New York, New York
Yup, I'm in New York this week for the first time in a few years. The cab driver told me a lot had changed but nothing has changed except that perhaps it has become a little bit tattier.
I had never thought of it like this before, but New York is very much a 20th century city and much of it is just as it was in the 1930s and 40s. Most of the so-called "modern art" in the Museum of Modern Art that I visited yesterday is not at all modern. The three Kandinskys painted for the foyer of the Chevrolet headquaters were completed in the 1900s.
New York hotel rooms always seem behind the times with old fashioned TV sets and telephones. I hate the way also that they try to get you to pay for everything. Internet access at the Sheraton, for example, is $17 for 24 hours. I haven't found a free connection yet.
I'm here for a management conference and to interview JacK Welch who isn't nearly as big news as he used to be when he was chief executive of General Electric. But his legacy remains and I want to ask him about Session Cs.
Session Cs is the name given to the system of appraisal he introduced among GE executives where teams were evaluated each year and graded on their performance. The harsh message for the botom 10 per cent was to shape-up or ship out.
The system, now sometimes referred to as "forced ranking", has created a performance obsessed culture in the US which is filtering in to British companies.
It's not just companies either. Look at the way the US TV series, The Apprentice has been imported on to British screens. The "vote off" has been adopted in all kinds of TV formats such as Big Brother, The Weakest Link, Hell's Kitchen, Pop Idol and Strictly Come Dancing.
Hell's Kitchen is playing on Fox TV in the US now where you can see Gordon Ramsey ranting at these teams of US cooks. They're all too terrified to do anything well so their cooking is a disaster.
Is this the way we want to manage our companies? Is this the way we want to manage our lives and our relationships? When we go to the pub with our friends should we vote off the one who doesn't contribute much to the conversation? Imagine if the bottom of class was kicked out of school each term. There'd be no-one left by the sixth form.
Performance has many traits and subtleties. Look what happens when there is pressure to perform in the bedroom. Not a lot. Yes,I think Jack has some explaining to do.
I had never thought of it like this before, but New York is very much a 20th century city and much of it is just as it was in the 1930s and 40s. Most of the so-called "modern art" in the Museum of Modern Art that I visited yesterday is not at all modern. The three Kandinskys painted for the foyer of the Chevrolet headquaters were completed in the 1900s.
New York hotel rooms always seem behind the times with old fashioned TV sets and telephones. I hate the way also that they try to get you to pay for everything. Internet access at the Sheraton, for example, is $17 for 24 hours. I haven't found a free connection yet.
I'm here for a management conference and to interview JacK Welch who isn't nearly as big news as he used to be when he was chief executive of General Electric. But his legacy remains and I want to ask him about Session Cs.
Session Cs is the name given to the system of appraisal he introduced among GE executives where teams were evaluated each year and graded on their performance. The harsh message for the botom 10 per cent was to shape-up or ship out.
The system, now sometimes referred to as "forced ranking", has created a performance obsessed culture in the US which is filtering in to British companies.
It's not just companies either. Look at the way the US TV series, The Apprentice has been imported on to British screens. The "vote off" has been adopted in all kinds of TV formats such as Big Brother, The Weakest Link, Hell's Kitchen, Pop Idol and Strictly Come Dancing.
Hell's Kitchen is playing on Fox TV in the US now where you can see Gordon Ramsey ranting at these teams of US cooks. They're all too terrified to do anything well so their cooking is a disaster.
Is this the way we want to manage our companies? Is this the way we want to manage our lives and our relationships? When we go to the pub with our friends should we vote off the one who doesn't contribute much to the conversation? Imagine if the bottom of class was kicked out of school each term. There'd be no-one left by the sixth form.
Performance has many traits and subtleties. Look what happens when there is pressure to perform in the bedroom. Not a lot. Yes,I think Jack has some explaining to do.
Labels: Big Brother, Fox TV, Gordon Ramsey, Hell's Kitchen, Jack Welch, Kandinsky, MOMA, New York, Pop Idol, Strictly Come Dancing, The Apprentice, The Weakest Link
posted by Richard Donkin at
2:37 PM
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