Masonry Magazine January 1984 Page. 49
Boren's 14 Rules for Meeting Planners
If some of your recent meetings have been on the lack-luster side, here are 14 suggestions from Jim Boren to perk them up and make them more meaningful if only to yourself. Boren, the noted Washington humorist, was the keynoter at MCAA's 1980 Masonry Conference in Dallas, Texas, where he captivated the audience with his personal collection of bureaucratic terminology.
1. To control a planning session, thunderate. More arguments are won by thunderating resonance than by the quiet voice of logic.
2. Fuzzify the objectives of your meeting. Fuzzified objectives guarantee flexibility of evaluation.
3. Encourage innovation in meeting planning... but keep all innovation within established guidelines.
4. Refer all problems to a study committee. If you study a problem long enough, the problem may go away.
5. Globate all meeting issues. By globating the big picture, there are no corners into which you can be backed.
6. Develop a sound program of public hype and media flackification. Image is more important than performance.
7. Profundify simplicity. If people can understand what is being said and done, they may want to take control of their own meeting.
8. Trashify all reports. People evaluate reports by their weight rather than their content.
9. Bury the minutes of previous meetings. Forgetting the right things is better than remembering the wrong things.
10. Abstruct controversial issues. Destroy controversial issues by making them so abstract that no one can understand them.
11. Postpone troublesome decisions by referring them to a committee. Nothing is impossible until it is sent to a committee.
12. Intervoid all meetings. Through the skillful use of intervoidal technology (interface avoidance), participants will go home with a warm glow of camaraderie, a sense of satisfaction, and a feeling of real or imagined accomplishment.
13. Apply the principles of dynamic inaction when you're not sure what to do. By doing nothing but doing it with style, any error will be stretched through time, mushified in impact, and dispersed in responsibility.
14. If things go wrong in spite of careful planning, residuate, hunkerfy, and squattle. Keep a low profile, assume a mental crouch, and sit it out. Potentis reposit obscurantum! (In obscurity lies strength!)
Copyright, 1982, James H. Boren, International Association of Professional Bureaucrats, National Press Building, N.W., Washington, DC 20045.
Hear what SAM Users are saying ABOUT OUR MASONRY COMPUTER SYSTEMS
"In the past five years SAM has paid for itself several times over. That computer system was money well spent." -LOUIS J. HELBERT JR., Fort Collins, Colorado
"Before SAM I had IBM. SAM's software is better and the equipment is more reliable." -DICK FELICE, Forrest & Associates, Des Moines, Iowa
"SAM's estimating has helped us to get the kind of work where we make the best money. I'd never go back to the manual way." -ROCKY ARNOTT, AMCON, Inc., Grand Junction, Colo.
"Service is hard to come by in Hamilton, But IMS has sure delivered." -JOYCE LEE, Lee Masonry, Hamilton, Texas
"SAM's production reports have given me the control I've always been after." -JOHN LONG, John Long Masonry, Denver, Colorado
"I wanted a software company with real expertise in masonry. IMS filled the bill." -DAN BERICH, Dan Berich, Inc., Englewood, Colorado
Don't Just Think About SAM... Come See It at Booth 20- MCAA Trade Show In New Orleans
New Safety Films Focus on Construction
JI Case is releasing a series of films designed to aid in instructing operators on the safe use of Case construction equipment and the training of service personnel in recommended maintenance procedures.
Separate films cover the most popular types of construction equipment including rough terrain forklifts, loader/backhoes, skid-steer loaders, and crawler tractors. The 16mm films will be available for rental as well as purchase. For more information contact Wayne Weeks or Charles Lagergren, JI Case, 700 State St., Racine, WI 53404.
Interactive Management Systems
3700 Galley Road
Colorado Springs, CO 80909
(303) 574-5050