At least he tried...

Did anyone else see the story in the Financial Times this week about the manager in Shell who copied a speech by General Patten into a motivational memo for his staff?  I've tried looking for an on-line link, but couldn't find one...

At first I laughed at the guy - he'd lifted the US General's eve of invasion speech to his troops from the Second World War.  Pattern, known as 'Blood n' Guts" had a gift for the aggressive idiom and this clearly matched the sentiment this engineering manager wanted to instill in his staff.  So he removed a few of the anti-German suggestions and, hey presto, he was ready to send his boys into battle with the cry "I despise cowards" ringing in their ears (or their Outlook in-boxes). (yep - that was one of the messages in the note).

Rather unsurprisingly, the note found it's way to the media...

Luckily I didn't blog about it right away because I've had a bit of change of heart about it in the last couple of days...

At least the bloke was trying.  OK, he's clearly ill-advised to lift from Patten, but it's a noble thing to be occasionally inspiring.  I bet there are millions of workers out there who are crying out to be inspired on occasion..

Liam