I was about to post the next Bosship Tutorial when I was "tagged" by my friend Don The Idea Guy. Now Don is a good friend…you know the type…the person you really like regardless of that ONE PROBLEM. Don has a disorder which many Bosship candidates suffer from in silence….its PND…Productivity Necessity Disorder…the reoccurring need to be personally productive and creative. Don's a great guy but he's the local "corporate idiot". He just never got the memo that outlined that all organizations exist to survive, that work is a zero-sum game, that people will do just enough not to get fired, and that individual effort is essentially futile.

Even though I'm really writing this Bosship Tip for Don's sake you Bosship candidates should pay attention. It's no shame to have periodic creative urges. This is perfectly normal. It's when start putting a higher priority on finding new ways to do things rather than just putting in your time and collecting a paycheck, that you know you just might have PND. There's a couple of ways to deal with PND:
1.) Stick your fingers in your ears and say,"Nah,nah,nah, but we've always done it this way, nah,nah,nah." Repeat this mantra until the urge to create has passed. Creativity is sort of like gas. If you wait long enough it passes. Treat ideas like you would fear…just keep packing them down inside in a nice little corner of your psyche. This is why they invented happy hour and prescription drugs.
2.) If the first one doesn't work the first step is to admit your problem. Go to www.dontheideaguy.com and go to "Join the group"…Just stand up and say "Hi, my name is (blank) and I have PND." You'll find yourself in the company of other PND sufferers. To be quite honest most cases of PND that I've seen are terminal…so Don's site is really a hospice site. If you're really a hopeless narcassitic person who is solely addicted to your own personal creative expression...and you want to join a productivity cult(secret handshake and all), you can find a REAL darkside at Ben Yoskovitz...the productivity perverts meet there to share and and collect their secrets about productivity...sort of a porn site for the hyper productive...you'll find a whole collection of secrets to "motivate" and "inspire" you....It's enough to make the true Bosship practitioner or candidate sick to their stomach.

Keep this Bosship tip list in front of you and review it after you've repeated your mantra:

Productivity is for losers—Keep in mind that the whole concept of "productivity" is a chimera created to keep workers who have been raised on "self esteem" pabulum and who have been nurtured on TV sitcoms to believe that they can make a difference…that they are "special." Productivity concepts are designed to make workers feel they are "contributing" and can "make a difference." They are a psychic narcotic given to the lower pay grades by Bosship practitioners so that they will do your work. Who cares if you give them a little gold star or some hunk of corporate crap from Successories as long as they are doing your work and you are getting the rewards? Of course this can be over done. The last thing the organization needs is some fireball who woke up one day and thought he could be somebody. The organization's prime directive is to exist to survive. Productivity concepts provide workers with the illusion that the individual can effect change when in reality no organization is going to really do this (e.g. the "suggestion box"). All change must be kept within the confines of mediocrity.

"Productivity" is mental alchemy -- All the management level stuff on productivity is smoke and mirrors used to convince shareholders that the disproportionate amount of pay management receives is justified. This has spawned a whole cottage industry of rent-a-gurus on productivity and creativity who promise to increase productivity through all kinds of mental alchemy; they promise to turn a base metal (one of your workers) into a precious one (creative person)…Right. Just what an organization needs…Let's empower the shallow end of the gene pool so that they make more bad decisions at a faster rate! Fortunately the laws of human nature prevent such a change as much as the laws of chemistry prevent you from changing water into oil.

Use "productivity" to your advantage—If the cerebrally challenged still want to believe they "count" you might as well use this delusion to your advantage. Remember "productivity" can be used like a narcotic to get employees to do your work so you can inherit the praise and pay. Remember one of the key principles of Bosship is to get paid out of proportion to your level of production. So being the local junky dealer for an employee's "productivity fix" is a great way to max his work load while you do relatively little work. A handful of "attaboys" and cheap movie tickets can repay you in thousands of dollars in additional income.

"I know…Let's Have a Meeting!" —Just like an old "Andy Hardy" movie, there's no problem that can't be solved by putting on a show! The corporate meeting is of course the ultimate dog and pony show. Nothing productive ever gets done at a meeting…which means it's an ideal Bosship tool. It's productive for you as boss, because you can off load all your work on employees by the "delegation game." The way the delegation game is played is you set unrealistic productivity goals based on a relative ignorance of the product, the client, employee skills, and the real amount of time needed to accomplish the task. Now you've fulfilled your part of the job when you've shoveled all your work onto the employee…You've "delegated" and shown a real skill for management. This really scores points with your superiors who were permanently brain damaged by the MBA experience. Now it's the workers turn to play. Remember Bosship Principle #7: Barr's Iron Law of Mediocrity—Workers will do just enough not to get fired." (This is why the guru's mental alchemy can't work.) The employee knows how the organization works. His big mistake was that he didn't work hard enough at not being noticed. Since he screwed that up, he has to cut a fine line; produce enough that out of self interest you keep him around. The organization has a stake here too. It isn't going to risk change by encouraging high levels of employee creativity or productivity—that might jeopardize the corporate prime directive; exist to survive. Now whatever the worker produces can either be claimed as your own or if he's really pumped the puppy, you deny any knowledge of his activity---you delegate blame. This is another highly praised bosship skill. Actually this really isn't much of a game, but it is fun because as boss you always win.

Increase Worker Productivity Through Fear and Intimidation —Oldies but goodies! Sometimes appealing to a worker's since of self interest isn't enough. There's inevitably someone that just doesn't want to carry your load while you get paid outrageously for it. This type will often try to stir up other appropriately submissive and complacent employees. It's time to sit this bozo down and let him know you are the unforgiving demigod of his work universe. Here are some starters:
"Jim…look I can understand you think this is unfair. I can live with that…Have you ever thought about barber college?"
"Boy I bet little Tina would be scarred for life if you lost your health insurance and she had to walk around with those buck teeth."
"Pete I've been thinking about making some personnel cutbacks in your department…management is realigning its priorities…and I'm trying to decide if you're one of them."

Just remember, "productivity" hurts….let employees earn your paycheck for you.