The Land of the Shiny People 
Adapted  from 101 Words I Don't Use by Paul Niquette
Copyright ©1996 Sophisticated:The Magazine. All rights reserved.

Once upon a time a codger from the Badland of Bosses wandered into the Land of the Shiny People and decided to stay.  The Shiny People looked upon the stranger and they were sore afraid. "Definitely a codger," they murmured to themselves, for they saw the hairs growing out of his ears, the sure sign of a codger.

"Come to a meeting with me," said the codger, "for I have knowledges to share."

"We already have plenty of knowledges," said the Shiny People, pointing to the certificates on their office walls."

    And the codger was sad.
"Come to a meeting with me," said the codger, "for I have informations to tell."

"We already have many informations," said the Shiny People, pointing to the volumes on their shelves.

    And the codger was sad.
"Come to a meeting with me," said the codger, "for I bring appreciations for your energies and humors to make you laugh and commiserations to give you comfort."

"We do not want to come to your meeting," said the Shiny People, pointing to the smiles on their own faces, "for we have all the appreciations we need, and we share many humors with each other which make us laugh, and we have no need for commiserations here in the Land of the Shiny People."

    And the codger was sad.
Ohe codger sat alone in his office and the hairs grew long out of his ears. The codger began writing memos to the Shiny People. The memos shared knowledges and told informations. The memos offered appreciations and gave humors to the Shiny People.

"We do not want to read your memos," complained the Shiny People, pointing at their full waste baskets, "for we see that the memos have too many hard words in them like 'schedules' and 'budgets' and 'commitments' which will bring hard work to the Land of the Shiny People."

    And the codger was sad.
"Come to a meeting with me," said the codger, "for I have findings to make."

"Findings?" asked the Shiny People. "What findings!"

"Bonus plan findings: How much and to whom."

"Oh," replied the Shiny People. "Those findings."

The Shiny People came to the meeting. The codger shared knowledges and told informations. The codger gave appreciations and humors. There were laughters and comforts and energies in the Land of the Shiny People for ever after.

    But the codger was still sad.
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Background

Management styles are situational, best adapted to the organizational environment not vice versa. Take-overs require more sophistication than promotion-over-peers -- especially when an outsider is called upon to transform a cash-cow into a growth-star. Turn-arounds are easy by comparison.

    This parable was inspired by a personal experience: Being hired to assume leadership of a department populated by professionals suffering from success-driven complacency and insipient stagnation. Several did not bother to show up for meetings.
The story was typed on what was called a 'typewriter' deliberately using a worn-out ribbon, then relayed by a first-generation facsimile machine from outside the company into the office of the resident gag-collector, who promptly posted it on the bulletin-board, after having highlighted the author's nom de plum, E. T. Quient.