The Little Red Games Workshop Book, Tom Kirby’s Management Opus

Look what I found, the Little Red Games Workshop Management Book, this opus to Empire building was written by GW CEO Tom Kirby, and was given to me way back in 2003 during my last few of months at Games Workshop USA. Actually it was more like issued, but I will get to that after the jump.

I uncovered this piece of Games Workshop epoch during our great house clean up (now on day three as I write this), I had forgotten I had it. The Little Red Book is Tom Kirby’s hints and tips on how to be a better manager at Games Workshop, each section has a handy note pages after it for amendments that Dear Leader should issue, and to be fair if my memory serves it does have some good practices… And also a lot of bad practices written in it including how to score an Employee as a threat to company culture (I kid you not.)

However I digress…

The day I was issued with this book I was given a piece of paper by a very fanatical Games Workshop Middle Manager, that stated I should sign and hand in the paper as receipt of my book, and also that I agree to memorize the words within, and repeat them rote if required, and if I could not repeat the words my job  would be jeopardy. I stared at the paper in disbelief, and refused to sign it. It was just a book, mainly for management, Games Workshop was a company, not a form of service, or a cult, and I bet even GW’s HR at the time if they saw the paper would have balked at issuing it.

Oh, those crazy days… If you are ever around my house I will let you look through it, it certainly makes for an eyebrow raising read.