Writing on the Wall: The Campaign for Commonsense Business - Softcover

Burch, Geoff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184112043X ISBN 13: 9781841120430

Publisher: Capstone, 2002

Synopsis

This is the business book we have been waiting for. Whilst we watch in horror as the consultants, the gurus and the management experts interfere with our jobs and lives with no apparent benefit, along comes this latest book from Geoff Burch that confirms that all our fears were true.This waspish, funny and often downright vicious expose of everything from marketing to HRM and even change management leaves no stone unturned and no taboo untrampled.But this is no mere hatchet job. Writing on the Wall exposes the stupidity of fashionable management fads, but by stripping the subject to the bone, the true secrets are uncovered. By facing the stark truth of poor products, difficult customers and mutinous staff, Burch is able to show, with bizarre examples such as the child with the squashed head, and hard hitting advice such as "smile or sling your hook", just how we can make success inevitable.

About this title

About the Author

GEOFF BURCH is the enfant terrible of business. His speeches around the world never fail to provoke weak-minded management and inspire change leaders. He is the author of the best-selling Resistance is Useless and Go it Alone. His clients include some of the world's major blue chip companies.

From the Back Cover

Geoff Burch on...

Marketing
"people who offer marketing, often have names like Jervaise or Tarquin, and they gambol and caper around their west London offices with sheer excitement at the prospect of 'marketing' your (product)...I used to have mobs of pitchfork and blazing brand-wielding marketing people beating a path to my castle gates by suggesting that the whole marketing thing basically sucks, but that may not be true. After all, you can even get a degree in it, by jiminee."

Consultants
"Hiring consultants is just like hiring mercenaries...amuse yourself by drawing the analogy between the two...When you choose your mercenary/consultant, you don't want the hair trigger 24 year old MBA. You want the Yul Brynner, man in black, with a few scars, a piece of ear missing, well used guns, a black hat, and eyes like steel bearings. Be warned, you only control him while you pay him."

Human Resources
"If you recall the early black and white Frankenstein movies, Professor Frankenstein was always portrayed as tall, aquiline, darkly handsome, and of course barking mad, but he was always accompanied by this poor, twisted hobbling mad thing...Now every chief executive has one of these, and he's called the Human Resources Director. It is his job, amongst other things, to judge people's (sorry, 'the resources') performance against goals, targets, and objectives...He then has to report to El Supremo on this performance. The trick is that this performance must be expressed as a number and not one that relates to anything from the real world."

From the Inside Flap

Whilst we watch in horror as the consultants, the gurus and the management experts interfere with our jobs and lives with no apparent benefit, along comes this latest book from Geoff Burch that confirms that all our fears were true. Most leaders at the top are living in la la land. Well it's time to come down. It's time to put some commonsense back into business.

Geoff Burch is the Alternative Business Guru. In Writing on the Wall he takes us on a hilarious but insightful journey - and it's not on his trusted motorbike. He takes us through a scary business world viewed through his not-so-rose coloured spectacles. Geoff tells us like it is. And it isn't pretty.

But there is hope ....

Chapter by chapter, Geoff Burch regales us with stories, anecdotes and lessons every leader can learn on how to bring commonsense back into business. This waspish, funny and often downright vicious expose of everything from sales and customer awareness to change management, leaves no stone unturned and no taboo untrampled. From arming the peasants to sacking your Dilberts and from focusing on the customer 'til it hurts, to getting everyone involved in selling exploding oranges, Burch's iconoclastic approach to business has turned him into one of the most sought-after speakers in Europe.

Geof is mad. He is bitter. He is twisted. He is hilarious. But his compelling messages are irresistible.

Edition details

• Publisher: Capstone
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 184112043X
• ISBN 13: 9781841120430
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212