Succession Skeptic Gifts

"I told you all this would be yours someday, son, and today is that day."

"He's upset because the new changes to the rules on succession didn't include him!"

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

'He doesn't like people walking in - try crawling.'

'And from what we've been able to determine, this is the tweak that broke the paradigm's back.'

"We made a miscalculation, but it's consistent with our over-all strategy."

"OK, stop me if you've never heard this before!"

'In an effort to make this sales meeting more pleasant, I have taken the liberty of rotating our sales graph counter clockwise a full ninety degrees,'

I have decided that all future board meetings will be held before lunch.

"I'm not the responsible party. I have people for that."

"I'm telling you! They don't know anything! No one is in charge!"

When Downsizing has Gone Too Far...

Progress?

'Someday, son, 50 of this will belong to your ex-wife,'

"The kids - Prince Englebert and Princess Felicia - would like us to move into the olde monarchs' home."

"When we met, Marc promised to be the wind under my wings but it turned out to be all hot air."

'And now, Henderson will introduce his 25-part plan on spontaneity.'

'Haffner, we'll have none of your common sense suggestions!'

"Well, really, there's nothing that would stop us from actually working. It's just tradition that has us drones lazing around."

'I don't think Charlie will ever get used to these auto-mobiles.'

"OK, I'll be the one to say it. With all due respect, sir, that is one heck of a big 'if!'"

"Top management told middle management to tell me to tell you to shape up."

"I don't have time for New Year's resolutions, I'm still working on the backlog from 1998-2000."

"These numbers are great! How did you folks turn our manufacturing division around so quickly?"

'The new business plan is the same as the old business plan except that, due to layoffs, we have less scapegoats to blame in case of failure.'

"These oaths aren't binding all weekend are they?"

"The shipping industry has a name for the bold type of corporate restructuring we're about to undertake..."

Retreat. It's odd that they're urging us to charge ahead in business while we're on a corporate retreat.

'Of course we're making a lot of mistakes - this is a dummy corporation.'

'Now, I want you to get back out there and beg him for mercy!'

"It wasn't as good as his first book, 'Eating Worms.'"

Corporate Ladder.

'You are this week's top person on the team pyramid.'

All employee suggestions are 'cascaded up' to management.

'We're more or less engaged - he's just waiting for his fiancée to return the ring.'