Last night I tuned in to the new BBC Knowledge channel on Foxtel and witnessed one of the most horrifying business documentary style TV shows ever!  ‘I’ll Show Them Who’s Boss’ presents a series of business strategy overhauls and recommendations from Gerry Robinson (ex Coca Cola, Granada Media etc). Gerry is famous for ’sacking the bosses’ and last night’s recommended business battle did not disappoint! 

The episode titled ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ was chock full of gasping moments as a father and son purchased (and managed - term used very loosely) a Nottingham lace company. There were so many defining moments in the program - its hard to pick which was worst!

Could it have been the father and son combo:

* employing ex-employee/friend, Chris (?), (with whom they worked with previously for 23 years) as the manager?  

* introducing redundancies, promising the remaining staff that there would be no further redundancies, then within a month halving the staff with 50% redundancies?

* managing to completely alienate their entire workforce?

The most horrifying example of incompetence had to have been the father and son combo taking Gerry’s advice and sacking Chris and holding a staff meeting where the son, Richard, announced the retrenchment in a booming voice, reassuring the staff Chris HAD BEEN REMOVED and then re-instating him after a few weeks.

Theres so much more to delve into (like the hopeless MD son) but lets not go there. Shockingly incompetent case study, great squealworthy viewing - cant wait for next week.

Did you see it?