Spiked: Christmas parties as they fall
Werbewoche editor Anne-Friederike Heinrich on the Christmas speech as an executive strategy.
Once again, we are heading at full speed towards the most sacred night of the year. But before we arrive at the festival of love and reflection, we still have a lot of suffering to get through. No, I'm not talking about end-of-year celebrations, gingerbread battles, Sunday shopping and the frantic search for presents for the colleague who already has everything, and the unloved mother-in-law - yet another sock voucher won't do.
I'm talking about Christmas parties all the time: at the sports club, at the kindergarten, in the choir, at the neighbor's, with regular customers, at the ex-tennis club and then at the store. With the right dose of mulled wine, you could get through it all relatively unscathed if the boss didn't have to give his annual Christmas speech. True to the motto "everything sleeps and one person speaks: this is called Christmas".
An Apple a Day
The tricky thing about Christmas speeches is that if you listen, it doesn't take too long before the candlelight blurs in front of your glassy eyes and the Sandman gently lures you into his sweet realm, even if you try to put on a spellbound expression to ensure blood flow to the frontal lobe. If you switch off, indulge in wine and canapés and round off the meal with a solid power nap, your colleague Hürlimann is guaranteed to ask the next day: "Did you hear what the boss said yesterday?" It's completely impossible to admit that you slept in. And are now terribly curious as to what the boss's comments might have meant. So you have to bite into one of the two sour apples: stay awake or miss out on information that the boss only provides when you doze off anyway.
Christmas speeches are also annoying because the colleagues who laugh the loudest at the boss's aperçus are always the ones you don't know or don't want to know. Or those you dislike with a passion. The speaker acknowledges their bursts of laughter with a benevolent smile, grateful for the affirmation, and everything is incredibly harmonious and Christmassy. Only you sit there and ask yourself: What am I doing here and what am I doing wrong? Am I humorless because I'm not cheered up by the old man's forced ultra-flat jokes? Am I too stupid to understand the jokes? Or am I just totally frustrated and therefore the incarnate counterweight to the exuberant cheerfulness that should characterize the pre-Christmas period?
There is hardly any way out of this misery. Unless you do the talking yourself. This has several advantages: If you talk, you are guaranteed to hear a great speech, because as we all know, speakers like to hear themselves. If you talk, you won't fall asleep. Talking takes courage, so everyone will forgive you for having to consume a triple portion of mulled wine. And finally, those who give a speech secure the gratitude of the boss, who now doesn't have to reveal his thoughts to the assembled team. Giving a speech yourself would therefore be a perfect, tried-and-tested Christmas party survival strategy. Is it beginning to dawn on you why your boss always gives a speech at the Christmas party?
I'm talking about Christmas parties all the time: at the sports club, at the kindergarten, in the choir, at the neighbor's, with regular customers, at the ex-tennis club and then at the store. With the right dose of mulled wine, you could get through it all relatively unscathed if the boss didn't have to give his annual Christmas speech. True to the motto "everything sleeps and one person speaks: this is called Christmas".
An Apple a Day
The tricky thing about Christmas speeches is that if you listen, it doesn't take too long before the candlelight blurs in front of your glassy eyes and the Sandman gently lures you into his sweet realm, even if you try to put on a spellbound expression to ensure blood flow to the frontal lobe. If you switch off, indulge in wine and canapés and round off the meal with a solid power nap, your colleague Hürlimann is guaranteed to ask the next day: "Did you hear what the boss said yesterday?" It's completely impossible to admit that you slept in. And are now terribly curious as to what the boss's comments might have meant. So you have to bite into one of the two sour apples: stay awake or miss out on information that the boss only provides when you doze off anyway.
Christmas speeches are also annoying because the colleagues who laugh the loudest at the boss's aperçus are always the ones you don't know or don't want to know. Or those you dislike with a passion. The speaker acknowledges their bursts of laughter with a benevolent smile, grateful for the affirmation, and everything is incredibly harmonious and Christmassy. Only you sit there and ask yourself: What am I doing here and what am I doing wrong? Am I humorless because I'm not cheered up by the old man's forced ultra-flat jokes? Am I too stupid to understand the jokes? Or am I just totally frustrated and therefore the incarnate counterweight to the exuberant cheerfulness that should characterize the pre-Christmas period?
There is hardly any way out of this misery. Unless you do the talking yourself. This has several advantages: If you talk, you are guaranteed to hear a great speech, because as we all know, speakers like to hear themselves. If you talk, you won't fall asleep. Talking takes courage, so everyone will forgive you for having to consume a triple portion of mulled wine. And finally, those who give a speech secure the gratitude of the boss, who now doesn't have to reveal his thoughts to the assembled team. Giving a speech yourself would therefore be a perfect, tried-and-tested Christmas party survival strategy. Is it beginning to dawn on you why your boss always gives a speech at the Christmas party?
