The title to this post caught my eye because I have always found it amusing that so many companies have a class of employees who have the job of dreaming up way

The title to this post caught my eye because I have always found it amusing that so many companies have a class of employees who have the job of dreaming up ways to squeeze more work out of employees. Or at least, that is how some people tend to operate in that role. I find the advice in the article to be generic, creepy, and patronizing. Patronizing: > As a manager, you are in charge of handling millennials’ emotions and ensuring that they are motivated to contribute their best effort to the organization. So, millennials can't handle their own emotions or be managers themselves? Gen-Xers and Boomers promoted to management by virtue of the fact that they are not millennials? Why even make this about millennials? Creepy: > An employee’s happiness quotient depends upon 4 factors – supervisor, recognition, job, company. Ask them to rate these factors on a scale to 10 and if their score is less than 28, you have a disengaged and unmotivated employee. Pro tip: Play mind games with your employees to find out if they are motivated or not and then keep a score of the results that you can use to track their motivation score behind their back. Seriously, don't do this at all. This is terrible advice. Best case scenario is the employee is oblivious to the objective and worse case is this becomes a new metric to game. Human metrics will be gamed. It is inevitable. This type of shenanigan will make people resent you. Generic: > A simple question about their health and personal life will help them find a connection with you. A light-hearted banter would help them in understanding you better. This sounds like advice you would give an alien who is about to meet a human for the first time. That is to say, this is obvious advice. > Discuss the performance blockers and challenges More obvious and generic advice. > Start with a check-in about their general well-being Extend common platitudes to your employees. Ground breaking. This is a marketing piece meant to sell software for tracking one on one meetings. However, in case any managers are reading and think this sounds like great advice, here is some alternative advice. I have had managers who inspired me to do my best work, managers who inspired me to walk out the door, and managers who did not inspire me at all. I have been a good leader and a bad leader. When I was a bad leader I thought human metrics mattered and that I could control outcomes by using the metrics guide my decision making. This caused friction and resentment. When I was a good leader, I was genuine with the people I was working with and the rest flowed effortlessly. The managers I appreciated the most were also genuine. Genuine is a state of being and there is no formula to create that state. If there was, it would not longer be genuine. It would be synthetic.