Do you struggle with simple tasks like using the phrase “circle back” in every email? Have you never used the word “synergies” in a Linkedin post?

You need Wankernomics.

Wankernomics started life as a live show, helping thousands of Australians unlock the secrets to workplace success through the ancient art of being an annoying wanker. And, for the first time, they’re heading to the Edinburgh Fringe!

Joining The Consultancy Business this time are James Schloeffel and Charles Firth. And although Wankernomics is a comedy act, at the heart lie serious lessons about how we communicate at work — should we REALLY be breaking silos?!

If you missed the Fringe shows, but want to catch James and Charles on stage, check out the Wankernomics site for the latest tour dates, locations and venues.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Phil Lewis: Hello, welcome to The Consultancy Business Podcast. We are here to champion ethics and excellence in consultancy. And this month we’re championing something a little bit different, which is having a good laugh at ourselves as well. Consultancy, like corporate life, is ripe for puncturing. So when our brilliant producers noticed a show named Wankernomics in my home city of Edinburgh, we couldn’t resist inviting them on. This show, and indeed this episode. is all about cocking a snook at the business world.

[00:00:33] Charles Firth: You’re not allowed in an email to say, oh, can I phone you? You’ve got to say, oh, can we hop on a call, right? You just have to, right? It’s just a wanky way of saying, I’m going to phone you. You can’t say, oh, let’s return to the previous issues. You have to say, oh, actually, can we circle back?

[00:00:49] Phil Lewis: The next 30 minutes is best described as two very funny men alongside one host doing his best to try and keep up. But there’s good reason why a lot of these jokes pack such a big punch, as you’ll hear for yourself. So, without further ado, in a sentence I honestly never thought I’d utter, I give you Wankernomics. James and Charles, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:18] James Schloeffel: Hello, wonderful to be here.

[00:01:20] Phil Lewis: I feel inclined to say something like, I’m looking forward to exploring synergies with you both as we dovetail today.

[00:01:27] James Schloeffel: Oh, beautiful. It is so lovely to be here. I hope we can ideate some great solutions moving forward.

[00:01:33] Charles Firth: I just want to touch your base, but that’s, that’s my thing.
Circle back and touch your base.

[00:01:41] Phil Lewis: So that’s a nice creepy tone to begin with. Let’s start by talking about your show, which is bringing you to Edinburgh, my home city next month, and I’d just love to hear a bit more about it. Wankernomics, I think is the name. Is that right?

[00:01:55] James Schloeffel: That is correct. Uh, we are very excited to come to Edinburgh. Basically, Wankernomics is a bit of a masterclass in how to navigate workplace hell. So if you think about all the buzzwords and all the bullshit and bureaucracy that everyone has to encounter at work, we just give you some tips on how to, on how to get through that, you know, kind of come out the other end, hopefully with a promotion or a pay rise, or at the very least still alive at the end of the day.

[00:02:21] Phil Lewis: How did the show come about?

[00:02:22] James Schloeffel: Do you know what, I actually think that this has been a work in progress for years and we didn’t quite realise it, did we Charles? I think like we said we’ve been working together for a long, long time doing more political satire. We do shows every year about, you know, current events, that type of thing. But we’ve always kind of talked about doing something in the business realm.

[00:02:44] Charles Firth: We had an idea… the initial idea was for a sort of 60 minute MBA. Remember that? It was sort of going to be a mini MBA. And I think you pointed out, James, that no one wants to go and do a 60 minute MBA. It sounds like a horrible experience. And then I think we discovered that you, James, have an enormous well of anger about your time in corporate life.

[00:03:12] James Schloeffel: Yeah, so what your listeners need to understand is I worked in the corporate world for quite a long time. I sat in a lot of meetings developing mission statements and vision statements and purpose statements and value statements and, you know, I had to deal with all that jargon, all those buzzwords. And in a lot of ways, I think this show is just, is just an extended therapy session for me.

[00:03:33] Phil Lewis: James, you said you spent ages in corporate life before making your way to do what you now do. I need to ask you a little bit about that journey, actually. So how did you… oh, and I just used the word journey. I think we’re going to have to put a business buzzword klaxon in over that. But yes, I wanted to ask you a bit about how you came out of corporate life to do that, because weirdly, I have a feeling quite a few of our listeners might find this quite an inspiring story if only through the lens of possibility in their own lives. So yeah. How did you get from there to here?

[00:03:59] James Schloeffel: I worked in marketing for a long, long time, which… but, but then I did work my way into copywriting and worked with a lot of different organisations, actually, quite interestingly, helping corporations write better, you know, to not use jargon. But I think in, in the process of doing that, I actually just came up against so much jargon and realised that it was like an unwinnable battle. I actually started writing comedy probably 10 years ago, on the side. It was a little side project to start off with. Started working with Charles about 10 years ago, just doing little bits and pieces. And it just kind of grew and grew and grew until it got to the point where it overtook the corporate life. And so now I do comedy full time, which is a lovely thing to do.

[00:04:48] Phil Lewis: And Charles, what’s your story?

[00:04:50] Charles Firth: I tried to get a job when I first got out of uni, but 25 years ago, and… I didn’t get one. I went for one job, to be fair.

[00:05:07] Phil Lewis: So it was really much a shit or bust approach to career planning, basically.

[00:05:10] Charles Firth: So I set up a comedy newspaper, a little bit like Private Eye or maybe The Onion sort of type thing in Australia called The Chaser. I just wrote comedy from the word go. I mean, it was terribly small for the first few years, but we then sort of found ourselves doing TV shows and things like that.

[00:05:37] James Schloeffel: So Charles is being quite modest and… The Chaser was a very, very large TV show in Australia in the 2000s.

[00:05:49] Charles Firth: Yeah, about 20 years ago.

[00:05:50] James Schloeffel: But it was a very big deal.

[00:05:52] Charles Firth: Yeah, yeah. So then I, and then I had no idea what I did in the meantime… but then I met James. Eventually I met James, and we just had lots of fun. That’s when we started doing live stuff. So before that, it was all just newspaper and TV, but then actually the live stuff has become, well, the favourite part of my life is going on tour. Mainly, not so much spending time with James more about, just, you know, time away from the kids and family, you know.

[00:06:23] Phil Lewis: Which is why people go to work as well, of course. I think it’s overlooked. I do actually genuinely think it’s overlooked. People go to work for a break from the family, and they go back home for a break from work. I think it’s kind of like… we need both environments, but I’m just, I’m sorry, I found myself slightly distracted there Charles, sort of contemplating the sliding doors nature of your life. You know, I went for one job and I’m like… what was the job, just out of interest?

[00:06:50] Charles Firth: The job was as a financial journalist. I tried to get a cadetship at the equivalent of the Financial Times, which is called the Australian Financial Review. And, because I’d done a degree in economics at uni, and I really wanted it. I got it, I got an interview and everything like that, but then they didn’t give it to me. So it was like, oh, well, employment’s not going to work out for me. Got to do something else with my life.

[00:07:18] Phil Lewis: I think that’s absolutely fascinating. It’s almost like, yeah, so I’ll go for really serious financial journalism that didn’t work out. So what’s the most opposite thing I can do now? You’re doing a show called Wankernomics. Well, yeah, quite. So it feels in some small way, like that is the case.

[00:07:44] Charles Firth: By the way, James, I’ve always wondered, what is the difference between a purpose statement and a vision statement?

[00:07:50] James Schloeffel: It’s about a million dollars in consulting fees. So yeah, but otherwise just absolutely identical.

[00:07:58] Phil Lewis: As somebody who has, I think, probably sat in more purpose and vision statement meetings than I have had hot dinners at this point, I resonate with this idea of bubbling rage, this sort of, kind of, disillusionment that we all have with this sort of combination of the vanity of the exercise that’s being done, and the kind of pointlessness of the exercise that’s being done. And the sense that a lot of the time, actually, nobody’s doing any real work in those environments whatsoever.

[00:08:30] Phil Lewis: And by the sounds of it, then your show is going to help people to prosper in those sorts of environments and therefore experience that kind of bubbling rage for themselves, but maybe make lots more money as they do it.

[00:08:43] James Schloeffel: Quite possibly, or at least kind of, I guess, come to terms with it. Like, a lot of people after our shows, they say, look, I loved it. You know, I laughed a lot, but, but also I hated it as well. Because it just brought up so many emotions, and it was just very, very real. And so there’s, there’s as much grimacing, I think, as laughing in our shows. But you talk about meaninglessness. We’ve actually got a partner show where we do this bit called who has the most meaningless job in the entire theatre that we’re in. And it’s a wonderful way of just, you know, going through some questions and working out just how many people in the room have jobs that really are just useless.

[00:09:31] Phil Lewis: What is the most meaningless job? I’ve got to ask that question. What is the most meaningless job?

[00:09:35] James Schloeffel: It’s probably being a comedian, you know, standing up on stage trying to convince other people that their lives are meaningless. I think that’s where we’ve come to. That’s the most meaningless job.

[00:09:46] Phil Lewis: How very meta of you. So going back to Wankernomics. Why is it called Wankernomics?

[00:09:52] Charles Firth: Well isn’t the point that, like, there’s all these rules that you have to follow. Nobody likes the rules, but you have to do them. Like, you have to be a wanker. And it’s not like anyone knows why you have to be a wanker, but you do. You have to, like, if somebody’s in the kitchen and, and they’re reheating a curry for lunch, you have to say to them, oh, well, you know, it always tastes better the day after. That’s just a rule, and it’s a totally wanky thing to say. But then nobody knows where that rule comes from, but it’s actually, you have to do that to get through and succeed at work. It’s how capitalism works really, is just through endless wank. Like, cause you can’t, you’re not allowed to, in an email say, oh, can I phone you? You got to say, oh, can we hop on a call? Right? You just have to, right? And the thing is, it’s just a wanky way of saying I’m going to phone you. You can’t say, oh, let’s return to the previous issues. You have to say, oh, actually, can we circle back?

[00:10:58] Phil Lewis: Years ago, I was working with a kind of mid-ranking account manager in an advertising firm who kept being described as though he was being, he said, well, what did he keep saying? Yes. I got flown in to deal with that problem. Like he was Joe Biden descending from the stairs of the plane to sort some massive geopolitical issue out. You’re like, mate, it was a dog food ad that was going wrong. Do you know what I mean? It’s like everything has to have a sort of slightly bigger sense of import than it would be if we were just sitting there going, let’s just ring each other. And maybe the kind of ‘wankeriness’ that you’re pointing to.

[00:11:33] James Schloeffel: Yeah, or the word solution is one of my favorites. It’s just used a hell of a lot. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t add anything to any sentence. Except it allows people to charge more for their work, I feel like. So if you think about a plumber, for example, and if he just says, look, I’m a plumber. Like he’s not going to be charging much, is he? But if he says I provide plumbing solutions, then all of a sudden, like it’s thousands of, of, of pounds an hour, thousands of dollars an hour, for his services. And that’s just because he said the word solution. And that’s one of the advantages of knowing how to speak like a wanker.

[00:12:16] Phil Lewis: As a consultant, I think if you took the word solutions out of our industry, I’m not sure any of us would know what to do. It’s a wonderful kind of drop box of a word, actually, in a sense, because what it does is it immediately sounds expensive. It immediately sounds sophisticated. And it immediately doesn’t stand up to the slightest bit of interrogation. Because as you rightly say, there’s no meaning there whatsoever. But the world of work, as you’ve already been saying, is kind of full of this stuff. I mean, I remember years ago, I got so tired of a particular client talking about… they had these words like alignment they kept using. Buy-in was another one, actually. God, don’t we all love buy-in. I’m sure you came across that in your corporate life quite a lot. Or the phrase, ‘the journey’, which is up there with solutions in it’s kind of routine overuse. And I fined them £25 for every time it came up in the meeting. And, what was really sort of fascinating about it, we raised quite a lot of money for charity that day, but to your earlier point, they all got quite annoyed. It was like they were being deprived of some vital language resource to be able to conduct the meeting. So why do you think this kind of corporate jargon exists?

[00:13:30] Charles Firth: Isn’t it the same reason why we wear business suits and dress up? Like, it’s the same sort of thing, which is like everyone at heart is still a 14-year-old, and completely scared of being uncovered as an imposter. And the more you can hide behind a fancy suit or a nice blouse or whatever, and the more you can sort of use fancy language and show off, you’re sort of peacocking the fact that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing and just stumbling through each day in a mild panic.

[00:14:04] James Schloeffel: Yes. I mean, the modern working world is entirely underpinned by people who do not know what they are doing. But, you know, they’re using words like symbiotic to give the impression that they do. So I think that’s spot-on. The other reason, I would say is also is… I mean, that’s definitely the main reason, but I think the other reason is because you feel like, especially when you first start as a junior in these jobs, you’re like, shit, everyone’s talking really weirdly. I need to talk like that in order to fit in because if I don’t, then, then I’ll stand out. And so it’s kind of like a cult. It’s a bit like you’re being inducted into a cult. Or sorry, I should say ‘onboarded’ into a cult. And you kind of, well, you can escape it. Like you can go and get another job, but, then you just find that you’re in the same kind of loop all over again.

[00:14:53] Phil Lewis: just reminded as you were talking before. We had a guy on a podcast recently who talked about PowerPoint as a container for anxiety, which I thought was really interesting. Basically what he was saying was in essence, right, everyone sits in a meeting. No one knows what they’re doing, but the presence of slides is sort of… is a fig leaf for that fact. And actually, basically, all it’s there to do is to allow us all to pretend that we don’t know what we’re doing. And I think what you’re saying is the same. I put the business suit on, use the language, and then no one will find you out and you can get paid a load of money. Anyway, tell us about where the show’s on and tell us a little bit more about what actually happens in the show.

[00:15:32] Charles Firth: Well, it’s on at the Pleasance One at 6pm. We’ve broken it down into about eight units that you have to learn to become a wanker at work. And we go through everything from doing languages and things like that. But also, we actually conduct a real-life meeting live on stage to give you an example of best practice. Because the thing about a meeting is, a meeting is just a group of people, all of whom have no idea what the meeting it’s about. They’ve got to get through the entire meeting without letting on that they don’t know what the meeting’s about. They have to do it while trying to look incredibly smart. And the other key thing about being in a meeting is you’ve got to do it without getting lumped with any extra work. So it’s actually quite a difficult thing. And so we do things like that. And then at the end, we actually help someone set up their own company. And we actually even design a whole TV advertisement campaign for them live on stage. We pick an audience member and we actually set up a whole large corporation in their honour.

[00:16:47] Phil Lewis: I am by myself sitting here, reflecting, listening to you talk about the idea of meetings in which no one knows what’s happening and no one knows what to say. And I was thinking, I wonder what percentage of meetings I’ve been in my career where that was actually the truth of what was going on. One of the things that still surprises me to this day, and you know, in my consulting practice, we work with some, you know, pretty large and sophisticated organisations. And yet people still have this incredible capacity to walk out of what I thought were pretty clear conversations with totally different take outs of what was discussed, what needs to happen next. I do actually wonder if actually most people’s careers are built on this idea of, if I can just get through 40 years without being found out, I’ll be fine.

[00:17:34] Charles Firth: Well, actually on the meetings thing though, like, you know, to the extent that this podcast is a meeting, I have no idea what’s going on. Yeah. I look like I have no idea.

[00:17:44] James Schloeffel: I’ve got no idea. But can I also point out. To your earlier point about using PowerPoint as a tool, what was your terminology?

[00:17:54] Phil Lewis: A container for anxiety. Yeah.

[00:17:56] James Schloeffel: A container. What Charles didn’t say is that our entire show is a PowerPoint presentation. I think that’s a lovely way to describe our show. It is a container for anxiety. I think that should be the new strapline for our show.

[00:18:12] Phil Lewis: I think this is why your show could actually be a really big hit over here because I can’t speak to Australia, but certainly in the UK and Europe, I mean, you’re tapping into two things. You’re tapping into a deep well of frustration with how most people experience work, and you’re also tapping into a pretty deep well of anxiety about, you know, how we all are at work and how we experience other people at work. And I think the opportunity to get into a room and have a good laugh about that… and also, at some sense to actually laugh at our own ridiculous behaviour at work. I mean, I was saying to you before this podcast recording started, wasn’t I? You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a meeting where I felt so self-conscious about my language. You know, I was sitting here going, Oh God, I’m going to talk to these guys from Wankernomics. And if I say… I’m just really glad I didn’t use the word solutions in the first kind of like five minutes. So do people tell me about how people walk out? I mean, presumably people walking out having had a good laugh, you know what I mean? But it does sound like there’s something a bit more cathartic going on under all this.

[00:19:12] James Schloeffel: Ah yeah, there really is. A lot of people come up to us and tell us that it really has been cathartic. And the other thing that we found interesting when we did our first season of shows last year, was the breadth of people who seemed to connect to the material. Because we thought it’s definitely gonna be corporate types and it is, but it’s also much, much broader than that. Like, we get school teachers coming up to us and saying, Oh, my God, I just sat through like a values statement, mission statement session. Or we get like council workers, or we get doctors, all sorts of different people, even builders sometimes who come up to us and say, look, we had a meeting with head office the other day, and they used all of that terminology… oh my goodness, you’ve just described my life. So I think it’s been lovely to, to kind of connect with such a wide range of people, but also slightly scary.

[00:20:04] Charles Firth: And I think it’s why the email section, because we have a whole section to teach you how to write passive aggressive emails, right? And the thing is, everyone, like including plumbers and tradies, everyone have to deal with passive aggressive emails. It is a complete universal of the human condition in 2024. So, and I think it’s one of the reasons why this is my favourite show to be on stage for, because you get to witness the absolute agony in the eyes and the faces of the audience. Like there will always be in the crowd a few people who are just like absolutely cringing, being seen at all their behaviours that you’re pointing out on stage.

[00:20:51] Phil Lewis: Yeah, we have something similar. I mean, I mentioned the word buy-in earlier on and we sort of, we actually can tackle chief execs of leadership teams quite hard in our practice about their use of that word, because we’re like, you keep talking about buy-in, but what you really mean is you’re either part of the steamroller or part of the pavement, you know. And, and there’s not really much buying-in going on. It’s just basically, you’re going to hit people around the head with PowerPoint charts until they acquiesce to either be part of the steamroller or they accept the part of the pavement. But you just put this kind of language around it that makes it sound a lot more collegiate than it actually is. And you can get some quite interesting reactions to that because I do, I mean, I do think we all kind of recognise ourselves in that behavior. You know, passive aggressive emails is a really good one. I mean, you know, I’ve had to catch myself in recent weeks sort of going, you know, when you start on email with like just checking in, for example, I think to myself… that just sounds like… if I was on the receiving end of that, it basically sounds like, why haven’t you responded to my email you complete shit, you know. So you’re teaching people how to do that properly. And I guess actually then what you’re doing is you’re helping them to unlearn how to do it, right?

[00:22:02] James Schloeffel: Yeah, I guess so. I mean the name of the show is As Per My Last Email.

[00:22:12] Phil Lewis: That is always a dick move. As per my last email, isn’t it?

[00:22:14] James Schloeffel: Which is probably the most passive-aggressive thing that you can say.

[00:22:19] Phil Lewis: If there was one thing that you would be hoping you could cure the corporate world of, as a result of your show, what would it be?

[00:22:30] Charles Firth: There’s nothing to cure, it’s perfect.

[00:22:34] James Schloeffel: We’d be out of a job.

[00:22:36] Charles Firth: You know what I’d do? I’d get rid of LinkedIn. That’s what I’d do. Oh, yeah. I reckon that would just increase the general sort of net worth of the world.

[00:22:49] Phil Lewis: Oh, I think that’s probably right. Do you have a section on LinkedIn in your show?

[00:22:52] James Schloeffel: Mm, yeah. Oh, yeah, we do. Because it’s, it’s, I mean, it’s essential. You can’t get by in the working world without LinkedIn. Knowing how to, how to use LinkedIn.

[00:23:01] Charles Firth: The key to LinkedIn is actually very simple, which is that you make every minor accomplishment sound like a Nobel prize winning achievement.

[00:23:09] Phil Lewis: If you bring that together with really kind of like self-mythologising language, that also is what helps as well. So, you know, use… I wake up at 4.30 in the morning and I kiss my sleeping wife on the forehead.

[00:23:24] James Schloeffel: You get up that late, you get up at 4.30? Oh my god.

[00:23:28] Phil Lewis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get up before I went to bed.

[00:23:29] James Schloeffel: I’m up at 2, so…

[00:23:32] Phil Lewis: That sales coalface won’t wait for everybody, will it? You know. So I think if you can bring the two together on LinkedIn, I think if you can bring that kind of like really, yes, take the smallest achievement and make it sound like the biggest and also really self mythologising language that makes it sound like what you’re doing is really important as opposed to, you know, like flogging car parts in southeast London or something, then, I think that is the myth. But the interesting thing about LinkedIn, by the way, is that almost everybody on it hates it. I think it’s like an echo of what you were saying about other corporate life, right? It’s like everybody who is on LinkedIn seems to despise LinkedIn, and yet cannot get away from LinkedIn. And so I think that is its sort of dark magic, in a way.

[00:24:19] Charles Firth: You can see why Microsoft bought LinkedIn because that’s exactly the same as Microsoft Office. Everyone hates Microsoft Office. But everyone has to be on Microsoft Office.

[00:24:31] Phil Lewis: Well, the problem with all Microsoft products is that they don’t finish inventing them before they put them on the market. So fundamentally, any Microsoft product is going to prove to be about five times more difficult to use and about three times more buggy than you ever thought was humanly possible. But IT people like it. And, and that’s sort of the thing. Do you have a section on offices? I’m really fascinated by your show because I’m like, you’re basically, ticking off a list of pretty much everything I hate about corporate life in one very succinct hour by the sounds of it.

[00:25:03] James Schloeffel: We do, we have a very specific section on Microsoft Word track changes, which, which I think is a very important, you know, unit to have in the show. And we basically go through how to use track changes, and really that’s just another vessel for passive-aggressive language, which I love.

[00:25:24] Charles Firth: Collaboration is key, right? It is key. It is key. It’s key. Absolutely key. Yeah.

[00:25:31] James Schloeffel: But no, it’s a great tool. I’ve always found, you know, track changes or just Microsoft Word in general, it’s a great tool for, you know, for taking a piece of work and then just, you know, bit by bit, making it worse by taking on board unsolicited feedback from, uh, from your colleagues. Yeah.

[00:25:44] Phil Lewis: Ah, but the interesting thing about not only making it worse, but also making it an incredible minefield of a document then to have to wade through and re-edit because you’re then mindful of the relative statuses of everybody who has entered into the document. So track changes is wonderful because not only does it actually give you a load of a lot of the time, somebody else’s bad writing, poor spelling and grammar and ill thought through points. But you’re also having to then navigate through that, through the lens of, but they’re my boss.

[00:26:18] James Schloeffel: It’s a social experiment. It’s lovely. I mean, David Attenborough probably should do a whole series on track changes. A fun little thing to do actually is just to put in a contradictory comment. So if someone has said something like, I like this bit, but can you shorten it? Then you just put in a comment saying, I love this bit. Can we make it twice as long? And it’s just a great way to really test who is the most senior person in that relationship to see what actually gets done there.

[00:26:47] Phil Lewis: Where’s the soft power here? Really? Yeah. I think that’s an interesting thing. And of course the great thing about doing that kind of stuff is that it beats working. So actually, you know, if you put lots of comments in and start to play that kind of, like, psychodrama out with your colleagues, it means, you know, well, I mean, days, weeks, and months can get consumed by that while you’re merrily drawing down a salary and hey, presto, most places of work.

[00:27:09] James Schloeffel: Oh, totally. I’m still working on a track changes document from 2005. I think, I mean, I think there’s still people, you know, chipping in with their comments. It’s never going to get finished. And I think that’s, that’s just part of, that’s part of work, isn’t it?

[00:27:22] Phil Lewis: So we’re going to put loads of links in the show notes and everything else so that people can get tickets to your show. I’m going to bring a group along one night actually, and, and hope to meet you guys there myself. But I did want to ask you just in closing, if there was one word — you mentioned solutions earlier on as being a particularly egregious example of corporatese — but if there’s one other word that both of you wish you could make vanish from the business lexicon, if you want to call it that, what would it be?

[00:27:53] James Schloeffel: I was going to say, can I have more? Can I have, like, a phrase?

[00:27:56] Phil Lewis: You can have as many as you want. I’m going to go with the word cascade. That’s my…

[00:28:01] Charles Firth: Wow. That’s good. Wow. It’s cool, isn’t it?

[00:28:03] James Schloeffel: Yeah. Cascade. Can I ask you a question? I was trying to come to terms with this today. When do you cascade a document and when do you socialise it? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, is there a difference? Do you cascade it first and then socialise it? Do you socialise it first and then cascade it? I’m interested in your thoughts on that.

[00:28:20] Phil Lewis: Yeah. It’s a really, important sort of semantic difference, this, I think. You socialise a document when you want to give the impression of giving a shit about what people have to say about it. And you cascade it when you don’t want to give an impression about giving a shit that, you know, that, that people… So basically that’s the, so in both cases, the important thing to note is in both cases, you don’t care, right? But in one case you have to signal that you do — socialise — in another circumstance, you don’t have to signal — cascade, right? So that is actually the important difference.

[00:28:57] James Schloeffel: I love that. I mean, it’s so sad, you know, socialising used to mean, like, going out for a few beers with your mates now means sending around a document on email. For track changes. That’s how far the world has fallen. Isn’t that depressing? If I could have a few words, it is: breaking down the silos. Do you use that to use that in the UK? I should check that for silos. Is that a thing? Like we need to break down the silos.

[00:29:23] Phil Lewis: We smashed the shit out of those silos here in the UK. We’re all about breaking them down.

[00:29:28] James Schloeffel: Breaking them down. And obviously what that means is that, you know, departments have this tendency to work separately rather than collaboratively, and those barriers need to be broken down. I kind of get that, but when you think about it as a metaphor, it’s just ridiculous, right? Because you’re thinking about, you know, silos store grain, usually. They’re on farms and they store grain. The idea of breaking them down, or sewage, even better, like the idea of breaking them down, to mix them together, is a terrible metaphor. Like, imagine that you’ve got like wheat mixed in with barley and that’s mixed in with, like, that’s the opposite of what you want to be doing. So why, why would you feel the silo? The entire point of a silo is to keep things separate. Why would you want to break it down? And then what do you do with them when they’re broken down? You’ve got these massive metal silos just lying around. What do you, what do you do with them then? So that that’s my… and also maybe sometimes it’s better to keep people separate, you know, just like it’s sometimes it’s better to keep grain and wheat separate, maybe sometimes it’s, it’s better to keep, you know, John from accounts separate from from Jenny in marketing. I mean, maybe there’s a reason those two things are separate. Break down the silos.

[00:30:40] Phil Lewis: We do not permit phrasing around silos to be used in our practice, but it has never occurred to me in like 15 years of hearing that phrase, your fundamental point, which is actually it’s not a very good thing to break down silos a lot of the time. Yeah. Interesting. What else, James, you said you had a few, so come on, let’s roll with it.

[00:30:59] James Schloeffel: Oh, no, I don’t meant that ‘break down the silos’ is more than one word… I mean, I could keep going all day, but sure. I mean, fucking… like solution.

[00:31:07] Charles Firth: I’m going to go with some low hanging fruit, and just say low hanging fruit.

[00:31:14] James Schloeffel: That feels like it’s cheating, but I mean, you’ve, you’ve got to go for the low hanging fruit.

[00:31:18] Charles Firth: Yeah. You’ve got to go for the low hanging fruit. Like why wouldn’t you?

[00:31:20] Phil Lewis: One of my practices, we work with a very well known sporting business here in the UK and I realised through doing that, just how much we actually sort of use really crappy sports metaphor, as well, a lot of the time. So there’s, there’s a whole subset, actually, of really bad sports metaphor in business language that itself is kind of like, you know, worth teasing out. Yeah.

[00:31:48] Charles Firth: I was going to say, do you find that it’s like American sport, which has, which has nothing… like we, we don’t have baseball in Australia, but it’s always like, oh, well, you know, a bit of a home run on that. And you go, we don’t have home runs. There’s no such thing as home runs in Australia or even touch…

[00:32:06] James Schloeffel: I mean, touch base is from baseball, touch base.

[00:32:10] Phil Lewis: I had a client who kept talking rather unselfconsciously about getting to second base on an initiative. And I was like, you might want to look at the sort of cultural context of that a little bit. But yeah, I mean, look, really looking forward to your show, gents. I mean, I think there’s actually quite a serious point in the heart of all this, right, which is fundamentally, if we talk about language in business, for example, I mean, I think when it comes to leaders, I think if people can’t understand you, you can’t lead a business properly. And I think most of the language that we’ve been talking about in this podcast actually kind of exists at a point where most of the time, what it actually means is not very clear to people, or indeed not desirable, to your point about silos. And I think a lot of business language is pretty alienating, pretty excluding, and actually it doesn’t feel like a very bright path to pursue. So I hope if any consultants who are listening to this podcast, go along and see this excellent show that we all walk out of it a bit challenged around our own use of language. And perhaps, well, if you think that the corporate world is full of wankers, I think it’s probably fair to say that the consulting industry has its fair share of them as well. So I do sincerely hope that your show acts as a bit of an antidote to all of that for those of us in this profession too. We’ll put links to your show in the show notes, but in the meantime, thank you very much for coming on the podcast, and best of luck in Edinburgh.

[00:33:30] James Schloeffel: Thank you so much for having us.

[00:33:32] Charles Firth: Thanks Phil.

[00:33:33] Phil Lewis: If in any future episode of this podcast, you hear me using any of the language that James and Charles quite rightly ripped the almighty out of, please feel free to write in and give me a good punch. A big thanks to James and Charles there, not least for navigating the time difference from Australia so they could record with us, for which we are very, very grateful. Wankernomics is on at the Fringe between the 12th and the 26th of August. It’s on at six o’clock every night at the Pleasance. It’s not very kid friendly, I think you’ve probably gathered that from this podcast, so it’s over 16s only. A strong recommend from us and the team here to go and see it. So there’s a link to the show notes for tickets and for more information about this brilliant show, if you are indeed in Edinburgh or up for a trip up here, so that you can enjoy what’s going to be a very entertaining hour. As always, if you could like, rate and review us on your favourite podcast platform and share this episode with anybody who you also think might deserve a good laugh, we’d very much appreciate it. And we will be back with another edition of The Consultancy Business podcast soon. Bye for now.

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