CEO’s New Year resolutions

January 9, 2012

New Year Resolutions from a CEO

Crap! It’s the New Year. Again. Rather than make useless resolutions, I think I will just review the ones I wrote in January 2012 and undertake a self-appraisal.

New Year Resolution 1:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: Walk the shop floor more and have a weekly breakfast with randomly chosen staff members so that I can get a good feel of what’s going on with the employees.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: I held a breakfast in the last week of January and another in the middle of March. I almost gagged when I saw the table manners of a few of the staff, one had the temerity to pick his nose and his teeth in random order throughout the meal. Another one chose the March session to break down in tears since his wife had left him the week before and his pregnant girlfriend had moved in thereafter. Awkward. That brought my “bonding” sessions to a screeching halt.

WHAT I WILL DO IN 2013: Walk on the second floor. I never did get past the ground and first floor last year.

New Year Resolution 2:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: I will stop using the Chief Financial Officer’s mug shot for target practice at the shooting range every Saturday morning.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: I diversified my target practice board by putting a collage of 12” BY 12” pictures of the worst people in my professional life. I put in pictures of the Chief Human Resource Officer, the idiotic octogenarian board director, the wife of the Board Chairman (boy, is she a piece of work!) and, last but definitely not least, the Chief Financial Officer whose face is now a mass of shredded paper following repeated shots over the year.

WHAT I WILL DO IN 2013: Attend anger management classes. I need to find a healthier outlet for the rage I feel towards certain people. I guess that means I need to cancel the order for the 10 additional mug shot collages that I put in just before Christmas. Or maybe not. If the anger management classes don’t work I need to have a plan B.

New Year Resolution 3:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: I will delegate more at work.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: Refer to New Year Resolution Number 4.

New Year Resolution 4:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: Scratch New Year Resolution 3, I don’t trust anyone to get the job done properly.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: I didn’t trust anyone to get the job done properly.

WHAT I WILL DO IN 2013: I still don’t trust anyone to get the job done properly. Tough.

New Year Resolution 5:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: I will learn to trust more. Starting next year.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: I maintained my capacity to trust -which is next to zero- and promised myself that 2013 would be a better year.

WHAT I WILL DO IN 2013: I will learn to trust more. Starting next year.

New Year Resolution 6:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: I will spend more time with my wife and kids.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: I am very proud of myself. I took the wife and kids for a holiday in Dubai and she managed to dent a bigger hole on my credit card than those b****s who skimmed my card while I was in South Africa last year. The kids bought even more electronic gadgets, which totally occupied their time during the “holiday” and the rest of the year. I have to admit the Christmas break was hard as I spent more time at home and realized that we have nothing to talk about with the kids except how much pocket money they could bum off me and what time they would be getting back home in the evening. I also got the sense that my wife couldn’t wait for me to get back to the office as my hanging around the house was getting quite awkward.

WHAT I WILL DO IN 2013: I’m thinking of setting up a virtual dinner table so that I can sit and have dinner with the family while I am sitting in the office. At least I’ll get to see them before they sleep. As for my wife, I think if I get her a platinum credit card this year it might make for a better relationship.

New Year Resolution 7:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: I will endeavor to have more women in senior management.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: I hired a female Chief Human Resources Officer. What’s not to like? She was beautiful, had nice legs and seemed to quote a few correct human resource terminologies at the interview that made it look like she knew the job. The female board members didn’t like her when they met at the first board meeting. They said she was all hair and air, with nothing in between. I thought they were jealous. I was wrong. I don’t know what to do with her. I wish she would go away. She DOESN’T KNOW the first thing about managing people in her own department let alone the rest of her organization and I am constantly fire fighting on her behalf.
WHAT I WILL DO IN 2013
I will never hire a woman in senior management again. Ever. Alright, alright. I might hire one in 2014 and interview her on the phone first before I see what she looks like physically so that I don’t get distracted.

New Year Resolution 8:
WHAT I SAID IN JANUARY 2012: I will add value to the company’s pensioners by convincing the trustees to reduce dead property assets in the pension fund.

WHAT I DID IN 2012: I got a couple of friends and we created a company that bought off most of the “dead property assets” in the pension fund. We are in the process of selling the same to some Chinese developers for a price 50% more than we bought them for.

WHAT I WILL DO IN 2013: I need to find (or make) some more “obsolete” company assets. Quickly.

My Life Coach will be still be proud of me as my resolutions are career, company and family oriented, just as he keeps telling me. 2013 here I come!

[email protected] Twitter: @carolmusyoka

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Carol Musyoka Consulting Limited,
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P.O Box 6471-00200
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Email: [email protected]

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