A company I worked for for 17 years fell one of these scams about every third year. The closest any of them came to being useful was the one that used exercises I used with my Boy Scouts. Want to increase our feeling of “teamness”? Skip the con artists & give us the money!
We once had a three-day session from a guy who focused completely on Winnie the Poo. I’m not kidding. The program managers were Eeyor, the marketeers (now called business development) were Tigger, the engineers (us) were Owl, and so on. I have NO IDEA what we learned, but it was better than making PowerPoint presentations.
One of my favorite “bring it out to chuckle about when I’m feeling cornered” memories was when our boss required us (The IT department) to attend an all day (two sessions) seminar on time management and productivity. The whole morning session boiled down to two ideas:
1 partition your tasks into “urgent”, “important” and “other” as they arrive.
2 Immediately handle or delegate urgent tasks and then work only on important ones. Ignore “other” in order to do that.
As we broke for lunch, I approached the (two) seminarians† and told them that I’d spent the morning practicing what they’d taught us, and wouldn’t be back after lunch, as I had several important tasks and very likely, considering that the whole IT department had been out of contact for 3 hours (Seminars seldom start at 8:00 am, and this was before cell phones), quite a few urgent ones. One of them became upset. The other one walked out with me and (quietly) offered me congratulations on catching on so quickly.
PS: I told my boss that story the next day. He never again tried to make us attend a “productivity” or “teamwork” seminar. Smart guy. And up to the day I retired, I did use that “partition” technique quite often. Though not as often as I should have, because, sometimes the “other” tasks were interesting!
Cozmik Cowboy almost 5 years ago
A company I worked for for 17 years fell one of these scams about every third year. The closest any of them came to being useful was the one that used exercises I used with my Boy Scouts. Want to increase our feeling of “teamness”? Skip the con artists & give us the money!
Plods with ...™ almost 5 years ago
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, consult.
Ray_C almost 5 years ago
We once had a three-day session from a guy who focused completely on Winnie the Poo. I’m not kidding. The program managers were Eeyor, the marketeers (now called business development) were Tigger, the engineers (us) were Owl, and so on. I have NO IDEA what we learned, but it was better than making PowerPoint presentations.
ChessPirate almost 5 years ago
“Now, nobody will fill out their RJ-17 form!”
“Yay, team!”
Rush Strong Premium Member almost 5 years ago
The model for the trainer guy was Tim Rickard, of Brewster Rockit fame.
Concretionist almost 5 years ago
One of my favorite “bring it out to chuckle about when I’m feeling cornered” memories was when our boss required us (The IT department) to attend an all day (two sessions) seminar on time management and productivity. The whole morning session boiled down to two ideas:
1 partition your tasks into “urgent”, “important” and “other” as they arrive.
2 Immediately handle or delegate urgent tasks and then work only on important ones. Ignore “other” in order to do that.
As we broke for lunch, I approached the (two) seminarians† and told them that I’d spent the morning practicing what they’d taught us, and wouldn’t be back after lunch, as I had several important tasks and very likely, considering that the whole IT department had been out of contact for 3 hours (Seminars seldom start at 8:00 am, and this was before cell phones), quite a few urgent ones. One of them became upset. The other one walked out with me and (quietly) offered me congratulations on catching on so quickly.
PS: I told my boss that story the next day. He never again tried to make us attend a “productivity” or “teamwork” seminar. Smart guy. And up to the day I retired, I did use that “partition” technique quite often. Though not as often as I should have, because, sometimes the “other” tasks were interesting!
† “seminarians” is a joke.