At some point, every workplace tries to “motivate” staff and sometimes it goes very, very wrong. Whether it was a sad pizza party, a patronising poster, or an email that missed the mark entirely, we want to see the worst attempts at workplace motivation. Bonus points if it somehow replaced a pay rise.
#1
They tried to discover our “Motivational Value Sets” – some psychobabble nonsense about whether one is motivated by leadership, caring, or thoughtfulness. Three problems: 1) As an introvert, I didn’t want anyone probing my psyche 2) I’m actually motivated by knowledge, humour and honesty 3) We had just had a merger, so they thought it was a good idea to mix and match people from different places. One exercise was to place where we thought other people belonged on the chart. I didn’t know where to place a colleague who I’d known for 10 years, let alone people who I’d first met an hour ago – and I got very stressed about the thought of other people judging me. Eventually, many years later, they realised that such things should be kept among people who actually worked together, and weren’t suitable for socialising. It destroyed the relationship with my new bosses, who turned in into a disciplinary issue. Fortunately a later boss let me talk to someone who discovered why it was stressful and how to cope with future situations.
