I would imagine there are many organizations that spend a good deal of management’s time and effort in promoting a “team” or “family” atmosphere. My organization spends its idle time in related pursuits.
Fridays tend to be low-key since much of the maintenance department works four-tens (M-Th). Recently management made the decision to hold “town hall” meetings every Friday morning in an effort to bring us closer together. They bought motivational books and handed them out, and unleashed a new vision statement that showed an awkward attempt to promote “family” and “relating with integrity”. The high-level managers have been taking turns “teaching” these concepts, which takes about half the time allotted, and then they spend the remainder going around the room asking for feedback from the attendees.
As I am a professional cynic, I did not have any kind thoughts when it came time for me to share my views. On the other hand, I have just an inkling of hope each time that mgmt is serious about making this a better place to work, so I did not want to expose the (likely) hypocrisy of the event and say nasty things that might wrongly influence people inclined to believe as I do. So I punted.
I said something along the lines of, “I really don’t want to share my opinion right now, thanks very much for asking.”
The moderator responded: “Would you do me a favor? Please leave.”
I gleefully retreated. My first thought was, “Wow. He made my point for me. What an idiot.” The message was loud and clear – toe the party line or be shunned.
These are the people I work for. He spent a good bit of time setting up the premise that this is a great place to work and then in the space of 5 seconds utterly showed that it is not a great place to work. And the folks in the room understood immediately. The conversations following the event focused my ejection rather than the touchy-feely crap that mgmt was intending. I heard somewhere that an organization is made up of its conversations, and if that’s true ours just got a whole lot more cynical.
The obvious conclusion one can draw, and something I’ve poked at on a couple different occasions, is that you have nothing if you do not have integrity. If you stand up in front of the people who work for you and proclaim one thing while demonstrating another, the snickering starts pretty fast. You will still have position power, but you will find you will have to use it all the time. One legged stools are pretty tough to use all day.
Fridays tend to be low-key since much of the maintenance department works four-tens (M-Th). Recently management made the decision to hold “town hall” meetings every Friday morning in an effort to bring us closer together. They bought motivational books and handed them out, and unleashed a new vision statement that showed an awkward attempt to promote “family” and “relating with integrity”. The high-level managers have been taking turns “teaching” these concepts, which takes about half the time allotted, and then they spend the remainder going around the room asking for feedback from the attendees.
As I am a professional cynic, I did not have any kind thoughts when it came time for me to share my views. On the other hand, I have just an inkling of hope each time that mgmt is serious about making this a better place to work, so I did not want to expose the (likely) hypocrisy of the event and say nasty things that might wrongly influence people inclined to believe as I do. So I punted.
I said something along the lines of, “I really don’t want to share my opinion right now, thanks very much for asking.”
The moderator responded: “Would you do me a favor? Please leave.”
I gleefully retreated. My first thought was, “Wow. He made my point for me. What an idiot.” The message was loud and clear – toe the party line or be shunned.
These are the people I work for. He spent a good bit of time setting up the premise that this is a great place to work and then in the space of 5 seconds utterly showed that it is not a great place to work. And the folks in the room understood immediately. The conversations following the event focused my ejection rather than the touchy-feely crap that mgmt was intending. I heard somewhere that an organization is made up of its conversations, and if that’s true ours just got a whole lot more cynical.
The obvious conclusion one can draw, and something I’ve poked at on a couple different occasions, is that you have nothing if you do not have integrity. If you stand up in front of the people who work for you and proclaim one thing while demonstrating another, the snickering starts pretty fast. You will still have position power, but you will find you will have to use it all the time. One legged stools are pretty tough to use all day.
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