Dale Carnegie... over!

[hakoMike]

I am pleased to report that the fourteen hour over four week Dale Carnegie training that my employer required is over. My hands were getting sore from all the perfunctory clapping every time someone spoke.

It\'s all pretty much intuitive stuff for normal adults, but the trainers treated it like a life-changing (cough*cult*cough) experience.
\"So, you\'re saying if I listen attentively to someone that they will feel more positively disposed toward me? Ohhhhhhhhhhh.\" One coworker likened it to the Simpsons episode where Marge and Homer lost their kids to foster care and had to take a parenting class to get them back... the instructor of the parenting class was emphasizing such topics as the importance of throwing your garbage away in some sort of can and not just on the floor.

What this training really accomplished for me was to identify which of my coworkers were brittle and uncooperative.

 

[supervike]

I love the corporate brainwashing.....er seminars that take place....I love to watch people kiss ass to their supervisors.

 

[wiccanpony]

??? It could be worse......you could of been forced to make nice in one of those \"touchie feelie\" camps.

The ones where you climb a tree and throw yourself into the arms of your fellow coworkers and hope they catch you.

 

[Brimshack]

Heh, I can relate.

The President of my old college once brought in a motivational speaker specializing in race issues. When he did this there was so much tension between faculty and administration the college was in a real crisis, but it was actually do to his own incompetence (and dishonesty). Hiring the motivational speaker was his way of telling the white portion of his faculty that the problem was our own lack of thought about racial issues. (No, we all came to work on an Indian reservation because we were unaware of and unconcerned with issues involving race or ethnicity.) It was also an attempt to rally the Navajo faculty and staff against the outsiders (...didn\'t work).

So, we were treated to such astounding messages as the notion that one ought to respect other people\'s cultures. This was illustrated when the speaker asked us to look him in the eye because that was an important part of Chinese culture and he was Chinese ...nevermind the fact that that is pretty much the same for mainstream American culture, he somehow saw this as involving a real cross-cultural message for the white members of the faculty. Best of all he demonstrated this by looking one of our elder Navajo teachers in the eye and demanding that she do the same ...an act of aggression to elders. So, he taught us to respect his culture by showing complete disregard for the cultural background of the person he was talking to.

...it just got worse from there.

I missed the low point of the event though. Apparently, he was disatisfied with one of our faculty members\' views on race. So, he instructed all present (happily I was off tormenting my own students) that when they saw this individual on campus over the next week they should go up to him and tell him something about how their race impacted their own lives. ...Nothing like a sustained harrassment campaign to drive home a poorly conceived message.

 

[Dragonsreach]

I prefer team building exercises like:

Paintballing,
Ten Pin bowling,
Taking over a Chinese Restaurant for a meal,
Pub Crawls.

To me these are far more valuable than being forced into a \"Corporate Seminar\" when you don\'t want to be there.

I also think that there is also a wide difference between the American corporate culture and the UK\'s. Having worked for a couple of American companies I do see that these Seminars are often seen, by people in the UK, as patronising and pushing \"Feel Good Propaganda\". Personally I\'d rather someone stood up at these meetings and said \"We were Cr*p at XXXX and this is what we want to do to put it right!. Far more honest , but never happens. And Please talk to us like adults.


(Pet hate mode off. )

 

[Swordwind]

Next time suggest a 3 day Battle Royale :twisted:

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
I prefer team building exercises like:

Paintballing,
Ten Pin bowling,
Taking over a Chinese Restaurant for a meal,
Pub Crawls.

thats what i\'m talking about. i have aranged some climbing evenings before which were a laugh (although not an \'official\' work thing but it was only workmates). there are only about 7 men in our department so every year or so, one of my collegues (wynne) organises another wynne\'s wankers tour. edinburgh this year, dubling a couple of years ago. great stuff

 

[Highbulp Billy]

A little while ago we had to do the obligatory team building weekend with lot\'s of challenges including building windmills, identifying shapes and colours blidfolded and jumping off 30 foot wooden poles on to a trapeze (true). Since then, half of the team has left and the rest of us have moved into separate offices ??? One of my co-workers at the time did suggest that we could improve our team-bonding by sharing a secret shame but his specific suggestion was deemed unsuitable (as well as illegal in most countries )

 

[philologus]

About 6 years ago the Burger King corporation had their marketing group do a team building exercise in Florida. One of the \"events\" was walking on hot coals. Morons.

LINK

 

[hakoMike]

Originally posted by philologus
About 6 years ago the Burger King corporation had their marketing group do a team building exercise in Florida. One of the \"events\" was walking on hot coals. Morons.

LINK

From the article:
\"Like, if they need to impress an important client, they could use their survival training to, I don\'t know, catch him a squirrel.\" lol

 

[philologus]

Originally posted by hakoMike

Originally posted by philologus
About 6 years ago the Burger King corporation had their marketing group do a team building exercise in Florida. One of the \"events\" was walking on hot coals. Morons.

LINK

From the article:
\"Like, if they need to impress an important client, they could use their survival training to, I don\'t know, catch him a squirrel.\" lol

The worsl part is that >1 person was injured. You would think the brainwashing would wear off after the first moron starts screaming.

 

[No Such Agency]

Originally posted by hakoMike
It\'s all pretty much intuitive stuff for normal adults, but the trainers treated it like a life-changing (cough*cult*cough) experience.

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!

 

[Crackpot]

Sometimes I am happy that my company don\'t has the money and/or the will to spend money for such \"events\"... lol
Best \"team building\" experience was our \"outdoor-cart-driving\" while it was raining. Now I know how the Formula 1 drivers must feel when it starts to rain and they have only their slick-tires on. lol