The leader of a large , profitable and powerful multinational organisation , likes a beer, out of the box thinking and doggedness. He does not like politics, losing money and “ people who get on the bus”. I assumed the latter must be business jargon, the type of thing the important movers and shakers of industry and commerce say to each other. But what does it mean?
Did it mean a dislike for people jumping on board fashionable management trends? A feeling people were too prepared to let others decide the route instead of finding their own way? Or is a criticism of people who are just along for the ride? It turns out it means non of these things. It comes from what the organisation calls its “Compass “ a collection of words and phrases devised as a fun way of attempting to capture how the organisation works, and why. In other words a way of describing the organisation’s culture. To quote from this-
“ People who get on the bus – coined on our Graduate Namibian endurance challenge (where our 4th year graduates train to run, cycle and hike for a week through the remote Namibian desert). We have a bus following the group for safety reasons, but the idea has never been to get on it. (See “Grit”.) “ Grit along with rigour and humour are shown as core characteristics the organisation admires.
So what it means is never give up, keep going even when the going gets tough. It sounds very macho as in “ when the going gets tough the tough get going” . It could be interpreted as a culture in which , getting on the bus, was a sign of weakness, not an organisation where people would admit to feeling stressed or needing help so not an organisation over concerned with the wellbeing of employees and probably not an organisation promoting compassionate management. The fact that it is the safety bus but we hate people who get on it also brings into question the organisations commitment to Health and Safety.
I may be doing the organisation an injustice. The Compass reads and looks like something that came out of a two day workshop for middle managers having a bit of fun when tasked with describing the organisations culture. And apparently forgetting about the organisations commitment to EDI. It would certainly have given the workshop’s facilitator lots of ammunition for some self examination and the feedback to senior managers would have been interesting. What would the head of HR have made of it!
