Secret Leadership and Management Techniques of Santa Revealed

It’s that time of year we all come to look forward to with joy, yes Christmas. But, have you ever thought about Santa and the production miracle he pulls off every year? Unlike the United States Postal Service where a package “that positively must be delivered over night” may actually take four to five days to be delivered; Santa has a drop date that can not be missed. He also has a zero defect tolerance on the toys he delivers.

So, let’s start to look back at the Miracle Leadership of Santa and his well oiled industrial machine. It is little known fact that the elves themselves are not actually from the North Pole. The elves are actually outsourced labor that Santa picked up for a steal while visiting the Philippines one year. Before using Elves, Santa used penguins for all of his operations. Then, all of the sudden, the penguins threatened to unionize over working conditions. See, it seems a beluga whale just happened to stopped by one year and explained the virtues of being members of the “Water Mammal Guild”. It was exclaimed that there would be Tarpon in every pot instead of Cod. At first, Santa gave into the demands of the penguins in order to keep the unions out, but eventually, snow crabs sneaked in under the radar and stirred the penguins up. Santa told the penguins that he would be forced to replace them, as his main labor force, because their demands were costing too much for his “Not for Profit” organization. The penguins continued to demand more changes and one day they found they had been replaced by the new outsourced labor, the Elves. The penguins attempted to get a favorable ruling from the NLRB declaring it an unfair labor practice. At the NLRB meeting, Santa showed all the members a new hand sculpted piece of coal. He explained that due to the increased costs he would incur if they sided with the penguins, this would be the presents their kids, grandkids and great-great grand kids would receive. He would not be able to give them any toys–ever again. Faced with having to purchase toys out of their own money the members of the NLRB stated the North Pole was not in their jurisdiction and they do not cover penguins. The penguins appealed to the UN Courtbut Santa had already shown his artistic coal sculptures to them and the UN refused to take up the issue.  

The elves labor force is broken down into four areas: Factory Elves, Sleigh Elves, Magic Dust Elves, and Administrative Support Elves. The Factory Elves have the hardest working jobs. They have to build all of the toys for all of the boys and girls around the world. Santa enjoys hanging out with the Factory Elves and encourages them to bring their best every day. Over the years, he has mellowed. When the Elves first arrived he did his best impression of the Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket in order to motivate the Elves and set the right tempo. Now, Santa is more relaxed and allows the Elves to have a lot of fun at work. He also found a special additive to go into their daily coffee which really perks them up. Sometimes, Santa will even toss water balloons with the slower Elves. They go outside play water balloon toss, which Santa always wins, and then he comes in to warm up as the elves stay outside exercising to dry out their wet outfits. Remember they are from the lower latitudes. He often looks outside at the Elves exercising and lets out the belly busting Ho Ho Ho. He just loves to keep them in shape through advanced cardio exercises.

Mrs. Clause is in charge of Sleigh 1, the reindeer, and Sleigh Elves. She is very good and take extra special care of the everyone. To most Elves she is Mrs. Clause, Mrs. “C”, but to the Sleigh Elves she is “Missy”. One year she remodeled the Sleigh 1 hanger and had extra heating installed to keep the Elves warm. It was so warm that the Elves had to get new outfits. The new outfits are slimmer, more form fitting with high cut shorts. She is so concerned over the look of the Sleigh 1 that she has the Elves wash and wax Sleigh 1 everyday. She is extremely concerned about every little detail and insures the Elves touch up the smallest nicks on the bottom sleigh rails. They have to bend over a lot; fortunately, Mrs. Clause is always there to rub their backs. To ensure she stays in shape, she even installed a pole in the corner and uses it for exercise. She plays fast paste music and swings around on it, often upside down. She says it keeps her toned and her muscles in shape.  Unfortunately, the toilets are too high for the average Elf to reach, so Mrs. Clause is forced to go in and pick each Elf up and place him on the seat; I know this is wearing her out because she looks worn out at the end of the day.

The reindeer, the engines of Sleigh 1, and things of legend can only fly using “Magic Dust” from the vault. There is a special set of elves that leave each year and go south to get the “Magic Dust”. These Elves are different. They have goatee mustaches, dress in shorts past their knees, wear shirts with different colors and writing on them. They generally keep to themselves and stay up all night, only coming out of their room for a late night snack. Every year, Santa takes them a large envelope and off they go heading south. When they come back they have a tan and enough “Magic Dust” to keep the reindeer going for another year. They are a happy bunch.

Because of the bad economy, Santa was forced to outsource his administrative and support operations to China. The Administrative Elves were then sent to the other areas to fill in needed gaps. They were all happy to join in and help out. I thought the Administrative/Support Elves always thought of themselves as being better than the other elves but I was proven wrong. Santa had a closed door meeting with them and explained the situation. He used power point slides and showed the Administrative/Support Elves several options on how they could help out or what might happen if they decided they could not go to other operations. Amazingly, on that same day, a pod of orcas were seen out at see; they never come this far north. But, all of the Elves decided to happily transfer. Now, this has caused some slowdown in receiving parts from other parts of the world. Even modern automation is not as effective as a motivated Elf.  It seems, the Admin Elves had the supply system down pat and even received special gifts from their regular suppliers, especially from China.

One Elf, we will call “Thomas”, did not like the changes going on. He wanted to buck tradition and get new modern uniforms that he thought better fit the modern Elf. He even designed the outfit himself, it seemed to be tighter in the middle and had ruffles on the edges. I agreed with Santa when he said it looked rather flamboyant and we would stick with tradition. Thomas got angry. He then started spewing crazy talk about forming a union to increase our wages and better conditions. He thought we should embrace a more diverse culture with open minds and attitudes. Yes, we work hard and Santa pays us very well. We take our money and purchase gifts and supplies from the Santa Land Store. The Santa Land Store also has convenient banking hours and finances the loans on our ginger bread houses. One day, Thomas after a two hour speech on the benefits of unionization simply walked off. It was rumored he hot and sweating heavily when he walked off into the snow storm outside. It appears he was so pumped up after his speech that he was able to open the big door, by himself, which usually takes three of four elves to open.  It was one of the worst snow storms on record and no one understands why he would have gone out there. Santa said he looked for Thomas but never found him. It is believed he went back down south.     

Even Mrs. Clause was defiant on letting the sleigh cargo crew unionize until one year when she walked into the rein deer “Magic Dust Vault” and found someone had accidentally left a small bag open and the dust was floating like snowflakes in the air. When she came back out of the room she was by all accounts different. After “Sleigh 1’s” departure she arrived back at the cargo loading area wearing a skin tight fire red outfit with fishnet stocking and had a special gleam in her eyes. The door closed and the next day after the revelation of some pictures rumored to hidden away, Mrs. Clause became pro-cargo handling unionization, much to the chagrin to Santa who had stopped by a local Elf village to bring in some union busting help. From that time on, Mrs. Clause has never been seen near the “Magic Dust Vault” again.

We never hear any complaints from the Sleigh Elves. They seem to go to work early and willingly stay late at night to keep up. The Elf wives are often over heard saying they are happy Mrs. Clause takes care of their husbands, so they don’t have too. But overall, everyone is extremely happy to live and work at the North Pole. Santa is always finding new ways to keep us motivate and engaged. He is always looking to find new ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the entire organization. Remember, together, we reach our absolute deadline with zero defects every year. Together We Are One.   

YOU CAN READ CHAPTER TWO: SAM THE SNOWMAN DEFIES HIS MORTALITY.

Of course this is a parody of organizations with good reputations,  but in reality have horrible managment. Santa is great and would make a great Splash on the Matrix