Periscope

WRONG: Ford is fighting for its life and spreading the burden from assembly-line workers to shareholders. Telling employees to cut down on color photocopies at the highly profitable Credit Suisse won't do much when hundreds of bankers still receive seven-figure bonuses.

Cutting corners is often self-defeating--it infuriates employees.

RIGHT: Mandating vacation time between Christmas and New Year to its staff of 10,500 might save Yahoo $21 million, roughly the combined earnings of its top three execs. Pinching the worker bees, and not the brass too, is not the best policy for employee retention.

--From Slate.com

INTERNET: Web of Laughter

Must everyone try to be funny these days? Even corporate America is getting ironic with a trio of chart-topping comedic videos on YouTube. Shot in a mock-doc style by IBM itself, actual company sales execs hawk million-dollar servers by cold-calling random names from the phone book. Humor, it seems, is a valuable asset. Fortune 500 companies dole out big bucks to comedy consultants who lead humor seminars and improv workshops--in the name of improved productivity. But how are funnier employees better for business? According to Tim Washer, a communications executive at IBM and former improv performer, funniness fosters team-building and, of course, thinking outside the proverbial box. What's next--a sitcom, courtesy of IBM? Don't laugh: "The Office" has already proved that cubicle drones are a fertile source of yuks.