The Triumph of Emptiness

...

Moreover, we believe it to be an element of grandiosity in Alvesson's tone throughout the book. One can argue, that he comes across being grandiose in his way of more or less constantly describing various concepts and mechanisms, only to later dismiss them as being silly. However, it is important to note and realize that Alvesson is very clear that he intends to offer a critical viewpoint on the concepts he addresses in The riumph of emptiness. Therefore, a slightly grandiose tone might be necessary to achieve the impact the topics deserve.

However, Alvesson does offer an interesting perspective on various issues in the book – the paragraph that discusses how satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction is a zero-sum game is a personal favorite. The example of how you instantly feel inadequate when presented with your friends' brand new £ 50.000 kitchen highlights this. Regardless of how posh or lavishly equipped your own kitchen is, that of your friend will trump it. That is of course, as long as you yourself have not recently installed an equally expensive one.

What are the implications for managers/consultants? Should they cultivate or avoid grandiosity?

This is a complicated issue as it presents a balance act, especially for management, in how they work to present and market their organization in a positive manner yet have to avoid being regarded as pompous and/or appear silly and full of themselves.

In light of Alvesson's views and observations, it is very important for employers and managers to brand their respective companies in order to be perceived as and to remain in a category of "favorable" organizations. In order to achieve this, the process of self-branding is subject to being described in ways that exaggerate the positive parts and rationalize – remove (or exclude) – whatever cannot be presented as a positive part of the company or the experience of working there – even by the brand ambassadors, the people whose jobs it is to make the company look good.

The implications of this issue vary depending on what field of business we're looking at. For instance, managers who are recruiting people to work in accounting are more likely to describe their applicants as talents rather than applicants.

Alvesson's opinion regarding that people will be disappointed when they realize that the "fancy" job title does not match the actually work performance, is quite twisted. There are two sides concerning this phenomenon. Most of us strive for a better job and fancier title and if a "better" or changed title could give an employee more energy or focus at work, why shouldn't an employer do that? Maybe the new title still means the same type of work but the person gains more confidence and feels more apprenticed at his or her workplace. This will probably lead to a better performance for the person in question and instead of creating a problem or disappointment as Alvesson thinks, this will result to something better both for the employee and the organization. On the other hand, which very well be the case, a fancy title might attract certain applicants which, when they start their work, only result in the same applicants disappointment since the practice turned out to be basic and very little in line with what the ad stated. Therefore, which also stated earlier, approaching these titles require prudence.

...