[SATIRE]

BOSTON — Employees at OmniSystems lost their Tuesday afternoon to a surprise meeting. CEO Walter Vargas read the introduction of a new book called The Growth Lever. He immediately paused all product development to discuss feelings.

Staff members were marched into the main conference room. The agenda was simply “Be Better.”

“We realized our mental soil was dry,” said Linda Wu, VP of Cultural Alignment. “The book says winners visualize success. We spent three hours closing our eyes and imagining a better quarterly report. It felt very productive.” The engineering team was forced to chant “I am a tree” for forty minutes. They were told this would help the code grow faster.

The disruption caused three missed deadlines. Management says this is part of the process. “Efficiency is an old way of thinking,” explained Kevin O’Malley, Director of Internal Synergy. “The author says to embrace the chaos of becoming. We are becoming a company that does not answer emails.” O’Malley admitted that the CEO has not actually finished the book yet. He only read the free sample on his tablet.

At press time, Vargas read the next chapter on “trimming dead leaves.” He immediately fired the IT support staff.

Inspired by actual events.