May 21, 2007

Season Finales: Coming to a Corporation Near You

The season finale of the Fox show “24” is here, and I couldn’t be more excited. And yes, despite the fact that there’s DVR, Tivo, You Tube and even the good ole’ VCR, we wouldn’t miss this. We’ve planned our whole day around it. In fact, we’re throwing a party.

It’ll be very similar to our annual Super Bowl party. Friends. Food. Drinks. All the necessities to celebrate the ending of a mini-era, be it Jack Bauer’s day or another NFL season full of hope (for some) and despair (for others, like me, the lifelong Cleveland Browns fan).

In fact, some of the best get-togethers I can ever remember were to celebrate the end of things. The one that comes to mind first, and I can’t believe I’m admitting this in a public forum as I’ll probably get arrested, was called the annual Book Burning Party.

It wasn’t about denouncing Judy Blume or Harry Potter. Those are parent-style book burnings. Instead, each of my high school friends and I, at the end of each school year, were responsible for stealing one book from one of our classes. This most definitely required sneakiness. And a mite bit of evil.

We’d then light a giant bonfire on the beach or in some unsuspecting and un-at-home parents’ backyard to burn our “treasure.” I still – very vividly – remember each of us taking turns, announcing the book we’d escaped school with, and then throwing it into that fire. The louder the cheers, the more despised the teacher. I’ll always cherish the sound of the small crowd my senior year as I yelled, “Mr. Foisy’s Spanish III Book;” then sent it to its fiery death.

It all got me to thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if corporate initiatives had big season finales?  Think about it! They end television shows when there’s nothing left to say, or people have lost interest, or they’ve repeated the same plot line one too many times.

Can you think of a company or client project whose time has come? Perhaps it’s your great (well, it was back in 1983!) new employee training program. Or your less-than-navigable web site (which was cool back in 2003, which in Web-time, is worse than 1983).

Rather than hold “kick-off” parties and launch meetings for the new initiatives, why not first hold celebratory funerals for the old? I can see it now. Entire file cabinets getting burned in the company parking lot while an ’80s cover band plays “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, good-bye” and employees sip mojitos.

Employees could bring their favorite relic from the “initiative” and give humorous farewell speeches – sort of like at an Irish funeral. After all, participation in the celebration is key. Of course, you’ll have those who aren’t good at good-bye. They’ll sit quietly, depressed, in the back row, devastated to witness a plan that they played a part in face what they consider – but you know not to be – an untimely death.

Give them a few grievance days off. Trust me, that will do the trick in helping them get over it!

As you start planning your company’s finale parties for 2007, keep one thing in mind. You may have a hard time choosing the thing that should be sacrificed. But just like a good television network does, a season finale must take place at least once a year. Sometimes twice.

Nothing new to say about this project’s impact? Kill it. Can’t decide? Do what they do in tournaments with the loser’s brackets, and make the top two initiatives on your “burn” list compete. Like any sports finale, you’re sure to get high ratings in viewership from employees! They’ll all show up to watch as point-by-counterpoint, the project leaders debate about which program should go down. 

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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