Tag Archives: Corporate

Motivation – To be the best you… what were you saying again?

Posted by on June 12, 2009 No comments

There an inherent problem with anything that is claimed to be motivational and that is the cynical counterpoint.  Dilbert has done a pretty good job of poking holes in many motivational mantras.  The de-motivator meme has obviously run its course, but had some very good ideas early on.

Motivational messages are processed differently by different people, not unlike candy.  Some people gorge on motivation books, videos, seminars and have nothing to show for it.  They are useless without another fix of motivation.  Others only need a bit of motivation to keep them going – a quick pick-me-up.  Fortunately, I find myself in the latter camp.  I generally only need a reminder every once in a while of why I do what I do.  That’s not to say I don’t have slumps or have a cynical outlook on “business as usual.”  I try to not let the external influences get me down. 

But anyway, I did a quick Youtube search for motivational videos and watched the first one.  Somehow this was supposed to inspire me.  The video was about some football players that didn’t think they could beat their next game, so the coach tried to demonstrate “giving your all” using a couple players.

The coach made this guy carry another guy across the field.  The subject didn’t initially think he’d be able to make it half-way.  To prevent him from giving up when he met his mental finish-line, the coach blindfolded him.  Then, as he started to falter or complain, the coach encouraged him as only a coach would: by screaming and yelling in his face.  Finally the guy collapsed and the coach said proudly, “You made it to the end zone.”

So if you were to use this video as motivation for your employees, what exactly would you be saying?  My primary take-away: we want you to work yourself to exhaustion.  We don’t care if you are completely useless after that.  There is no sense in saving reserve energy.  If we feel you have any energy left in you, we will harass you until we wring it out.

From a psychological standpoint, I enjoyed the blindfold trick to keep the player from giving up.  But from a practical standpoint, it maps out poorly.  If you set a mental goal, that should be a realistic checkpoint to evaluate what you’ve accomplished and how much more you can do.

The bottom line is, motivation comes from within.  It can’t be fed to you and it can’t be beaten out of you, although many would disagree on that.  I think I’m going to have another read of Gung Ho!, a good example of how people motivate themselves.

Auto Bubble

Posted by on November 4, 2008 No comments

Detroit makes me imagine a crazy person locked in a room somewhere making and churning out dozens of ugly teddy bears a day.  Each day people come to him and say "All the kids already have teddy bears and  even if they do want a new one, kids don’t want ugly teddy bears." 

But the crazy bear maker won’t stop.  He makes bigger, uglier teddy bears and pushes pile after pile of bears out the door.  The people carry heaps of grotesquery off to showrooms where the bears sit unwanted and unsold.

The bear maker is proud of himself.  His whole life has been making teddy bears and he feels he is vital to the well-being of children everywhere.  Whenever it is argued that his bears are unwanted, his response is "Look how busy I am!"  He never stops, he must be afraid to.

And sadly, after all these years of building bears in isolation, he discovers he has neither the skill nor the tools to build better bears.  He will need to be retrained or replaced.  We’ve already committed to pay for retraining and retooling.  Time will show whether he has no choice but to be replaced.

Important Information Enclosed

Posted by on July 18, 2008 No comments

Got one of the common letters in the mail, "Important Information Enclosed: Privacy Notification".  Now why is it when I see one of these, the first thing I think of is "Important Information Enclosed: We are reducing your level of privacy".  Would I ever see a privacy policy change that is actually more restrictive?  Here’s a quick summary of the privacy policy I got:

  • Is my information shared within your family of companies?  YES.
  • Is my information shared with financial companies outside your family of companies? YES.
  • Is my information shared with non-financial companies outside your family of companies?  YES.

Well, that covers just about everyone.  I guess there’s no privileged information anymore.  Wait, there’s one more.

  • Is my information shared in any other ways?  YES.

Oh, ok.  The notice provides some examples of some ways they would share info, but the only thing that limits this is the phrase "as required or permitted by law".  Well, that covers just about everything.  In fact, this phrase is in the notice: "even if you tell us not to share, we may do so as required or permitted by law."  So technically, if law permits it, we’ll share your info regardless of what you tell us.  Another little twist is that your choice of what to exclude is limiting. Think "You are being attacked by three monsters and you have one bullet.  Which one do you want to shoot?  Remember, even if you kill one, it may reanimate and attack you again, as required or permitted by law."  That’s what you get.

I haven’t ever been a big privacy nut.  I don’t really do anything that I think anyone cares about.  And if I do things and am included in an aggregate, I care even less.  But this is about garbage.  Garbage sent to my home, garbage in my email (that’s a hopeless cause anyway), and uninvited phone calls.  My use of a company’s services makes my personal information their property that they can sell at will.  I wonder when this happened.

This kind of crap extends to virtual businesses.  How is an Internet site valued when it provides a free service?  By the number of users it has.  With a quick sale, a change of ownership and a flip of a switch, all those users can be bombarded with advertising.  The thought that we are being farmed, bred, or fed for eventual sale and slaughter is pretty sickening.

One last note.  The formal letter introducing the privacy policy has the incredulous statement: "Your privacy concerns are important to us, and protecting your personal information is one of our top priorities."  An absolute lie if I’ve ever seen one.

Random thoughts

Posted by on May 10, 2008 No comments

It’s a little late and I’m a little light-headed and headachy from primer fumes in the room getting painted next to mine, so I thought I’d type out a random grab bag of thoughts.

Capital One wants me to go paperless with my statements.  That would work for me since I do everything electronically in Money, but what about the people that would print out their statements each month from the online site?  That doesn’t help anything.  I think Capital One should reduce the paper ads they put in their statements and double-side their statements.  That would cut paper usage more than half right there.

I was thinking one day about a borderline neurosis I had growing up.  Thanks to my short attention span, it never really developed.  I used to anthropomorphize everything.  I used to imagine chairs clamoring to have me sit in them, and the rest would be disappointed.  Some items I owned would be proud that they have served me so well, and others would be sad that I don’t use them enough.  I’m sure some psychologist would say I had some disorder that I couldn’t accept the fact that it’s impossible to please everyone.  Then I would get drugs – that’s a given anymore.

One of the creepiest and most disturbing thoughts that I thought up in my youth and still have to force myself to not think about is:  No one really knows what happens when you die.  What if you are just trapped in your body?  Not so bad for humans – you die, you get put in a box and you rest until you decompose and you disappear.  But what about animals, specifically roadkill?  You get hit with a car and die.  Then someone else runs over you and you feel the impact again.  And again, and again.  Slowly, you start to disintegrate and the pain becomes less with each passing car.  Finally, you are not much more than a spot and you begin to decompose and disappear.  Physiologically, I guess that’s not possible since the nerves couldn’t transmit the sensations to the brain, still it’s a morbid thought.

I’m bugged by Circle K’s new ads with the line, "Gotta buck?  Get a snack."  I don’t have any problem at all with informal speech in ad copy, but if you’re going to do it, it needs to be correct.  "Gotta" is not short for "Have a", it’s short for "Have got to".  Idiots.

My previous complaint about Mercedes radio ads has been continued with a Lincoln ad.  I guess the dealerships are owned by the same person, or the marketing company got both as accounts.  More pompous people talking about how other people think their car (and I guess the owner by extension) is so great.  I really don’t think the customer testimonial idea is so great.  Maybe it is, though, and I’m just not their target market.  Thank god for that.