Boardroom Maestro Gifts

'Maybe you should reconsider those place cards, Ms Harris?' (Negotiation talks/Good Guys/Bad Guys)

'You can't put him out to pasture - he owns the pasture!'

'OK, who wants to be the face-person on this project?'

'If I had to use one word to describe our strategy.'

"I was hoping this presentation would be more interesting upside down."

"In recognition of last month's little upward blip, I suggest we allow ourselves a spontaneous victory fist bump."

"How's everybody doing? I'm not boring you, am I?"

"If I might be serious for a moment..."

"Now that I have everyone's attention..."

Bo're'droom

'And I'm happy to say, that since the merger...'

"Thank you for that summation of the charts."

"My report to the board was perfect. They did not understand a word of it and now think I'm smarter than them."

'Great news this quarter! Losses are up in smoke, profits are high, and we're seeing lots of green!'

"Mr. Johnson, Bob is kicking me under the table!"

'The good news is, we did as well as expected last quarter. The bad news is, we didn't expect to do too well.'

'I went into that meeting with a hidden agenda and then forgot where I put it.'

'Now that we've defined 'happy deficits' let's try it out on the stockholders.'

"Listen to everybody's opinions? Please, we're not that desperate."

'I've given a lot of thought to giving some thought to your latest proposal.'

'It's my company, I'll decide whether I want to go to the partner's meeting or not.'

'Congratulations Smith, you got that promotion. Commiserations Reid, you got that demotion.'

The Importance of Planning Thoroughly in Advance

'All those in doubt, raise your eyebrows.'

"That's unanimous then - we don't know what to do."

'As I see it, our choices are 'no' and 'hell no'.'

"At least we are consistently inconsistent."

'Well, I'm not very satisfied with our customers, either.'

'By the time I climbed up to this job, I was too tired to do it.'

'I want ideas so bold, so wildly innovative, so undeniably brilliant that they retain a shred of originality after everyone picks them to pieces.'

"That's a very difficult problem to address, Ted, could you restate it as a solution?"

Stand-up comic/ceo: 'A funny thing happened on the way to the board meeting...'

Business cartoon showing sales declining so much that they bounce off the floor.

"I didn't get where I am by trying to please."

"Sorry, I'm preaching again. Why don't we pause for a moment while I pass around the collection plate."