In the Dallas Morning News, there are full page ads every day promoting a motivational seminar. In tiny print at the bottom of the ad (sorry, can’t find it online), there is a disclaimer about an “optional” 15 minute biblical secrets of success presentation. Are these seminars some sort of scam? Are they set up to allow a cult or some church to proselytize?
I think that mostly all seminars are scams in their own right, every person who teaches one has a hidden agenda of their own. If you were thinking about going to one I suppose you could call ahead of time and ask them any questions you may have.
I would not want to speak for a specific seminar, but my experience in the corporate world is that motivational seminars are nothing worth while. Many managers like to put down as an accomplishment that they improved morale or motivated their people by having them attend some kind of seminar. They ;never seemed to understand that this was a tacit acknowledgement that the troops were not well motivated by management. My own personal experience was that morale was poor due to the horrible management, but the idiots in charge blamed us and made us sit through this crap. I went through about seven or eight in 30 years, and all had a common theme - think outside the box, strive for excellence, you can do it, take ownership, and buy my books/tapes/videos. The scam is between the speakers and the management - both of whom pretend to provide a service. The rule of thumb seemed to be that the worse the manager, the more he tried to motivate/inspire you. I do remember one manager who was actually OK, if a little bit boring. First prize for monthly performance was lunch with the boss - second prize was two lunches. He usually let you opt for taking a friend to lunch instead of him, for which he was well respected.
You might answer the question by noticing how many of these motivational speakers “happen” to have books for sale, further seminars available, high consultant fees, etc. Looking for and finding ways to make money off of people who want to hear you are not necessarily scams, however. There are a lot of suckers out there who’d like to hear what you’re prepared to tell them. Most motivational speakers seem to have some method they’re trying to sell. But enthusiasm doesn’t come from outside, does it? Some people pay heavy dues to import these cheerleaders. just sayin’ xo C.
Depends on what you’re looking to get out of it.
Do you want a warm fuzzy feeling that doesn’t come from any personal ahievement but simply from someone stroking your ego?
Then a seminar is just what you need.
Do you want make a critical and honest assessment of yourself and make positive changes in the areas of your life that truly need improvement?
Look somewhere else.
I’ve always figured that if motivational speakers took their own advice, they’d have a better job than being a motivational speaker.
Or conversely… if you took their advice, you’d quit your stupid job and become a motivational speaker.
Yes, they are scams because what they try to teach you is just common sense.
I took a couple of Covey courses and they were common sense, mostly.
I’ve noticed that the companies that didn’t know what the hell they were doing were big on the motivational speakers, while companies where the mission was clear, and the execution good, didn’t. Ditto for outside “change” consultants. In one case as soon as the change consultants went off the path the boss wanted, they were out on their rears.
If you want to really embarrass them, ask for a study showing the effectiveness of whatever their selling published in a refereed journal.
A woman who used to be in my criique group did it for a long time - and she knew nothing more about what she was talking about than any of us who read a few books. She believed in Feng Shui for Og’s sake. :eek:
I’m a public school teacher and at the beginning of every school year our district hires a motivational speaker for the first day of inservice. They usually speak for two to three hours. It’s always the same thing:
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sometimes humorous stories about their lives and their experience in business, education, what-have-you. One speaker we had just ripped off Steven Wright jokes. He even told us they were Stephen Wright jokes. Literally all of his jokes–and a quarter of his entire speech–were Stephen Wright material. You know, it doesn’t make any difference if you TELL us you’re stealing his jokes–it’s still stealing!
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some kind of audience participation–like yelling ‘woo’ when he/she says certain key words, or miming fireworks by clapping your hands together above your head and then waving your fingers while bringing your hands down. I’m not joking.
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having everyone figure out what ‘personality type’ they are. Every speaker has their own ‘cute’ little categories for different types. Squares, Triangles, Circles, or Beavers, Dogs, Otters, or Green, Red, Blue, or I could just go on and on.
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a poignant moment where they get serious and everyone gets really quiet and some people might even cry.
And it’s the same frickin’ thing year after year after year. And all of the elementary school teachers really get into it and all of us high school teachers are sitting in the back and smirking and only doing the fireworks thing with our hands half-heartedly.
Last year, though, was slightly better because our speaker was brief, she didn’t do any audience participation or personality type stuff, and she was Bette Perot, Ross Perot’s sister. And she talked just like him!
I wouldn’t call it a scam. You pretty much get what you expect. It’s just a stupid, lazy business practice that employers use so they can mark off a check box that says they’ve done something to improve morale.
I’d be wary of ‘business seminars’ that mention ‘bibilical secrets of success’ (even though I’m a christian myself) - Several different people have told me that they attended one only to find out that it was a shallow and cynical attempt at conversion, and offered no real business advice whatever - that was just a lure to get folks through the door.
My point of course being that, if they have to resort to deception to get their message heard, I’d be quite comfortable to treat it as if it is not worth hearing.
As my strength training teacher in high school was fond of saying, “common sense ain’t too common.”
I’ve had to suffer through many “seminars”. Irrelevant material, platitudes passed off as great wisdom, adherence to a magic bullet, all sorts of things.
“Red hat, blue hat, black hat” crap. “If you follow these steps you don’t have to understand the business or process or methods”. “The one and only new way to do everything (that doesn’t fit anything at all)”.
People who pawn off these seminars are little more than snake oil salesmen. Seminars are a pile of crap.
I’ve been getting an extra-heavy-duty dose since I started working in the education market a few years ago - education is so heavily bureaucratized, and the rewards are so distant (and nonremunerative) that it’s not surprising that people often turn to these critters. The worst I’ve seen so far was a guy in Texas who spent much of his presentation trying to convince us that his childhood ambition had been to be a motivational speaker. Thankfully I was sitting in the back of the room at a table filled with what could’ve been extras to a live-action Daria episode, otherwise it’d have been intolerable.
Not sure if I should hijack this thread, but what about those “free financial success seminars”? Can I assume those are scams too?
If by “scam” you mean “advertisement and possible coercion to buy a product” then yes.
I have worked as a registrar at a few dozen of these motivational seminars. This included passing out and collecting surveys of what the participants thought of the speaker, the topics, the manuals, etc. I would guess that in more than 75% of the cases, the participants had favorable opinions about each of the categories. Seminar-wide negative feedback was rare (except maybe everybody noting, “the room was too cold”). Having sat through and listended to these seminars, I personally didn’t find them that interesting. My guess is that the more time and money you as a participant have invested in attending this seminar, the more wishful thinking you engage in when it comes time to rate its elements.