>Lucy Kellaway’s my kind of girl.

(I use the term somewhat loosely… her Fountain of Youth appears to have become somewhat drought-stricken recently and – from her publicity shots, at least – she’s morphed from waif – top left – to rather attractive early middle-age – bottom right – in a matter of months.)

But we’d be the ones in senior management meetings, rolling our eyes and exchanging knowing looks at the jargon and general mindlessness before being bollocked by the CEO for playing bullshit bingo too obviously.

Not that it’d never happen – she’s hugely talented and famous, I’m neither nor (well, perhaps moderately talented. And mildly notorious in some circles) and our paths won’t cross.

But it’s OK to dream

She writes a management column/podcast for the FT (and I suspect that she’s “Buttonwood” at “The Economist”) that kept me sane for big chunks of my executive management “thing”.

As did her book, “Sense and nonsense in the office”, based on her 9 rules of management, which she describes as ‘glaringly obvious, but then management ideas are obvious. Any that aren’t obvious tend to be wrong’

So it’s really all about heeding your bullshit detectors and calling a spade a bloody shovel.

Here’s yesterday’s podcast episode, here’s the column and here’s her book

And the 9 rules:

Rule 1 – Management is one of the most difficult jobs going and is harder now than ever because the challenges are greater.

Rule 2 – Most people are bad at managing, some are very bad. Hardly anyone can do it well.

Rule 3 – Good managers need to be both hard and soft, decent and ruthless, good at the big picture and at the small detail.

Rule 4 – In view of the above, the market for management consultants, trainers, gurus, business books is expanding, apparently without limit.

Rule 5 – While most of the management help industry is of dubious value, managers do need the experience and advice of wise outsiders. But to follow that advice blindly – as many companies do – is, of course, idiotic.

Rule 6 – Any new management technique that comes with a catchphrase is suspect. It almost certainly will not suit the company in question and even if it does, the management will probably fail to apply it properly.

Rule 7 – It is hard to teach a middle-aged dog new tricks. People who are rotten communicators do not become better by virtue of having been on a course or having read a book. Improving and changing is a long, painful slog.

Rule 8 – People like security. They like to be told what to do. Empowerment and flat structures are over-rated.

Rule 9 – All work is tedious for much of the time. If everyone accepts this, then so much the better.

Glaringly obvious, really.

But thanks anyway, Lucy.