Every couple of years, some pinhead with a B.A. (or, more appropriately, B.S.) in rat-maze psych writes a book on how to improve your work environment using some idiotic metaphor or pop-culture reference. A few years ago, it was “Fish”, where you awarded little fish stickers to employees as positive reinforcement. Whoop-de-freaking-doo!
Now, this year, my employer has instituted a mandatory 8-hour course entitled The Oz Principle . Supposedly, there are lessons in The Wizard of Oz which can translate into good business practice! Like what? We should all act like flying monkeys and do the bidding of our wicked supervisors?
The thing that irritates me the most about these books is that they almost always place the burden on the employees! How about someone writes a book about paying good workers what they’re worth and stop treating them like fucking slave labor? Of course, no employer would touch it!
Anyone else been through one of these crap sessions?
Maybe the underlying lesson is to “liquidate” your enemies?
Anyway, we all have to suffer through this pop psych and fad-of-the-moment bullshit. The best or easiest thing to do is, try not to snore, refrain from saying out loud how fucking stupid it all is, and then ignore it completely. It’s just too bad we can’t shoot the snake oil peddlers who come up with this stuff, or the bosses who think it’s the “magic cure” for everything.
Former Fish victim here. There is nothing worse than platitudes about how I need to change my perspective to enjoy my lot in life, from a day-by-day calendar purchased by management.
Yeah, I hate that too. I understand the boss-employee relationship pretty well. It goes like this -
“OK boss, you pay me to do stuff. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it (if it isn’t impossible), but if you don’t know what you want and all my suggestions are rejected, that’s your fault”.
I’d say that’s a reasonable “perspective”. It doesn’t require any “attitude adjustment” on my part. I don’t need slogans, platitudes, posters about Teaming, or happy songs. If I have known some bosses that are excellent (many were) and some that were downright useless impediments (a few were), that is not a perspective or attitude problem.
The thing is… managing people is hard. And most people doing it suck at it. And they know they suck, at some unconscious level. But like many humans, they grasp at straws, hoping that some set of magical words will make their employees happy. In reality, being a good manager isn’t about knowing the magic words or passing out fish pens. It simply takes actually giving a shit about the people you manage. You have to listen to them, make sure they’re paid a wage commensurate with their skills and contributions, and give them opportunities to do things they find interesting.
The managers I have had who were worth anything cared about me as a person. The ones who didn’t make an effort to get to know me were worthless, no matter how many “engagement techniques” they tried to learn.
One thing that should be a dead giveaway to companies trying this crap: You keep fucking changing it! If the last three didn’t work, what makes you think this one will? I’ll give you a hint, Einstein: all three of them had one thing in common, and it’s your worthless, self-aggrandizing, backstabbing, empire-building middle management! Fire some of those parasitic motherfuckers and see what happens.
Brainiac4: Your post is spot-on, but you don’t realize (or don’t want to admit) that the parasites and backstabbers always rise to management and middle-management, simply because they are parasitic backstabbers.
The person who cares is the person who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong. If he isn’t devious enough to generate sufficient CYA memos to save himself, he is gone with nary a second glance. The backstabbers know how to work the system, just like skilled programmers know their toolset and platform. There is no way to stop them from climbing to the top of any organization, public or private, violent or peaceful, political or corporate, criminal or legitimate.
I think it is important to note that maybe, just maybe, 1 out of 10 managers control what their employees are paid. Given this, many managers have to try and find some way to motivate the troops. The most difficult task, in the working world, is managing individuals when you have no control over the organizational policy, the pay, the benefits or the working environment (as most managers must face).
Left with that, all you can do is shoot for morale. Almost everything is accomplished in the way that you lead. The one thing that is true is that gimmicks do not work if the individual running the gimmick does not buy into the principle that is behind every one of those gimmicks: respect.
The past seven years, I’ve been the Travel Manager (I now insist on the title “Guru!”) for my company.
I’m a one-man travel department… and damn if I don’t LIKE it that way.
I’ve had a total of four supervisors in that time. One was the H.R Director, one was the VP of R&D (go figure!), one was a purchasing supervisor and now the Managing Director of Procurement.
NONE of them have a clue as to how to do My job.
The only strikes I seem to get on my evaluations are that I should tidy my office.
No one is able to come and tell me that I handled a particular situation in some creative way; nor if I could’ve done it better.
Most luckily, our company doesn’t buy into any new-fangled feel-good pseudo-incentive system.
They pay well; and bonuses when the company does well.
Pretty good deal for me… since all I do is SPEND their money all day. I just try to spend as little and get the most for it that I can.
The best morale builder? Actually caring about the employee. As a human being. Such old-fashioned things as support, encouragement, and recognition for things well done.
My husband has a former boss who’s no longer in his direct chain of command but for whom he will still attempt to walk on water any time he’s asked. Why? Because former boss treated him with respect, acknowledged his strengths, worked with him to improve his weaknesses, and recognized him every way he could within the company structure when he did stuff that deserved it. Hubby came back to work at the same site as former boss last year, and within weeks they were tag-teaming each other in a save-all-our-asses presentation to the customer at whose site they work, with no collaborative input prior to walking into the meeting – and yet because of their prior working relationship, each knew the other’s abilities well enough that they could mesh what they were doing sight unseen, to the complete astonishment of their coworkers in the meeting. (It worked, too.)
Respect goes a lot farther than cheese or fish or flying monkeys.
Not all managers are parasites and backstabbers. A significant majority are, but it’s not 100%. The chance of someone being a backstabbing parasitic motherfucker who’s a total waste of air increases with their level in the hierarchy, but there are good, decent human beings who are managers. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a few of them manage me, and I’m trying to live up to their example as a manager myself.
I’m not sure if that fits your “don’t want to admit” criteria. I think I’m simply disagreeing with you in part.
