Just one more thing...

I used to enjoy watching "Columbo" for various reasons.  His most appealing gimmick was appearing to be a befuddled, crumpled, inept detective, who would always be fumbling with his many papers and notebook, and wanting to please his Sergent (a "stickler") but coming back and saying "Just one more thing..." before making a decisive explanation of how the crime was committed by the person who did it.  (It's a "howdunit" as opposed to a "whodunit")  Some of the entries here are "double takes" -- things which need an introduction, as opposed to being just one-liners.  Enjoy!

Him: "Sorry, we were discussing some work, so I can't go for coffee right now."
Her:  "Work? What do you mean, 'work'?  It's just my boss you're talking to, you can go for coffee... Oh, wait, um... "

 Be aware that if everyone agrees on everything, something is wrong somewhere.

We're too busy to complete our own assignments on our project.  There's way too much to do.  However, we need to be involved in the activities that are underway in all other areas, as they may impact on things that we might want to do sometime in the future at some undefined point possibly.  We're not sure yet.  But in case we do decide, 10 years from now, to maybe change something about how we do business, we should know what other areas are possibly thinking, so we should be at all the meetings, even though we don't have time to attend to all the work that we have to complete at the moment.

"OK, I've decided that you all need to document extensively the things that you do on a daily basis so that we can agree on the process to manage the process of managing processes.  Then, once we have documented this process, we can identify the owner of the process, and have this approved at the HIGHEST LEVEL, so that we can all follow the same standard process for managing processes.  There will be no deviation from the process, that way we can be more efficient about process management.  Before we begin, does anyone have any questions?"
"Yes.  Is this the right process for documenting processes, and do we have the necessary authority to begin?"

"Our clients have complained that the number one problem is that their requests seem to go into a void.  They send things in to us, but they never seem to hear back.  I think that a simple solution would be that once we receive a communication from them, simply reply that we've received it, and we'll get back to them within x period.  Then we contact them and say that the request has been assigned to so-and-so, who will be in contact with them.  And so on.  What do you think?"
"I'm not wasting my time to reply to clients to tell them what they already know.  Their system tells them that we've received their communication, and it's not my job to communicate to them anyway.  What's the point?  If they haven't heard from us in a reasonable time, they'll contact someone to follow up and it's their job to find out what's happened to the client request.  I'm not going to do anything about that, it doesn't add any value, and you can't convince me that there's any benefit to talking to clients."

"We don't have enough people here to do the work that needs to be done, so we have to do some hiring.  We need people who aren't just focussed on operations, they will have to be able to manage people, think about the big picture and be able to function in a more strategic fashion.  Are we all agreed on that?  Good.  Wait, wait.  You can't ask them about budgets, they don't deal with figures.  No, no.  You can't ask them about projects.  Well, yes, we did ask for them to prove that they have managed projects, but we can't ask them any questions that use the language of projects.  Ah... no, can't ask them about planning or strategy, they won't understand that, either.  But we want them to be highly skilled.  Got that?  Go find the best!"

There needs to be a reorg.  This structure isn't working anymore, so we'd like you to take a good look at it, review all of the operations and develop a proposal for a new organizational structure.  You have free reign; come up with a more effective model, based on the thinking and work that's been done in the past 2 years, the innovations we've adopted for the future, the directions that we want, all that good stuff.  Move people where you need to, chop and change as you see fit!  Oh, just keep in mind:  No job cuts, no change in job descriptions, no creation of new jobs, no promotions, no demotions.  Off you go, then!  Looking forward to reading your report!