Day 7: Slow death

How nice to see Elke, who now has the responsibility to administer the art collection of the Deutsche Bahn. Building on this week's theme, the key topic that came out of our discussion was the struggle that large organizations have in delivering a consistent and personally relevant engagement to their employees.
The solution to employee motivation for many companies like this  is to send teams on multi-day seminars.

Although I am a big fan of extra mural activities and feeding people well at these seminars, this kind of adventure often becomes the only adventure in the employee's entire year. So for the participants the things that become important are: 1. Who are the people I get along with who will be there so we can hide together, 2. What will the food and hotel be like, 3. Will I be able to make a case for a salary increase once I have been. No comment on how this maps back to Maslow.

The absolute killer though comes when people go on these off sites, generate brilliant visions of the future and return to have their ideas ripped to shreds by the bosses and stakeholders who did not share the experience. Workshops are famous for generating a lot of energy and ideas very quickly, and being forgotten and irrelevant once you return home.

The focus is on the activity (workshopping) and not the outcome (real change in the organization). As long as these extraordinary moments of collaboration, and the permission they give people to express creativity, are treated as exceptional, they cannot be sustained by the mundane, predictable and repeatable confines of "the day job". Are there any management courses that go beyond building the skills required to write great business plans and actually teach leaders how to sustain trust, excitement and passion? Beyond the managers, it seems that most of consulting models demand and propogate a pendulum like swing between success and failure. Separated from the true feelings and interests of the mass of employees, this little dance must surely lead to the slow death of enthusiasm and engagement.