Reviewing This Week on Make HR Happen – Doing It Caveman Style

A friend of mine told me that I should liven up my blog posts. “You are a very funny guy, Tom. You should let some of that come through when you write.” I think that I have now sufficiently bored him to the point that he doesn’t read my posts anymore, but the fact that I am a writer at heart makes me want to try everything at least once. I also think that much of what my friends think is humorous in me is really dontgiveashit cynicism that I have perfected to a high degree. Have you ever tried to be funny on command? You can’t plan to be spontaneous. Most humor has its origins in real life, but it has to be timely. Comedian Steve Allen once said that humor was the result of tragedy plus time. We can tell Titanic jokes today, but immediately following that disaster it probably wouldn’t have been funny.

There is an element of originality that also adds something to humor. I once did a retake on classic children’s stories in a series of five articles with the moral to each tale being something HR or business related, but it felt a little like plagiarism borrowing from the masters. So this week I invented my own scenario. Picture this: Prehistoric man stumbles onto modern management techniques. It could be funny, but the tragic side of it is that most caveman mentality stories still have players in business today. Maybe this is the right combination of humor and reality… anyway it was fun doing it. The value of thinking “caveman” is at least humorous privately when we witness that behavior in coworkers and managers. What prehistoric activity have you seen lately?

Image credit: rtimages / 123RF Stock Photo

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August 26 - Prehistoric Origins of Business Management – Splurg was born toward the end of what we now call the Paleolithic Era a little over 10,000 years ago. As was the tradition in their tribe, he was named by his father after the first sound heard in the early morning darkness after his birth. It was believed to be a large wooly animal falling into the glacial pond near their cave, but nobody really knew for sure.  – more –

 

 

August 27 – Human Resources Management: So Easy a Caveman Does It – It is fun to fantasize about the origins of modern business management originating in prehistoric times. The first time I heard the word “anachronism” was while studying Shakespeare in high school when he wrote of a “striking clock” in Julius Caesar. – more –

 

August 28 - Recruiting Caveman Style – Researchers are fascinated by the development of thought and reasoning from the human brain. Functionally, parts of our brain have remained prehistoric and we have all experienced the reflexive fight or flight emotions when confronted with danger. – more –

 

 

August 29 - Prehistoric Job Searching – Considering what we hypothesized about Recruiting Caveman Style, the Paleolithic Era humans looking for a way out of the dangers of hunting and the boredom of farming probably began thinking about the best way to better themselves. Although it may be hard for today’s job seekers to think about doing a job search without… – more –