Five Management Secrets I Learned From My Cat

As an enlightened museum manager always on the lookout to improve upon my innate genius. The other day my eye was caught by an article on '5 Management Secrets I Learned From My Dog'

http://blog.hootsuite.com/5-management-secrets-i-learned-from-my-dog/

Needless to say I took the view that you can't teach an old dog new tricks and did not bother to read it. But having spent my lunchtime in the local park I decided to indulge in some action research on dog 'management' behaviours that could be put into practice in that afternoon's Trustees meeting.

The meeting turned out to be a short but turbulent affair. The Trustees objected to me licking their hands on arrival and the Secretary refused to throw my copy of the agenda across the room so that I could go and fetch it. Although I growled quite convincingly when anyone went near my sandwiches, the meeting ended abruptly when I tried to hump the Chairman's leg.

Clearly having canine related management strategies is the work of the unhinged. Yet it may be that it is just the wrong pet. Cats lead, dogs follow. I perused the internet to find out what the great minds of human history thought and they agree with me. Carl Van Vechten puts it beautifully and concisely, "There is no single quality of the cat that man could not emulate to his advantage."

So learning management skills from a dog is plainly stupid. Much more sensible is to learn from cats.  As Jeff Valdez observed, " Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through the snow."

The clear lesson here is: managers are cats, staff are dogs.

So I thought I would impart the wisdom of cats to the put upon museum manager. Follow these five tips and you can't go wrong.

Five Management Secrets I Learned from My Cat. (Her name is Lulu by the way)

1. Prioritisation
"Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later." Mary Bly

2. Pragmatic Motivation
"Essentially, you do not so much teach your cat as bribe him." Lynn Hollyn

3. Self Confidence
"Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God." Anon

4. Assertiveness
"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want." Joseph Wood Krutch.

5. Ruthlessness
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." Bruce Graham.


TOO ERR IS HUMAN TO PURR FELINE


All quotes sourced from maxellah.tripod.com/catquo.htm