There are few places which can function without The Management.
Managers come in all shapes, sizes and philosophies. Some are micro- managers who try to control every detail, others are broad-brush thinkers with inspiration at their fingertips.
But you can always tell the ones who have been to college.
Because somewhere early on in their time with you, they will open their magic box of management tricks, and proudly brandish a set of initials so potent that it is all one can do not to shout “Expelliarmus!” as they meet the light of day.
It is what is known in the trade as the SWOT analysis.
Ooooh.
While it may sound like a particularly effective brand of fly exterminator, it is in fact a way of analysing what is happening. Right Now. In your organisation.
Usually, one is presented with a huge blank sheet of paper divided into quadrants. In the top left hand corner goes ‘S’, which stands for our favourite part of the analysis: the strengths.
Then comes a nasty one. It has all the charm of a cold wet fish in your pocket. It is W, and it stands for weaknesses.
Many of our weaknesses stay mothballed because it would take ten weeks of intensive therapy to get them out in the open.
We perk up when it comes to O for opportunities: things we might be able to use to our advantage.
And then we come to the fourth quadrant, in the shady corners of which I am almost sure I can see one of JK Rowling’s Dementors lurking. For the fourth box is T for Threats.
Is it just me who visibly tenses over this? Whose eyes widen, and voice rises just a notch as we face our deepest organisational fears and name them?
Every one of our workplaces has threats: uppity stakeholders, litigious onlookers, skimpy budgets and cavernous dearths of knowledge in alarming places.
Threats are so very deeply shudderworthy.
And yet: who are we kidding? Take a seven-league boot step back a millennium and the folks back then could show you a threat worth bolting the door for.
Because there have been times when the countryside of England was a lawless place, when the forests were filled with outlaws, when men saw what other men had and wanted it with such fervour they would kill, and they would enjoy themselves doing it.
Walled cities were walled for a reason. They were sanctuaries, safe havens with law and enforcers, which controlled who came in and who went out.
Castles, too, preserved order, each with their own micro-economy, with livestock and vegetable gardens and a water supply and stout thick walls to keep the blighters, whoever they may be, out.
There was only one point at which you could cross: the drawbridge.
Nothing could be more satisfying to a Lord than a wild-eyed opponent stuck on the other side of the moat, shouting his head off and glaring at the underbelly of the bridge drawn up against the castle walls.
If Wild-Eye penetrated that particular organisational hierarchy, the Lord would meet certain bloody death, and his sympathisers could become lifelong slaves. The Lord’s cows would become the interloper’s, and his jewels, his smokeries, his blacksmiths and his very castle walls.
Now that’s what I call a Threat.
This image came vividly to mind today when I arrived back from taking the children to school, to find someone had dug a moat around my homestead, and I couldn’t get in.
They were hard-hatted Irishmen working for the electricity company. They sent an envoy weeks ago with a challenge, but never in my wildest nightmares had I envisaged them moving with such ruthless speed.
It seems they were re-wiring. I got out of the car and gaped. They had dug up about half of my drive: the half nearest the road. Huge clods of concrete littered the small plot I call home, and around it they had erected a monument to the gods of Health and Safety: hideous orange barricades.
They were standing up to their waists in very big holes on my land.
My four-year old nephew, Big Al, approved of all this mayhem: it was right up his street. Could he get out and see the digger, please, Auntie Kate? Could he inspect the dumper truck?
What would you do? I possessed no drawbridge to pull up, and anyhow they had already gained entry by stealth.
So I offered my latest Threat, the gentlemen in hard hats, a cup of tea.
Ooooh yes please, they rejoined: white, one sugar each. I unleashed my nephew to quiz them heartily.
They’ve been there all day, a temporary utilitarian empire, and me a fugitive in my own house.
They assure me they’re going tomorrow.
But that’s what those wild-eyed interlopers usually say…
Kate Shrewsday 
Well done, Kate. Tea to the rescue – the door to interrogation. I like your technique and I empathise with your feelings of invasion.
I should have installed a drawbridge long ago, Souldipper 😀
I started out reading in the vain hope you had pearls of wisdom over how to winkle out the weaknesses and threats (my current labour), but in vain. Kate offers only hard-hatted-Irish-tea-with-one-sugar-drinkers and of course Al.
Al is the answer to most threats, actually, Sidey: a one-boy destructive inquisitive juggernaut….
One (of the many) good things about living here is that workmen don’t take tea breaks. Early morning courtesy requires the offer of a cup of coffee but only before about 9.30. Nothing later. But, because I’m not French, they don’t always trust me to make a ‘proper’ cup of coffee so even that offer is often refused!
😀 Well I never. So French workmen are choosey! Less work for you, Earlybird…always a good thing…..
Such a British response, Kate!
Re SWOT – guess there are some advantages to my joblessness after all. 🙂
There certainly are, Tilly. Although one day I would love to watch your take on a really earnest SWOT session.
When Katherine was just born we decided to have the back ripped off our house and build an extension. Our builder was Croation and his gang were Serbians. Serbians do NOT drink tea and they just get on with the job. Discounting weekends (and the bank holiday) the whole thing was completed in 10 days. That included replacing the guttering for the whole house, hanging new doors everywhere and building a bespoke cupboard to go where the old warm air central heating unit stood. (When you rip them out of these houses you end up with a massive gaping hole in your ceiling and floor.) The whole project was done with minimal disruption and hassle. We took down a part of my neighbours fence and bought all the supplies through her garden. It also meant that they could come in and out of their own accord and I didn’t have to be up at the crack of dawn to let them in !!! My moat was left completely intact !!
It is at this point that I thank my lucky stars that you and I know each other in the real world and you can put me on to this crew. Ten days? For an extension? Amazing! What a wonderful experience….
One of the services I perform for clients is the SWOT. I can always tell whether a person is positive or negative by the boxes upon which they focus most of their energy and time.
Would Health and Safety allow moats with drawbridges to be constructed today? So many potential disasters lurking there, from people falling into the moat whilst thinking the bridge is down to someone losing a hand in the creaky machinery. I was sad when we went to Sandringham and saw the blasted fence they forced Her Majesty the Queen to construct to outline the ha-ha.
Now, you have set me to wondering if offering tea to the workers banging around the house next door would make them more agreeable and less noisy. Somehow, I would prefer that you ship Big Al over here to let me unleash him upon them. I would really enjoy watching that unfold.
Great post, as always, Kate.
Tea, as you know, Andra, is our solution to everything here. And the odd thing is, it works more often than you might think. I once watched a crazy science programme which we have here – Horizon -which indicated that giving another person a hot drink can hotwire the brain of the recipient to be disposed to like you. They did tests and in job interviews, the one who handed the interviewer a hot drink was more likely to get the job!
Enough of this mumbo-jumbo. Must get on to English Heritage and the National Trust to find out what their risk assessments on drawbridges look like 😀
Well that’s a good reason. Rewiring, I mean. At least maintenance is ongoing in good old England. Our maintenance, be it electricity, sanitation, health, whatever, is in a sorry state and it is only in the last while that the powers-that-be have realised that things don’t maintain themselves, lol!
You’re right, we don’t count our blessings enough, especially when they wear hard hats and drink our tea. We live in The Shire here, Denise, and the small dramas are huge events here 😀
A drawbridge would be a lovely thing! And monsters in the moat, too! Our old house, with its myriad renovations and maintenance issues has been the scene of many skirmishes between householder and invading workmen. I had a bit of a clash with an electrical worker over the necessity of topping one my glorious pines, which is NOT anywhere near the transformer despite his insistence. Round One, homeowner, but I feel the electric co-op lurking…
Stand firm, Elizabeth, the dryad’s depending on you 😀 Maybe it’s time to dig a moat and employ monsters to do a little Persuading…
Ahhh, ‘management’ I do not miss you one bit!
There was a time when I would have cheerfully welcomed a drawbridge (and maybe the moat, too) in order to keep ‘Management’ at bay; ‘Management’ with its self-assessment forms, back-handed compliments (“You’re doing wonderfully, but…..”), and penultimate control of my paycheck. Retirement is such a release in that regard.
We do not mind the cable repairmen or the handyman neighbor here – they’re friendly company on occasion. 🙂
Karen, so glad you’re out of it. For every gifted manager who can help you to fly, there are 50 who manage to use every tool in the box to bash one over the head with…
I so wish that I had written this. Lovely Kate. I love your SWOT analysis and of course, I’m in the same profession as your captors so I cringe.
Tammy, I was once in the same boat and have had the odd experience of reverting to a footsoldier so I could look after my family. It gives one a whole new perspective 🙂
Oh I love this! I’m sharing this post broadly and plan to print it out to keep close at hand as a personal reminder. I’m unfortunately a notoriously reactive individual when interlopers come into my sanctuary… I white-knuckle it even when I’ve had to invite them in! You were so very gracious and civilized…offering tea? And I’m so glad Big Al had a good day. He must have loved this! And by the way, I’m going to share the SWOT analysis with my coworkers. It’s really quite wonderful! Debra
Debra, I know how you feel: inviting them over the threshold is another matter entirely to giving them tea on what was once the drive. Al did indeed have a ball, and threw a creditable tantrum when it was time to say goodbye…
😀 Great post, innovative connection. You remained remarkably good tempered in the face of such bald intrusion – doubt if I would have been so agreeable!
I have been railing at people all week and getting nowhere, Bandsmoke, so I decided to try something different 🙂 When your drive s in shards, your drive is in shards: I was a Puddleglum about the whole thing. Fatalistic.
Do you know, we have the U.S./Com.Ed. version of those interlopers right here as well. Kate. It has been going on all week. They are putting up a new pole. One pole, which, unfortunately, is rising right across the street and is going up next the old pole. Mostly, men in orange hard hats and lime green vests standing, looking at the pole.
Can I borrow Big Al?
I’ll put him on the next flight over, Penny 😀
SWOT = Seriously Wanky Overeager Teamleaders. 😀
I love that you unleased Big Al on the interlopers.
I’m sure they will now flee the premises posthaste!
They stayed long enough to pour huge quantities of concrete into the holes and then took themselves off today, Nancy. Was it Al – or did they want to get off outrageously early on a Friday? Now we’ll never know….
You couldn’t pay for that kind of entertainment for Big Al! Don’t give them too much tea, though – it might slow down the job.
“shudderworthy” – a good Halloween word.
😀 I shall save it, Patti, specially. The post I’ve just written for tomorrow could use it too….
I must quiz Big Al about that event, Kate. Lovely story as always with Big Al!
Thanks Dad
I’ll be interested to see which Al liked more: the diggers and the men in holes, or our bottle-smashing adventures at the bottle bank this morning….
I always enjoy reading here. . .
Hi Kathy, hope all’s ok. Glad you popped in 🙂
Glad I’m past my SWOT years. Never actually dealt with a SWOT analysis, but I suspect listing my W’s and T’s would have left me paralyzed with inadequacy and fear. As for coming home to find people digging up my yard, I doubt seriously that offering tea would have been among my reactions. I envy your equanimity.
Not equanimity 🙂 Just a Pavlov’s Dog reaction from a Britisher! The week has been full of things that rendered me irate, and I simply think I couldn’t keep up being cross any longer!….SWOTs: you’re not alone, most of those I work with feel just the same…
What a good idea – think I’ll go and put the kettle on 🙂
Do you have a PHD in analogies? I wouldn’t be surprised. As good as ever.
Hi Tooty 😀 I expect drawbridges have played a part in some Hamster Sapiens chronicle or other….
Oooh, I remember doing the SWOT thingy in my previous job, Kate. My threats were always the other people I had to work with… you don’t tend to move forwards when you are constantly looking over your shoulder… so I found, anyway. And the managers I worked with kept pushing me back too! Luckily, I was made redundant and all those threats dissolved!
We could do with some drawbridges around here to help us to drive over all the potholes on some of the roads. Not blaming the workmen, mind, but they do have something to do with some of them…
I wonder if drawbridges are on the council budgets, Tom? 😀 Your comments about SWOT are very perceptive. Talking theory is comforting for managers but the reality on the ground can sometimes be very different…