SANTA CLAUS MANAGEMENT TIPS

This week, as we go into the Christmas Holidays, we try and juggle so much in work and family. We may have some "wisdom" from the man in red to help us along:Management speak can be hilarious when it’s applied to non-management situations. Tech guru Jim Carroll — a futurist, innovation expert and author (How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast; What I Learned From Frogs in Texas) — has posted a witty analysis of the success of Santa Claus’s business model on his website.[Santa’s] operational insight is pure genius (He's organized. He's got a list. He checks it twice. Operational excellence is his middle name.)He’s a fanatic on customer oriented innovation (He knows exactly what the customer wants. There's no other individual or organization who has such deep insight into the customer. And he's had this core focus for hundreds of years.)He is mindful of work life balance (Some people take a few weeks off for a holiday. Some might take off a month. Santa takes off entire seasons.)He’s not afraid of those who are different (Rudolph. Red Nosed. Reindeer. Enough said. Santa has got this diversity thing down to a science.)These are funny, but I’m not sure whether I’m laughing at Santa Claus or the cult of management trying to create a language that can be applied to creations as fanciful as Santa.I mean, can you imagine a management consultant suggesting a CEO use Santa Claus as a role model? And yet Carroll’s list makes more sense than management philosophies based on driving out sentiment from business decisions and that real leaders must be SOBs.There’s more wisdom here than just humour