained by the FT last week. But for a winner Kellaway plumps for a missive from Jim Quigley, the new global chief executive of Deloitte.
'Our identity reinforces the shared vision of our member firms,' says Quigley, a phrase Kellaway describes as 'so profoundly meaningless that I doubt if its author could tell me what he meant by it'. He then starts 'oozing platitudes' as to the state of the company: 'I have never been more proud of who we are . . . we strengthen our brand every day as we deliver value to our clients.'
He continues, 'mysteriously' to Kellaway's mind and mine for that matter: 'As our brand
strengthens, the commitment we have to each other also increases.'
There's a final helping of 'mush': 'We will
take our performance to the next level, provided we move forward
collaboratively, as a team.'
Kellaway isn't impressed: 'Quigley doesn't sound as if he means it.
He sounds as if he's had a partial lobotomy.'
She concludes: 'Does this then mean that Quigley's is the worst motivational e-mail
ever? Alas no. The saddest thing about his words is not that they are
bad in the corporate scheme of things. They are simply average.'
Glorious stuff. And while we're on the subject of Deloitte, I see (via Accmanpro, though the post appears to take a pop at our esteemed publication) that the firm has a fan forum.
GreenDotLife promises the real story on Deloitte. I think. The site
itself doesn't name the organisation it's tracks, stressing: 'This site is not affiliated with any
company you may think it's affiliated with, and while we can't name the
company we think you think it might be affiliated with, we're pretty
sure you're thinking what we're thinking'. The mask does slip occasionally and and the D word slips out. The branding is also a giveaway.
Tantalisingly, it also appears to
suggest that the site was taken down due to corporate pressure.
'When we brought down GreenDotLife we got many e-mails
asking why and if it would ever return to grace your Internet connection again,' the site says.
'he answer is: we took it down because we were asked to by certain parties. Why
are we putting it back up now? Cause we got a really impassioned letter saying
that reading new posts on GDL was the highlight of someone's day and in fact, we
missed it as well.'
Needless to say I'll be keeping an eye on it from here on in.
It is Deloitte's - trust me, I'm a blogger -:)
Posted by Dennis Howlett | June 12, 2007 7:08 PM
Shameless plug warning: You might also be interested to know that Getting Drunk in First Class shares some DNA with GDL and "the company you may think it's affiliated with". Our blog covers BS like Jim's email on a weekly basis.
If you want a really good email screw up go find the 2006 "Black History Month" email. Apparently somebody didn't get the memo that Indians aren't the same thing as African Americans.
Enjoy!
Posted by GDiFC Editor | June 19, 2007 8:32 PM
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Posted by Mark Vane | June 26, 2007 1:55 PM