A pet loathing of mine is corporate training that pretends to deep understandings of the human condition... motivation seminars and so forth.
Extreme case in point:
In December 2005 an apparently happy and stable 34 year old woman, Rebekah Lawrence, attended a "high intensity" personal development course. The course was promoted as a "journey to the core of the human spirit" and was run by a company called People Knowhow.
In the two days that followed the four day course, the woman demonstrated changed behaviour and aggressive attitudes to her workmates... before falling - naked - out the window of the office building.
Teachers of the course had no formal qualifications in psychology or counselling. They learnt how to administer the course... and away they went and facilitated it. The facilitator for the unfortunate lady's course had a qualification in computer science. That's it.
Personally the idea of some spit and polish corporate dweeb (probably younger than me) insisting he or she has something profound to "empower" me with - based on some course he or she has done - makes me want to break out the punching bag.
Is this not the essence of a fast food values system. One that worships material success, and spurns genuine experience?
You can't do a four day course on life.
The facilitator told the inquest in Ms Lawrence's death that "the purpose of the course was to change the state of mind of each participant".
I assume this meant a change of more penetrating depth than making them feel a bit brighter with some gentle entertainment and witty repartee.
In another context we would slam this stuff as the cult fodder. But capitalist values combined with vacuous new age mumbo jumbo gets excused a great deal.
Want a "journey to the core of the human spirit"...? Then go trekking around Katmandu, work in a third world orphanage, run a marathon. Do something genuine. Watching Oprah doesn't cut it and neither does this sort of crap.
Now it seems very likely that Rebekah Lawrence had some undiagnosed issues, and that People Knowhow cannot be blamed directly for her death. But if you are going to put someone through a course that stressful (it IS regarded as a course that can cause personal distress) you had better be qualified to do more than program computers, and it had better be for more than some corporate soft skills hogwash, and there better be support afterwards.
What a sad waste.
Related article here.
Extreme case in point:
In December 2005 an apparently happy and stable 34 year old woman, Rebekah Lawrence, attended a "high intensity" personal development course. The course was promoted as a "journey to the core of the human spirit" and was run by a company called People Knowhow.
In the two days that followed the four day course, the woman demonstrated changed behaviour and aggressive attitudes to her workmates... before falling - naked - out the window of the office building.
Teachers of the course had no formal qualifications in psychology or counselling. They learnt how to administer the course... and away they went and facilitated it. The facilitator for the unfortunate lady's course had a qualification in computer science. That's it.
Personally the idea of some spit and polish corporate dweeb (probably younger than me) insisting he or she has something profound to "empower" me with - based on some course he or she has done - makes me want to break out the punching bag.
Is this not the essence of a fast food values system. One that worships material success, and spurns genuine experience?
You can't do a four day course on life.
The facilitator told the inquest in Ms Lawrence's death that "the purpose of the course was to change the state of mind of each participant".
I assume this meant a change of more penetrating depth than making them feel a bit brighter with some gentle entertainment and witty repartee.
In another context we would slam this stuff as the cult fodder. But capitalist values combined with vacuous new age mumbo jumbo gets excused a great deal.
Want a "journey to the core of the human spirit"...? Then go trekking around Katmandu, work in a third world orphanage, run a marathon. Do something genuine. Watching Oprah doesn't cut it and neither does this sort of crap.
Now it seems very likely that Rebekah Lawrence had some undiagnosed issues, and that People Knowhow cannot be blamed directly for her death. But if you are going to put someone through a course that stressful (it IS regarded as a course that can cause personal distress) you had better be qualified to do more than program computers, and it had better be for more than some corporate soft skills hogwash, and there better be support afterwards.
What a sad waste.
Related article here.
Not only the poor and working classes are gullible Magpie. Even corporate big shots fall prey to these slimeballs that say they have a method to get more productivity and make more money.
ReplyDeleteI won't bore you with some of the crap I was forced to endure while in sales.
It wasn't any kind of deliberate subterfuge that I was inferring, but rather the shallowness of understanding, the egotism and the invasive presumption of these things, and the people who sell them.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're out of Sales, Truth. It doesn't sound fun.
You know, my good friend. Those jackasses sent out to teach corporate motivation are as shallow as the dried up rivers around my desert. Many haven't even managed people in the "real world." As you said, they've been taught how to present the course and they do it by the book.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I hated the pathetic morons, but what I hated worse is the ivory tower “geniuses” who bought into the garbage. Spending millions on the stupid circus act that could have gone to operations improvements instead.
What’s so truly dismal is that the tower asses don’t realize how ridiculously transparent their foolish ideas are.
Ivory tower throne sitters should simply stay out of the field of operations. They should do what they are paid to do, run the corporation from the tower. Every time they think they know how to operate in the field, they burn the field down.