Chime : a "Viking" Business Culture?

According to the great Charles Handy there are four main business cultures that he explains with reference to four Greek Gods : Zeus, Apollo, Athens and Dionyseus.

(NB this post may not make much sense unless you know this classification. A good summary is here)

 

While the legendary HHCL was very Athens-like and my wife's old agency (St Lukes) had strong Dionysean tendencies it is most interesting contemplating my current employer, Chime.

 

In theory, given the central role that Lord Tim Bell still plays,  it should be a classic Zeus culture but partly because of its size and also due to changes over time there is also a very strong Athenian style present.

 

So I'm going to try a new label that blends these two : Viking culture.

 

This thought occurred to me when I was trying to explain to someone that although Chime should have a Feudal feel to it (what with all the Lords, Knights etc) it really was much more egalitarian and free flowing than that, much more akin to the culture that preceded the Normans namely the Norsemen aka the Vikings.

The metaphor is that Chime loves to load up a long boat and send it off to somewhere across the water and pillage lots of gold and a few sheep.  The invocation is don't worry too much about detailed planning but get a few likely warriors in the boat and go and get your broad sword wet.  If you come back with chests of gold, great - the rewards will be yours, but if you run into heavy resistance don't expect to be medi-vacced out of there.  The warrior bands have a lot of autonomy (although not much gold!) so are expected to be self-sufficient and entrepeneurial.  The raiding parties are often gathered from several villages (i.e. companies) and quite egalitarian on their missions. 

 

This all surfaced again in a discussion about what a group of War Lords (i.e. company MD's) could usefully talk about.  Client retention (farming?) was seen as obviously important but not worth comparing notes on. But new business (monastery raiding?) would be worth gathering around the camp fire to exchange war stories over and maybe work out if a multi-boat raid was worth assembling.

 

It also occurred to me that the leader of this Viking settlement needed to have his own long boat, wield his own broad sword and mount his own raids in order to win/keep the respect of his War Lords.  Administrating the group was not a sufficiently Viking-like actitivy if that was all he did, and that could in any case be done by the Priest Class (also known as the Finance People).  No, he had to get out on the high seas, at least once in a while (this being the behaviour of other senior Vikings in Chime).

 

All this makes me wonder where I fit into this Viking clan.  I was once asked to help out in the new business effort by helping "batter down the castle gates" of new business prospects.  I suggested that rather than just add more muscle to the battering ram, could I be more of a cunning siege engineer trying to find new tricks to get inside the castle wall?  This would at least put me in the rather aspirational group of Michelangelo and Archimedes who each had this string attached to their bows.

 

Coming back to Vikings there is of course the court jester role available to me (although I might be better at the "pointing out the uncomfortable truths" bit than the witty but insightful comments bit).

What about Wizard/Sorcerer or Alchemist/Poisoner?  Or semi-mystical hermit even.

But ultimately being the Beserker has the most  appeal.

 

The job has some glamour even it does promise a higher than average death rate. 

 

But then you should see  my pitch statistics.

 

 

 

Comments

[internet marketing arizona]

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[United Gold Direct]

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[United Gold Direct]

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[Elliptical reviews]

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[cell phone spyware]

The issue of "Viking" Business Culture has always caught much attention. I have read not a single article on the issue, and must say that yours is the most exhaustive. Nice job.