Motivational training in the work place. Struggling to embrace it.

[linux-works]

alright, who moved my damned cheese?

no, I don't think it was funny.  it was my lunch, dammit.

[Landrew2390]

I spent some time working at a summer camp where we had a weekly "Motivational Session."  As a grown man, I wasn't about to sing silly songs and force my entire department of adults to participate.  My staff voted and we decided the time would be better served maintaining the camp.  After two weeks of reminders, my boss asked me why my staff wasn't attending and I told him the truth.

Apparently, when an entire department tells management they would rather be covered in reptile excrement and deal with large animals armed with razor sharp teeth, the point gets across.  That was the last time in my three years on staff that the singing and skits were mandatory.

[MarkS]

I spent some time working at a summer camp where we had a weekly "Motivational Session."  As a grown man, I wasn't about to sing silly songs and force my entire department of adults to participate.  My staff voted and we decided the time would be better served maintaining the camp.  After two weeks of reminders, my boss asked me why my staff wasn't attending and I told him the truth.

Apparently, when an entire department tells management they would rather be covered in reptile excrement and deal with large animals armed with razor sharp teeth, the point gets across.  That was the last time in my three years on staff that the singing and skits were mandatory.

I used to work for Walmart (I know, I know... Shame... ). There is this thing they do during morning store meetings. It's a cheer done on the sales floor in front of customers. I cannot express the horror that this caused me to feel. Even typing this makes my chest hurt. I refused to do it and one day was called into the office to explain. I asked why we were forced to make fools of ourselves and was told that it was for moral. I asked how humiliating people in public boosts moral? The answer was that no one else has a problem doing it (non-answer) so why do I? I continued to refuse without reprisal and left for a real job soon after. I dreaded those daily meetings...

[james_s]

I spent some time working at a summer camp where we had a weekly "Motivational Session."  As a grown man, I wasn't about to sing silly songs and force my entire department of adults to participate.  My staff voted and we decided the time would be better served maintaining the camp.  After two weeks of reminders, my boss asked me why my staff wasn't attending and I told him the truth.

Apparently, when an entire department tells management they would rather be covered in reptile excrement and deal with large animals armed with razor sharp teeth, the point gets across.  That was the last time in my three years on staff that the singing and skits were mandatory.

Seriously? They made adults do that? I can almost understand encouraging 7 year olds but adults? That's absurd. I don't think I could bring myself to do that if there was a gun to my head. Some of the stuff companies do for morale, I just don't get it, a cheaper option that would do more for my morale is just buy me a beer and let me get back to work.

[ornea]

I have witnessed the early morning cheer and pep talk activities out front of the stores when overseas.  China and Vietnam from memory. 

I could not tell from their faces if they were in pain or enjoying the activity and could only guess at what they were saying.  I did feel for them. It reminded me of a scene from "Working Class Man".

[MarkS]

Some of the stuff companies do for morale, I just don't get it...

Some people, for reasons I cannot fathom, respond positively to such antics. The problem comes when you force all to participate without considering the individual. In my case, I was so tormented through grade school, by both teachers and students, that I turned inward and became an extreme introvert for over a decade. Public displays for me are humiliating. I turn inward when I get embarrassed. It brings up all of the scars of my past and is mentally, emotionally and physically painful. I don't care if I am the lone hold out. If I am forced to participate, you've shut me down for days. I honestly have to recover.

[james_s]

Some people, for reasons I cannot fathom, respond positively to such antics. The problem comes when you force all to participate without considering the individual. In my case, I was so tormented through grade school, by both teachers and students, that I turned inward and became an extreme introvert for over a decade. Public displays for me are humiliating. I turn inward when I get embarrassed. It brings up all of the scars of my past and is mentally, emotionally and physically painful. I don't care if I am the lone hold out. If I am forced to participate, you've shut me down for days. I honestly have to recover.

I had a music teacher in elementary school who loved musicals. She used to force us to participate in them and put on a performance once or twice a year in front of all the parents. I *hated* it, eventually my parents stopped forcing me to go to the performances and got lectured by the teacher. To this day I absolutely despise musicals, I can't stand to even watch them.

The root of the problem here is people who cannot see things from the perspective of another and cannot imagine that someone else may not enjoy something they are fond of. When you try to force someone to enjoy something, they will invariably hate it even more.

[Assafl]

Some of the stuff companies do for morale, I just don't get it...

Some people, for reasons I cannot fathom, respond positively to such antics. The problem comes when you force all to participate without considering the individual. In my case, I was so tormented through grade school, by both teachers and students, that I turned inward and became an extreme introvert for over a decade. Public displays for me are humiliating. I turn inward when I get embarrassed. It brings up all of the scars of my past and is mentally, emotionally and physically painful. I don't care if I am the lone hold out. If I am forced to participate, you've shut me down for days. I honestly have to recover.

Yes - some people need peer approval on anything they do. Some people are loners. I taught myself to enjoy myself doing Karaoke (for business - if you do business in Japan you have to do Karaoke, have fun with a Geisha, and eat really expensive Sushi). It is still not my preferred past time - but I care not if I have to make an ass of myself in public. And guess what - the worse you seem to be the more people feel free to join in - go figure....

Another is fear of public speaking. That one (as an entrepreneur) was the worst. Speaking in front of investment committees or trade shows and the like. It took practice and a system (I always start standing in front of the audience quiet for 10 seconds just looking at them - and I always freewheel as opposed to having a memorized text I am afraid to forget). After a while I grew to not just like it - but positively hooked on it. Once you understand that your audience is really interested in what you have to say. The guy behind Go Daddy had severe fear of public speaking and wrote a lot about it in his blog. 

Dude - really - try get rid of that baggage (well - you don't really get rid of it - you just allow the brain to give it the weight it deserves - not the weight you gave it as a teenager). EMDR or any other method works wonders and quickly on this (minor PTSD) crap.

You only let the high-school memories of the bastards win if you carry it around. An interesting perspective is later on - when you go to a high school reunion and it turns out that the meanest people don't even remember being mean - only to become rather decent adults. Life straightened them out but you got left with the memories of them as teenagers in puberty acting out their frustrations on you - in your mind.

[MarkS]

I don't carry it around, but it is a part of me. Just don't make me "perform" in public and I'm fine. I don't mean things like public speaking. I'm talking about making me do a song and dance as Landrew2390 mentioned or a silly cheer as I mentioned. These are humiliating by nature and are unnecessary.

[AndyC_772]

I used to find public speaking incredibly nerve-wracking. I'd be terrified, and the slightest little thing would throw me off completely. It didn't matter what the subject was, or how well prepared I might have been, it was just a horrible experience.

Not long after I started my first job, I found myself having to fly over to the US to give a presentation on how to manufacture and fault-find a new product. The talk would be captured on video and recorded for posterity. My heart sank.

But: the talk went really well. I was calm, and authoritative. People came up to me afterwards offering compliments.

I think what changed, was that throughout my academic career, nobody in the audience could care less about what I had to say. We were all there because we had to be, and everyone in the room was assessing me on my ability to give a presentation.

When the time came to give a talk 'for real', though, the mood was changed. It was my job to know the material, and my audience's job to learn it. I wasn't being judged; instead, I simply had their attention.

I'll talk in front of anybody now. Not an issue.

[Assafl]

I don't carry it around, but it is a part of me. Just don't make me "perform" in public and I'm fine. I don't mean things like public speaking. I'm talking about making me do a song and dance as Landrew2390 mentioned or a silly cheer as I mentioned. These are humiliating by nature and are unnecessary.

Well - they sometimes are - as if in you want to do business in Japan. Humiliation is a reaction by you - apparently not shared by the others. I always shudder at those places where the waiters sing - but it is solely MY problem - if other adults find happiness or joy in it - who am I to mock it or otherwise condemn the practice? In fact - the only thing I should feel about it is guilty about having negative feelings for something that makes others happy. And of course - once you reframe the thought - things go easier and you begin to share the enjoyment.

What if you want to and have the opportunity to do business in Japan? Or to be the CEO of a large company (where you have to go on presidents club trips with the best sales people and sing karaoke or crack weird jokes)? Is avoiding opportunities worth "a song and dance" or a "silly cheer"?

What about the silliest of them all - the god of all evils - the "small talk"?  Is avoiding opportunities worth "mingling" and amateurish "small talk"? 

BTW - "Small talk" is so awful and so important there is a corporate VP of Small Talk. It's title is an important sounding VP of Business Development. Their job is to small talk their way into uncovering large business and partnership opportunities at parties and trade shows and the like. They are excellent with names and faces, and remembering small worthless minutia that they trade (with others like them) for other worthless minutia that may - with luck - expose a deal at a large customer or an opportunity to partner with a larger corporate. A good one can make a company great.

[tszaboo]

Wow - I missed that awesome post. Love it. Kudos.

FYI, IDK, what is the ETA to enter the BOM into the ERP.

[igendel]

I also find that the management are willing to spend money ticking pointless boxes but reluctant to buy the tools you need to do your job, even when they cost less than the box ticking activities.

That is so, so true.

On my very first job (not related to electronics), they gave me an ancient computer that crashed every 15 minutes, and ignored all my requests to upgrade it - nothing fancy, a matter for $500 maybe.

Then, not being happy with the productivity of the company, they paid like x100 times that to some quack external consultant, who came up with a brilliant plan: we (i.e. the lower ranks) should simply be more productive and loyal to the company values.

On the meeting where this amazing strategy was presented to us (in fancier words of course), I stood up and told everyone, respectfully, what I really think of it. A month later I was out of that company, much to the relief of all parties  involved

[vk6zgo]

Many years ago, Telecom Australia introduced a thing called "Vision 2000".

It consisted of a number of "Seminars" where you went through all the "team building" horse faeces, as well as the idea, which had some merit, of looking around your workplace to see if there were better ways of doing some things .
They bought us a meal at a nearby restaurant.

We went away in two minds about it, tried to do the "looking around your workplace" bit, only to find in most cases there were solid reasons for the existing practices.

At the next session, we were surprised to see that all the "butterflies & roses" were gone, & a much
starker message was presented :- "Things are going to change, & you better change with it".

They didn't say,"or else!" but it was, to me, certainly implied.

We got some cruddy sandwiches for lunch this time.


Shortly thereafter, Glossy pamphlets saying how everything was going great in the organisation started to appear.
A little bit later, the first round of Redundancies started!

Redundancies were a clever idea, as those of us who were left became pissed off doing several people's work, & resigned,anyway-----nice saving!

Shortly after I left & went to the Private sector, the Management at my new job started sending glossy pamphlets around, lauding the Network's achievements.

I said to my new workmates:- "Watch out! All hell is about to break loose!"

I was right--The CEO absconded with the Company's funds!
(I survived that one, as our Creditors were good business people & decided an operating Network was a much better investment than a dead one.)

Rule of thumb:- If your employer institutes Motivational training---update your Resume.
If they start sending glossy pamphlets around the workplace---start looking for a new job!

[SingedFingers]

Look up the book "The Phoenix Project". We were made to read it because our software team is dysfunctional (actually it it's shitty product management and decades of technical debt)

This is a fiction book about software teams that is supposed to be bedtime reading. It's not funny. It's hard work to get through without vomiting. In fact the prose is so bad and the vocabulary so limited, it reads like Simple Wikipedia. But as far as some "leadership and motivation" consultants suggest, it was clearly written in Jesus' very own droppings.

I've done Six Sigma. I've done ISO 9001. I've done seminars. I've won meaningless bits of paper for ethics and togetherness and all that cack.

But that is the most rancid turd of an event in my life. You have no idea how bad shit can get until you're a few pages in. I'd rather be abducted by ISIS who proceed to punch me in the balls a thousand times than go through miserable drivel again.

This is the level the software sector has descended to. Think yourselves lucky hardware people!

[tggzzz]

Rule of thumb:- If your employer institutes Motivational training---update your Resume.
If they start sending glossy pamphlets around the workplace---start looking for a new job!

If they get external consultants in, it means the top management knows the middle management doesn't know what they are doing => update your CV. (The top management (arguably) shouldn't know everything that is being done).

If there's a new drive/incentives getting people to write patents, they are trying to crystallise the institutional knowledge in a form that it worth it to a new owner => update your CV.

[rrinker]

 I'll just leave this here...

http://mypage.direct.ca/h/honl/eshit.html


I've been through enough of this crap over my career to write my own Dilbert book.

Best was the 'reinvention'. CEO of the company was a Wharton grad and basically offered up his company as a lab for business professors to try out their latest theories. You know, the kind of people who try to tell you how to run a business but have never done so themselves. Anyway, they had all these all hands sort of meetings, provided meals, etc, and instructed each department to come up "mission statements" and what we need to do our jobs better. This was all rolled up and analyzed - and then they came back and said no, this was all wrong, we were looking for ways to reduce costs. Let's start this all over again - which they did. But it went pretty much nowhere. Then they went full insane - they brought in fresh college grads, no regards for actual degree, and rotated them around various business units. You might be a finance major but you weren't in the finance department, or the investment department.  Then the real hammer came down - these college interns were really management spies. The one assigned to our department (IT) printed a report to the wrong printer and one of my colleagues was able to read it before she came flying over from another building to retrieve it. Basically complained about how exclusionary we were, and even anti-woman (we did have several women on our team - as as far as exclusionary - from day 1 we invited her to go to lunch with us but she always refused. Eventually we stopped asking.). Not long afterwards, management decided to outsource all non-essential functions - that meant us. No matter that without computers no one could work, we were non-essential. And the CEO dared go on the old Nightline program and say to Ted Koppel with a straight face that he was implementing a program of bringing in younger highly skilled workers to replace older, less skilled employees. That prompted me to actually write a letter to Nightline setting the record straight. I did get the last laugh though, I went on to a much better job and in fact in my current consulting job have been back to this company to assist with some things. And they no longer outsource IT< in fact they have more IT workers now than they ever did when I worked there. They went through 3 or 4 outsource providers because none of them gave the level of support we did as actual employees - like coming in on a Sunday afternoon and workign all night to restore down systems so come Monday no one would notice there had been a problem.

[Money4Nothing]

I'm an engineer in an American engineering company with an Asian parent company, and I can assure you that "Corporate Motivation Strategies" are pretty much universal across cultures. 90% of the stuff is vapid, useless bullshit.

But one thing you need to understand is that corporate executives are 1) Under tremendous pressure to make their business units profitable, and 2) Pretty much ignorant of how an engineer contributes to the profitability of a company.
The result of this is that resources that are needed for efficient engineering efforts are often shorted, and they will stab at the craziest straws to eek out more productivity for less overhead.
All that these poor executives see is marketing, sales, and service on a spreadsheet, and engineering/drafting/design/technical publications are pretty much invisible until they screw up really bad.

Remember, your company's profitability is your priority, because without it, you don't get a paycheck. You shouldn't need any corporate motivation. Engineers are in a unique (un-glamorous) position to help their company be successful in a tangible way. A poor mechanic or secretary doesn't get the same influence.

First thing is to do the best you can with the tools you are given. I've been through so many automation and software platform transitions that I am just numb to it by now and I just learn to use whatever bullcrap software I'm given the best I can. (We recently lost access to Adobe Pro which makes it difficult for me to produce nice markups or illustrations).
Second, is be honest with management about what tools you think you need, and how they help you. Don't bullshit or exaggerate. If you can make do without a 10 channel 5000 Gigahertz signal generator, then don't ask for one.
Third, when you are having discussions about motivation, ask your executive management if they can describe to you how they understand your role contributes to company profitability. If they can't, that will hopefully inspire them to make sure your role is understood and appreciate by yourself and them.

If you don't like your company, you can do the best you can to change it, or you can go work for someone else.

[Gregg]

The Dilbert analogy is spot on.  I recently retired from a large company that could easily be the basis for 90% of the Dilbert comics.  The middle managers are clueless, gullible paper pushers who push paper in circles to each other and then pat themselves on the back for how much “work” they have done.  To keep up appearances of providing value to the company, middle management comes up with this kind of stupid motivational and other “training” as well as weird policy; it is their job security to do so. And they form cliques supporting each other to minimalize accountability by passing the buck until it is forgotten.  Middle management is easily deluded by sales pitches by the providers of dubious motivational and compliance training using cherry picked statistics, empty promises and glitzy power point presentations.  Middle managers have to do something to prove they are doing something; these mindless programs look like they are taking some responsibility when in reality they are just providing themselves with ass covering excuses that they tried.  I remember one manager saying that he didn’t have to know or understand what the people he managed did; he just had to know how to manage!
The worst position in a large company is bottom management which has to filter from above and ensure no employee complaints rise to middle management without severe dilution if at all.   
I was in a meeting with a disgruntled customer who put the problem in two words when he said our company’s management was “over matrixed”.  Basically nobody was assigned responsibility, nobody took responsibility and everybody pointed fingers at others.
We often joked that Dilbert was a documentary.  Scott Adams will never suffer lack of ideas for this comic; he certainly has the ability to highlight corporate flaws in a few humorous panels that speak the truth to those who actually do the work in such companies.  I often said that the easiest way to fool a manager is to use a spreadsheet; most managers couldn’t find the math in a spreadsheet to save their souls.  And the easiest way to fool middle and upper management is to use a power point presentation with lots of pictures including a couple snapshots of the aforementioned spreadsheet.

[vodka]

Look up the book "The Phoenix Project". We were made to read it because our software team is dysfunctional (actually it it's shitty product management and decades of technical debt)

This is a fiction book about software teams that is supposed to be bedtime reading. It's not funny. It's hard work to get through without vomiting. In fact the prose is so bad and the vocabulary so limited, it reads like Simple Wikipedia. But as far as some "leadership and motivation" consultants suggest, it was clearly written in Jesus' very own droppings.

I've done Six Sigma. I've done ISO 9001. I've done seminars. I've won meaningless bits of paper for ethics and togetherness and all that cack.

But that is the most rancid turd of an event in my life. You have no idea how bad shit can get until you're a few pages in. I'd rather be abducted by ISIS who proceed to punch me in the balls a thousand times than go through miserable drivel again.

This is the level the software sector has descended to. Think yourselves lucky hardware people!

If the people get the medical leave(by depression*) after doing the motivation course, when the corporation had more of the half of their illness employees .Automatically ,they would leave to give the courses

(*if not able to achieve the psicologica medical leave, always stays the sugar lump with gasoline)

[james_s]

The movie Office Space also feels like a documentary of sorts. I've seen bits of so many of the scenes in that movie play out in real life.

[xygor]

Training is what you do to dogs.

"No industry has inflicted more suffering than the Motivational Industry. Motivational books, speakers and posters have made billions of dollars selling shortcuts to success and tools for unleashing our unlimited potential. At Despair, we know such products only raise hopes to dash them."
https://despair.com/

The trend is sexual harassment training and what is defined as "sexual harassment" is getting pretty scary. It's pretty much gotten to the point where when you're in the presence of the opposite sex at work, keep your head down and mouth closed. Even a simple compliment can get you fired and even potentially prosecuted!

The "sexual harassment training" itself meets the definition of sexual harassment.

[Howardlong]

Almost certainly someone in HR is getting a payback and/or has a personal relationship with the vendor.

As another poster stated, HR is the epitome of do as I say, not as I do.

They get away with it because (a) for some bizarre reason it's become trendy to give HR, a non-core service to the business, a spot on the board and (b) while there might be whistleblowing processes, with supposed direct employee conduits to non-exec directors, I absolutely guarantee that there ain't no way anyone's going to trigger them because innevitably HR is going to be the first to be aware of any investigation, they are on the board after all.

[rrinker]

The movie Office Space also feels like a documentary of sorts. I've seen bits of so many of the scenes in that movie play out in real life.

 We have weekly project status reports covering all of our region's projects that have been dubbed the TPS Reports, mainly because the people who SHOULD be reading them (account reps) don't. All of us engineers look at our projects in the spreadsheet because then we can tell if we are over hours (lowering out overall bill rate) or not.

[Smokey]

MBAs need something to justify all the time and money they wasted getting their degrees.

The funny thing is that if you would just implement "Free Taco Tuesday" all the engineers would be happier and more productive than "Sit in this meeting and watch this video that will make you more productive Tuesday".  The tacos would be way cheaper too.