Issue No. 505 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting delivers a laugh-a-page treatise on wokeness from the editors of The Babylon Bee. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my 2021 Top-10 Books and Book-of-the-Year.
G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936): “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”
“Blessed are those who don’t feel like working, for they shall be given free money.”
I’m thinking that readers of Your Weekly Staff Meeting fit nicely into two groups:
• Group 1: Halfway through this book review, you’ll unsubscribe. (Nice knowing you.)
• Group 2: You’ll blame me again for another must-read book you just ordered.
The authors of The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness don’t hold back. They urge you to check all the boxes to certify your wokeness. “It’s important to remember that your problems are not your fault. They are the fault of the oppressor class." They add:
• “Your parents? Oppressors.
• Your teachers? Oppressors.
• People with a different skin color than you? Oppressors.
• Anyone who disagrees with your woke worldview? You guessed it. Oppressors.”
With hilarious (and woke) graphics on every page (I double-checked: every page), the authors list other oppressors in your life: “your neighbors, your boss, white people, Elon Musk, Amazon, your babysitter, that guy who cut you off in traffic, and everyone who has it better than you.”
WAIT! Before your unsubscribe…hear me out.
If you’ve lived on Planet Earth for more than a week, you’ve likely chuckled over the Babylon Bee’s satirical tongue-in-check headlines and stories. Their brand: “Fake news you can trust.” Recently:
• “To Ensure No Sex Scandals, CNN Replaces All Anchors With Mike Pence”
• “9 Signs You're Watching Too Much Fox News” (“Your bedroom pillow, your throw pillows, and your couch cushions are all MyPillows. Oh no! You've been brainwashed!”)
• “'The Generation After Mine Is The Worst,' Says Every Generation In Human History”
• Visit the Babylon Bee website for more.
WAIT! Maybe you should read a LOL book that also makes your blood boil. (After all, you’re a big fan of “tolerance,” right?) The authors promise to teach you “How to Take Your Wokeness to the Next Level by Canceling Friends, Breaking Windows, and Burning It All to the Ground.” (That’s the book’s subtitle.)
“'It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it,' G.K. Chesterton observed more than 100 years ago.” That’s the opening salvo in Kyle Mann’s Nov. 9, 2021, opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. The Babylon Bee’s editor-in-chief added, “The Laughing Prophet, as he was known, pointed out that people who are secure in their beliefs need not fear mockery. It’s those with shaky doctrines who can’t tolerate laughter. Today’s political radicals hold their views with the fervor of a religion, and by Chesterton’s measure they’re rather weak creeds.”
In Mann’s WSJ piece, “Why the Woke Can’t Take a Joke,” he writes, “Satire in all its forms—from online satirical papers like the Babylon Bee and the Onion to the pre-Trump days of Stephen Colbert and John Oliver—is the little boy turning the world on its head by pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. The kid isn’t scheming to start a political revolution or even really telling a joke. He’s dryly stating the obvious, not having yet learned the rules of polite society.”
If you’re ancient enough to also remember and appreciate The Wittenburg Door (the typo was unintentional, they say) or Lark News (funniest piece: “Church members struggle to memorize mission statement”), then maybe you’re a Group 2 zealot.
Sorry—before you unsubscribe—I should tell you more about the book. The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness leaves no sacred worldview unskewered. My favorite chapters:
• “The True Story of American History” (“Learn how you were brainwashed into thinking America is an OK place.”)
• “Fighting the Culture War” (What to do if a company won’t serve you chicken sandwiches on Sunday? Boycott!)
• “How to Make Sure Your Church Is as Woke as Jesus” (“He fed five thousand people by raiding a nearby village and forcing them to pay their fair share.” The authors spotlight a dozen woke Bible characters, including the robbers in the good Samaritan story.)
• “Follow the Science” (“The divine words of SCIENCE are brought down to us by infallible people in white coats called ‘scientists.’ Scientists are always in complete agreement with each other, forming a vast consensus.”)
With a few woke edits, several Bible verses have been “updated to reflect correct thinking,” such as Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are those who don’t feel like working, for they shall be given free money.”
There’s more, but I’ll get canceled if I say too much. By the way, don’t skip the 17-page “Glossary of Wokeness.” Example: “Systemic: A magic word that makes any kind of oppression sound much worse. Racism? Meh. Systemic racism? Scary!”
While the authors include everyone’s new favorite word, “equity,” I didn’t find my favorite woke word, “existential.” But then Peter Funt came to the rescue in his Feb. 1 WSJ feature, “Roll Over, Kierkegaard, It’s All ‘Existential.’” He writes, “Here’s my question: Why are writers and politicians today trying so hard to shoehorn the word existential into sentences?” Another must-read!
To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness, by Kyle Mann, Ethan Nicolle, Joel Berry, and Gavin Yee. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (4 hours, 20 minutes). 
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Pop Quiz #1: OK…around the room—and everyone must answer. Name a book you read (or listened to) in the last five years that you still disagree with—but you read in order to learn the other person’s viewpoint or worldview.
2) The authors note that “in his woke instruction manual, 1984, author George Orwell wrote about how important it is to control the dictionary. The one who controls the language controls the past, present, and future.” Pop Quiz #2: Define the following: hate speech, mansplaining, socialism, justice, climate change, and Dr. Seuss.
Great Idea from the Delegation Bucket! Start a DON’T-DO LIST and delete dumb delegation!
Buckets Countdown:
The Delegation Bucket (#16) Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips from John Pearson, with commentary by Jason Pearson (2nd Edition, 2018) - Order from Amazon.
The Delegation Bucket Core Competency: “We are experts at appropriate delegation. We invite team members to accept assignments based on their strengths. We value organized delegation and believe in the Point Person Principle. We track our to-do lists and we add to our don’t-do lists."
Visit the Delegation Bucket to download the one-page “Dysfunctional Delegation Diseases” (Gut-Check Assessment). Where are you on the continuum?
• Code Green. I’m pretty healthy. This isn’t a problem.
• Code Yellow. I have this disease occasionally.
• Code Red: Yikes! I need to see a Delegation Doctor!
Delete Dumb Delegation! You’re probably working off your To-Do List today, but do you have a Don’t-Do List? Read the Delegation Bucket chapter and then download the “Delete Dumb Delegation” poster for your cubicle, office, or break room (or the refrigerator in your home office, maybe?).
The 20 management buckets are perfect content for the lifelong learning segment in your weekly staff meetings (you do have weekly staff meetings, right?). Visit the 20 buckets webpage here.
JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. All humor aside, where is your organization positioning itself on the wokeness continuum? Are you offensive—and turning people off? Are you authentic—and growing your base? Who’s telling you the truth? You may need outside counsel. Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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