Tactical Genius

Trouble with taking action, is... I've been doing too many other things to be able to sit down and blog. Sorry for the full week without a peep. Here's a wee something, harking back to previous diatribes and musings about motivational speakers...

Browsing the books and blogs of motivational speakers like Robert Holden (see here), I'm struck by how many high-profile conferences and courses and development days he's spoken and coached at. Not all, but most, seem to have been at senior manager or chief exec level. If all these senior managers of all these big organisations are attending these sessions, all about 'love', flexibility, communication and change in the workplace... How come the lower ranks rarely see any change? Or only changes that work them harder, control them more, and increase stress?

Is it just a junket? A 'jolly' for all those at the top of the tree? All the inspiring talk of change, values and success is fun and heady at the time, but implementing it turns out to be too much effort.

Or, is it an indication that things are gradually changing? That interest in these notions is growing? That a tipping point will soon be reached? I'd like to think it's this second option...

But is it? What about when Holden and his ilk get to speak for the lower ranks? The occasion this happened at my work (see previous post here), it created a real feel-good and revolutionary buzz for a day or two, before a 'healthy' dose of cynicism kicked in. We critiqued the speaker's message all to shreds, and went back to the same old. Did management authorise, invite, and pay for both the motivational speaker and all our man-hours because they really wanted change to take place and spread from the bottom of the organisation up? Or was it a good-will gesture of tactical genius? A way of giving us what we want, no, more than what we'd wanted, and then having us crush it all by ourselves?

There would have been the risk that a tiny minority of staff might've been inspired to do something radical and wonderful, or quit (which may amount to the same thing)... But it would arguably be a risk worth taking for those who prefer the status quo. The potential loss of one or two skilled staff who're already wavering, must be more than outweighed by the double-bluff of offering the majority a dream that they reject for themselves.

Image by Martin Kingsley