Alright, so folks sometimes ask me, you know, what’s this whole “sex the sex” thing I occasionally mention? Sounds a bit raw, maybe, but it’s not what you’re likely thinkin’. For me, it’s about stripping away all the fluff, all the corporate speak, all the polite nonsense, and gettin’ down to the bare, unvarnished truth of a situation. It’s like, you gotta really sex the thing to understand its real sex, its fundamental nature, if you catch my drift. It’s my way of describing the process of deep-diving into something messy until you hit the actual core of it, no matter how uncomfortable that core might be.
I remember this one time, a few years back, at this company I was with. They rolled out this new initiative, a real doozy. It was called something like “Synergy Maximization Program.” Sounds impressive, right? Like something out of a textbook no one’s ever read. The memo was full of buzzwords – enhancing collaborative ecosystems, optimizing inter-departmental flow, leveraging proactive paradigms. I read it three times and still had no clue what we were actually supposed to do. All I knew was suddenly our afternoons were filled with these new, mandatory “synergy workshops.”
So, I decided to “sex the sex” on this Synergy Maximization Program. My practice, if you will, kicked in. First thing, I tried to find out who was behind it. Usually, there’s a champion, some exec who’s pushing their pet project. Took me a while, snoopin’ around the internal portal, lookin’ at org charts that were probably outdated the second they were published. Found a name, a VP of something-or-other. Let’s call him Mr. Henderson.
Then, I started lookin’ at the actual workshops. Oh boy. We’d be herded into a conference room, lukewarm coffee, stale cookies. Some consultant, who probably charged by the syllable, would then try to get us to do “trust exercises” or brainstorm on whiteboards with markers that were always dryin’ out. Productivity? Dropped like a stone on those afternoons, lemme tell ya. Everyone was just countin’ the minutes till they could escape. The actual “synergy” felt more like shared misery.
I started talkin’ to people, real casual. “Hey, what do you make of this Synergy program?” Most just gave me that look, you know? The one that says, “It’s awful, but I can’t say it out loud.” A few older hands, guys who’d seen a dozen of these fads come and go, they’d just chuckle and say somethin’ like, “New VP, new toys.” That got me thinkin’.
So I dug a bit into Mr. Henderson. Turned out he was relatively new, brought in to “shake things up.” I even managed to find some old internal comms from his previous company, thanks to a buddy who used to work there. And what do you know? Similar program, different fancy name. Caused just as much eye-rolling there, apparently. It was his signature move, his way of lookin’ busy and “transformative.”
That was the “sex” of it. The real, raw truth. This whole Synergy Maximization Program, all the workshops, the memos, the wasted time – it wasn’t about improving our synergy. Not really. It was about Mr. Henderson making his mark. It was about him having something to put on his next performance review, a big, flashy initiative he could claim credit for. We, the employees, we were just the background noise, the resources being “leveraged” for his career game. The actual impact on our work, on the company’s bottom line? Secondary. If it was even a thought.
Once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it. The program didn’t magically get better, of course. It eventually faded away, like these things often do, probably when Henderson moved on to his next grand idea or his next company. But “sexing the sex” of it helped me, and a few colleagues I shared my findings with, navigate the whole charade with a bit more sanity. We understood what was really happening beneath the surface.
So yeah, that’s my practice. It’s not always about fixing things. Sometimes you can’t. Sometimes it’s just about understanding the true mechanics of a situation, the often-unspoken drivers. It’s about peeling back those layers until you see the raw, sometimes ugly, but always honest, core. And in this world, just knowin’ the real score, that can be a powerful thing in itself. Keeps you from gettin’ completely blindsided, if nothin’ else.
