It must be somewhat satisfying for Irish citizens to get to pass judgment on the tax every time they invoke its name, but somehow we don’t think catharsis was what the Revenue Commission had in mind when they came up with this doozy. Rather, we think it’s a case of monumentally bad naming.

Presumably the Irish Government would like people to see paying tax as their contribution to civil society rather than a forced financial bloodletting. DIRT doesn’t quite accomplish this goal. Fortunately for the government, the tax is deducted from the interest earnings at the source, by the banks themselves, and paid directly to the Revenue Commission.

In future, maybe the Irish can take a cue from the USA PATRIOT Act. Didn’t know it was an acronym? Indeed, its full formal name is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. (in truth, it’s probably a backronym)

More commonly known as the Patriot Act, the name is good precisely because very few people know the acronym – they think of it simply as a name.  And that’s the standard that makes or breaks an acronym as a name – whether it can stand on its own, independent of its constituent parts.

PATRIOT Act? Gives us the chills.

DIRT? Not so much.

Thinking of an acronym to name your organization, product, service or piece of legislation? Think more along the lines of DART, DREAM Act or Captcha, and less along the lines of SUX or ASTAG.

Here’s how it tends to happen:

1. Core team in charge of solving problem defines parameters and begins work.
2. Potential solutions to problem hypothecated.
3. Broader decision-making team consulted for input.
4. Refinements made, brilliant solution identified and recommendation presented to broader team.
5. Member of broader team who missed first meeting provides new, contradictory input.
6. Refinements made, somewhat less brilliant solution developed and approved by broader team.
7. Core team begins operationalizing solution in order to meet aggressive timeline.
8. Solution presented to senior executive: a mere formality according to broader team.
9. Senior executive whose time was far too valuable to involve in the initial process is underwhelmed by solution – especially when compared to those posited by significant others, tennis partners and themselves; provides new data that changes problem’s parameters; turns out to be actual decision-maker.
10. Organization engages in several rounds of all-hands meetings, early-morning conference calls, late-night emails and general all-around inefficiency to develop, get approval on and begin operationalizing new, decidedly mediocre solution.

In our experience (yes, even the mighty BrandCulture Company has made a few rookie mistakes), this dysfunctional workflow is usually not the result of pure ineptitude – it’s the product of best intentions. People and teams tasked with solving problems usually want to do so quickly and cost-effectively. When the schedules, availabilities and responsiveness of more senior stakeholders threaten to slow progress, they often proceed anyway – optimistic that everyone will recognize a great solution in the end.

But everyone doesn’t simply recognize great solutions for two reasons:

1. Senior stakeholders may possess information that is critical to solving the problem, or that they believe to be critical. If that information isn’t addressed, the stakeholders are unlikely to be supportive.
2. All people like to be heard. If they haven’t had a chance to weigh in on a process early, they’re rarely hesitant to do so at the end.

Here’s what we tell ourselves whenever a client asks us to help them solve a problem:

1. Let’s find out who the real decision-makers are.
2. Let’s make sure those decision-makers can participate in at least one initial briefing and one round of feedback on progress.
3. Let’s not present any recommended solutions until we’ve had these briefing and feedback sessions with all key decision-makers.

While it looks so simple and obvious on the screen, it isn’t easy to adhere to when schedules are tight and the demands on peoples’ time are many. But when we’ve done so successfully we’ve found it not only increases our chances of producing great work – it helps us work more efficiently as well.

Incredibly, this reference to the traditional — and by most standards, suboptimal — grade of D+ (rather than Drake +) is purposive.   The copy reads, “D+.  When it comes to choosing the college that fits you best, there’s simply no higher grade.”   Huh?   Are we being too literal here, or is this as moronic as it appears?

One wonders when the marketing team that dreamed this up whilst “breaking through the box” was actually “analyzing every angle.”  Without a doubt, however, this campaign is “serving up a different point of view.”  Hey . . . it’s opposite day.  D+ is the new A+!   And folks wonder why our educational standards are slipping.  This campaign may be the one exception to the rule that any publicity is good publicity.

If this is “learning by doing,” count us out.

His basic point is that performance reviews serve more to underscore the reporting hierarchy than to actually improve performance. Rather, he argues in favor of ‘performance previews’, in which a manager and a report consider how they can work together to ensure that the employee is successful (since, he posits, managers should be held accountable for their reports’ performance): The preview structure keeps the focus on the future and what “I” need from you as “teammate and partner”…

We like the sentiment, but we call, well, bullsh*t.

First of all, Culbert’s idea is not revolutionary, despite the sense he tries to create that he is slaughtering a sacred cow. His concept of a preview is really just a performance review done well. Past is prologue, and any forward-looking plan requires an analysis of preceding events. And even if a review does focus solely on past performance, it doesn’t require much of a mental leap for an employee to infer what their manager’s criticism and praise mean in terms of future expectations. Sorry Sam, but the subtle addition of the letter ‘p’ in a reverse-psychology attempt to show how revolutionary your idea is by showing how simple it is just doesn’t work for us.

Second of all, we’re sick of hearing about teams where teams don’t belong. Teams and teamwork have become the corporate world’s version of American Flag lapel pins, and they’re losing their true meaning as a result. Let us be clear: when a boss gives an order and someone carries it out, that is not teamwork, and that is okay. An effective chain of command can get amazing things done – just ask the army. When, on the other hand, an employee helps a colleague meet a tight deadline, that is teamwork. A flat organization with overlapping responsibilities can also achieve incredible results – just ask the open source community. Sorry again Sam, but a team is defined as a group of players, and the coach is not one of those players.

We believe that performance reviews can work, but they can’t be only annual, they can’t be exclusively from boss to direct report, and they need to blend rigorous objective standards with subjective feedback. Reviews need to be part of a constant and virtuous feedback loop among networks of colleagues. They need to happen top-down, bottom-up, and side-to-side. They need to take into account the fact that these are people working together, and organizations need to trust those people to make subjective judgements about performance.

Which brings us dangerously close to another on our hit list of corporate nonsense: “Our people.” If we only had a nickel for each organization for which it’s The People that make the difference, we might never have to worry about another performance review again…

If you have any of your own favorites, please feel ‘empowered’ to share them.

Okay – it was a trick – they’re already matched. But no matter how hardcore your TV habit, and despite big pharma’s massive ad spending, I’ll wager the above was an exercise in guesswork.

Watch this ad for the popular drug Cymbalta:

Notice that only the first 24 seconds of the 60-second spot cover the drug’s benefits. The balance of the commercial describes the perils and side effects of its use, in clear and audible terms.

And yet, according to Katharine Greider’s The Big Fix, prescriptions for the 50 drugs with the heaviest direct-to-consumer promotion increased 6 times faster than prescriptions for all other drugs.

It probably has something to do with the facts that:

a) The cure for illness is a product that really does sell itself
b) There’s no such thing as bad publicity

But there’s another lesson here for all marketers.

An image is worth far more than 1000 words. Look at what’s happening in that Cymbalta ad while the narrator uses terms like ‘migraine’ and ‘life-threatening’. How can those big words compete with the unadulterated joy of playing with your son?

Visuals, imagery and design are of paramount importance. The world’s most strategic value proposition is nothing without an arresting presentation. Consumers’ sophisticated filters allow them to absorb what they want, and omit what’s inconvenient. Be mindful of the power of images to get past those filters, and maybe you’ll even turn a product which you are legally obligated to promote as possibly causing ‘gastrointestinal leakage’ into a $100 million a year cash cow.