Revolt of the desk slaves
`Team-building exercises, leadership weekends, mission statement planning meetings and three-monthly performance reviews are embedded in workplace culture – but do not always attract goodwill from workers. [..]
Many such techniques, including leadership weekends at golf clubs, and office running groups and sports teams, encourage the sentiment of being a “team player”, says Jim Bright, senior lecturer in the University of NSW’s School of Psychology. However, he says that team activities serve only to instil conformity. [..]
Management tools can, at best, be a waste of company resources and, at worst, can create a poisonous atmosphere in the office, says Bright. Performance reviews, where you evaluate your peers and your boss, can be nothing more than “circular lying”.’
The friend who sent me this link apparently had a team building exercise a few years back where he and his coworkers had to build scarecrows. I once went to a team building seminar thing where some obnoxious woman went around shoving a microphone in peoples faces demanding they talk in a stupid voice infront of 300-odd coworkers. It’s ridiculous.
