January 31, 2008

Best. Gag. Ever.

This is going to seem a lot like inside baseball talk to those of you who don't read the FT on Thursdays---or ever---but this has just been so incredibly well done, I have to comment on it. Last week, we had some delivery issues and I was only informed this morning that I missed the resolution I'd been waiting for! I'm kind of pisssed off that, of all days, the delivery routine was goofed, but alas, there is this wonderful thing called the Internet and, fortunately, the resolution has been archived.

Every Thursday, Martin Lukes' column is published in the FT---or at least it was until around Christmas time, when his last column appeared. Until recently, Martin was the freshly-appointed transplant CEO of a-b global, an Atlanta based company, when he was arrested and tried on insider trading charges. Having been found guilty on four counts of insider trading, he was sentenced to two years and three months in a federal correctional facility in Florida. Apparently, his son, Jake, a trader, ratted him out to the Feds to save his own skin.

Now, Martin is quite the innovative business leader, as detailed in this article:

{...}His first - and some would say greatest - contribution to management thinking came in 2001 when he coined the term Creovation™, a deceptively profound hybrid of creativity and innovation. Over the following seven years this concept was much imitated by other leading corporations, though never bettered. Even General Electric, much revered for its management methods, followed Mr Lukes by launching its "Ecomagination" initiative, which experts criticised as a feeble imitation of the original.

Above all Mr Lukes was a man of paradox. He was a master of spin yet understood the power of authenticity - his sign-off to his cult CEO blog Mind Bullets from the Chairman was "Keep it authentic". He was also a world-class communicator. Reuben Smart, founder of the image consultancy ifwhatwhy!?, said: "At the end of the day, Martin Lukes reached out in a uniquely motivational way to set a benchmark for global practitioners in the communications space."{...]

While, undoubtedly, the fact that his ex-wife is now at the helm of a-b global (and is doing quite well with it) stings, at least his current wife and mother of his triplets is sticking by him. Also, according to his co-author, Lucy Kellaway, his post-incarceration prospects look great. He just has to bide his time in prison, and I'm sure he'll come back roaring.

Now, most of you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, are probably wondering, 'why is she calling this the best gag ever?' Well, it's because of this: Martin Lukes doesn't really exist. He's an amalgam of the worst of business speak and corporate leadership, rolled into one fictitious character, meant to skewer the conventional business thought of this particular day and age. He's the creation of Lucy Kellaway, and while I haven't been reading his column as long as some people have, I'm nonetheless going to miss Martin's exploits. (My personal favorite was while he was on a junket to Svalbard, to launch a-b global's green initiative, and he shot a rampaging polar bear. Of course he fired off his shotgun in self-defense, but he managed to escape any serious ramifications by means of his incredible mastery of PR.)

If you've got some time to kill, and are looking for some entertaining reading, I would highly recommend perusing the archive of Martin's past columns. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll claim it was much better than Cats. I swear.

Posted by Kathy at January 31, 2008 10:11 AM | TrackBack
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