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During a particularly weird HR intervention at a branch office I worked at, all the managers were required to sit through a team building exercise where we were
by motohagiography 4y ago
During a particularly weird HR intervention at a branch office I worked at, all the managers were required to sit through a team building exercise where we were handed crayons, construction paper, glitter, markers and other kindergarten craft tools, and required to create some kind of personal expression and share the result with each other.
The intervention was in response to some big attrition and rage quits on the engineering team, and a general disconnect between that office and the rest of the company. Forgetting for a moment that a group of adults had to create these objectively demeaning expressions and then present what the glitter or animal stickers represented to each other, and to an exec with hire/fire authority, HR collected the artifacts at the end of the session - and when we returned to the office the next day, they were hung on the walls for all the managers' staff to see what we had accomplished on a day long retreat while everyone was under immense deadline pressure to ship features. One engineer saw these pathetic clusters of multi coloured clutter taped to the walls and with the horror of someone whose invested career so far depended on performance reviews from said managers, she asked, "seriously, what the hell is this?" We had pissed off eng staff to begin with, but what the exec team thought we needed was a kind of coup de grace to utterly discredit managers as men and women in front of the people whose livelihoods depended on their leadership.
Since then, what I have come to think these exercises are is a test of supplication, and of whether you can convincingly and competitively debase yourself better than your next peer. It was a kind of race to the bottom to demonstrate how sincerely you could erase your humanity and individuality in service to the narrative of a team, and what you were willing to do to survive. I've even come to suspect it's a system, where they take average people with impostor syndrome, make them debase and humiliate themselves in front of others, and then leverage the shame of the exercise into a new cruelty and compensatory sadism to squeeze out marginal effort from their staff. Now when I see glitter and crayons, I am reminded of how they tried to teach me to hate.
- jayd16 4y agoI think you're reading too much signal from the noise of an HR team with no good ideas.
- tubalcain 4y agoWell put and succinct! Mandatory child games like the one you described above are confidence busting exercisee, done to demoralize your colleagues to the point where they feel quitting isn't an option because they see themselves as barely worthy of the job they already have.
- 7fYZ7mJh3RNKNaG 4y ago> I've even come to suspect it's a system The "Immoral Mazes"[1] sequence from LessWrong may be of interest for you. Maybe jump straight into "Does Big Business Hate Your Family?"[2], but I recommend reading the whole thing. [1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS [2]: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS/p/229FkbLrhat9JLhwQ https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS/p/229FkbLrhat9...
- motohagiography 4y agoInteresting drill down and I like lesswrong, I just wish we had a more cogent set of values and criticisms that had legs, as even I'm guilty of just over articulating complaints. We can get traction against office problems like yelling, swearing, disagreeableness, teasing, chirping, and fratboy behavior, but by analogy, sorority level passive aggression, gaslighting, malicious rumors, lying, gossip, spying, whisper networks, and related animus doesn't have a critical framework to recognize it. We can tell stories about this stuff, and lesswrong is gratifying, but I haven't seen a cogent critical theory on this stuff that has legs where we can say, "hey, this really is problematic" in a meaningful way.
- 908B64B197 4y ago> The intervention was in response to some big attrition and rage quits on the engineering team, and a general disconnect between that office and the rest of the company. Forgetting for a moment that a group of adults had to create these objectively demeaning expressions and then present what the glitter or animal stickers represented to each other, and to an exec with hire/fire authority If HR has fire authority, you are doing something wrong with the org chart.
- kinos 4y agoThats horrifying. I think I'd genuinely just start eating the construction paper out of protest.
- prometheus76 4y agoWhat you've explained here sounds very much like a low-grade Maoist struggle session. Or "denunciation rally".
- trts 4y agoThis was nicely written, and I don't know how the general experience was across the team performing this ceremony, but it is revealing that very many people completed the exercise at all. When I've found myself in similar situations, part of what has dismayed me is observing that at least half of the people seem to enjoy it. It'd be nicer to think this was just management jerking the leash; The actual enthusiasm from colleagues is doubly alienating.
- nescioquid 4y ago> I have come to think these exercises are is a test of supplication, and of whether you can convincingly and competitively debase yourself better than your next peer. I sold you and you sold me under the spreading chestnut tree. In corporate environments, more often than one would hope, one runs into an extortionist gatekeeper who just wants their ego placated. But that HR story...what's horrifying is that they probably thought they were really helping.
- dtagames 4y ago> I sold you and you sold me under the spreading chestnut tree. A prescient quote from the book 1984.