The Cocktopus Problem: Eight Arms, No Judgement

Someone with more wit than restraint has given the business world a wonderful new term cocktopus: a person who insists on handling eight things at once and then, with remarkable consistency, ruins every one of them. I laughed, and then thought about several organisations I have watched at close quarters, and stopped laughing. That is the usual trajectory of a good joke about work.The trouble with the coinage is that it is a joke about character, and what it describes is almost never a matter of character. It has roughly the structure of mocking a person for wearing the uniform they were issued. I intend to keep the word, vulgarity and all, because the respectable alternatives are themselves part of the problem: juggling, wearing several hats, stretched across a broad portfolio, each flattering the condition it describes, which is precisely why people in this position survive and are even promoted following a round of performance reviews, while a cocktopus is unmasked for what they…