Fartlek management™

I am taking this opportunity to introduce to the world a new management philosophy which I am dubbing Fartlek Management™.

Fartlek, as you surely know, is more than just a word that makes you laugh. If you recall your junior high school gym class, you may remember “Coach” making you do a senseless running excercise wherein you ran as fast as you could back and forth across the gym or out on the track. You ran to a line, touched it and ran back, then ran to another line, this one a little farther away and touched it, then ran back. Ad nauseum. You did this until Coach was satisfied. Remember that? Fondly, I bet. Of course, these were not real fartleks, just Coach’s twisted version.

So you see where I’m going here. Or maybe not. No matter, I’ll explain all.

simply wear people down to the point where they are unable to offer any resistance to our demands
Let’s start at the beginning. Your primary goal as a manager, as you undoubtably are aware, is not to simply “add value” or “do more with less” or “impact the bottom line.” These are certainly all worthy goals, but if we’re being honest here (and I think we’re all friends here, right?), our real, and often unacknowledged goal, is to simply wear people down to the point where they are unable to offer any resistance to our demands, and here’s the kicker, without them understanding what’s happening. Throughout the broad sweep of history, there have been many noble efforts to accomplish this goal. Some have been successful in wearing people down, but not so good at keeping people from understanding what’s happening. Others have been good at keeping people in the dark, but not so good at expending their energy. Until now.

Using Fartlek Management™ techniques, managers can now be assured that their servants underlings will be worked to the point of exhaustion, thus ensuring little to no resistance to further demands. On top of this, the underlings will have no idea what’s happening to them!

You may be asking yourself, “Self, this sounds great, but my employees are purty smart. They’ll probably hear about this Fartlek stuff.” You’re right, of course. Because of the internets and the information highway, your employees will likely get wind of this powerful new management philosophy. However, have no fear about your underlings finding out about the real source of power behind Fartlek Management™ techniques. I have ensured secrecy in three ways: first, I have invented a false professor of management named Dr. Heinne Fartlek. This provides layer one of secrecy by ensuring that the techniques sound like they were invented by boring and academic professor. Second, your more astute underlings may have heard of and participated in fartlek exercises in gym class. That’s desirable because they’ll assume that Fartlek Management™ is some sort of managerial exercise regimen designed to shed your flabby love handles. Third, I have established quite an exorbitant price point for Fartlek Management™ training seminars. Only managers from organizations with both great wealth and poor accounting methodologies will be able to attend.

Since I understand that it can be difficult to find time to attend an intensive 20 minute workshop in Cancun, I’ve developed a gift bag for attendees that rivals those given to Oscar nominees. I can’t talk about all the gifts you’ll receive, but I can say that your bag will include a genuine Aeron chair. I can also confirm that I have sold the movie rights to Fartlek Management™ and am also working on a home-based business version. But I’ve said too much already.

If you are interested in attending a Fartlek Management™ training seminar, please do not contact me directly. I have conducted an extensive review of wealthy companies with poor accounting methodologies and have already sent out a very glossy marketing piece to targeted managers. You may be one of them. Or you may know one of them. If you didn’t receive this mailing, you may still attend the seminar, but you must ask for an invitation from someone who actually did receive one. Once you’ve received your mailing, or confirmation from someone who did receive the mailing, you will learn about the exclusive website available for more information and registration. The website itself is functional, certainly, but more importantly it is pretty to look at. You have my assurance that upon viewing the website, you will want to lick your computer screen. This is due primarily to the heavy reliance upon a proprietary new web development platform known cryptically as Devils With Diamonds. This is unrelated to Fartlek Management™, but I predict that Devils With Diamonds will spark a revolution on both the internets and the information highway. I will name this revolution web 2.1. You heard it here first.