CHAPTER 2
MANAGEMENT OF MEANING
We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.
[The Talmud]
Managing meaning – for better and for worse: this is the subject of Chapter 2.
Jargon is the hand-maiden of modern management. It provides assurance, confers membership, and beams out the message that ‘we know what we are doing’. Smullyan fires the first shot by challenging one of the seemingly most neutral words of managing: ‘problem-solving’. Maybe that’s where the problems begin. Then along comes Lucy Kellaway with a machine-gun round of challenges: to a whole mother-load of ‘waffle words’ all crammed into one sentence by a consulting firm: Broad. Strategic. Focus. Highly integrated system. Capabilities. Fundamental. Strategies. ...
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