Discussion on:

What happened to enthusiasm?

Management expect us to focus on the problems. I'd rather focus on the solutions. And being able to be proud on company achievements certainly helps.

Was very interesting to read your views, companies often focus on what needs attention in the future without praising recent achievements.

This could be as simple as an email praising a new software achievement. Great for the individuals involved but also as a way of showing things actually do change and aren't just expected results in the future.

Not only when it comes to quarterly meetings. This is known since early times in history.......

Sorry, this enthusiasm you seek is often in the form of a off coloured beverage followed by a deep sleep. I'll pass....

Your comment exemplifies what's wrong in many corporations today. They are "dehumanized" with their solitary focus on profit and productivity and a total disregard for those who perform the work that garners them those profits and that productivity. Profit, profit, profit. Productivity, productivity, productivity. Sadly, that is all many workers hear while the company regularly posts profits quarter after quarter. The other part of the problem is that many times the WRONG people have been promoted to powerful positions within a company, and as long as the profits and productivity remain high, those wrongly promoted individuals retain their positions without regard to those rank and file employees who's efforts are largely responsible for the productivity and profits.

"The other part of the problem is that many times the WRONG people have been promoted to powerful positions within a company."

Many people who want to get ahead are just in it for the power and the money, not because they want to push their organizations to new heights of productivity and creativity and not because they are great performers. They are motivated solely by self interest. Therefore, on the way up, they learn to flatter the right people, polish the right apples, and schmooze their way to the top. Once they get there, they make the right friends, attend the right parties, and join the right country clubs. Then, even if they screw up, the CEOs are reluctant to let them go because they are buddies, and no one wants to lay off his buddy. Upper management is impressed by the latest sparkly thing, program, or buzzword that is going to save the world, and many times, they make decisions solely on the basis of the hottest technology -- not the technology that is a good fit for the application. Then the manager retires, rolling in money, leaving the plebes to struggle with the problems brought about by the manager's poor decisions. Of course, after much money has been thrown at the development of an application built upon the wrong technology, upper management is reluctant to throw in the towel and admit that a mistake was made. The plebes who manage the tool are the ones who have to live with it. How can anyone be enthusiastic when they are forced to live with the mistakes of their "superiors", and forced to be the "fall guy" when the tool fails to meet the expectations of the organization?

Sounds just like Webroot

This is what they're being taught in the B-schools.
They're looking for the main chance to gain money and power for themselves, not to make good products... and incidentally have everyone in the company benefit from the profits deriving therefrom.

When the execs get "enthusiastic" these days hold onto your silver and gold because they're hatching another scam that will leave you and much of the citizenry worse off.

It used to be that the STEM workers were enthusiastic. We were great believers in meritocracy. If anyone came up with a great new idea, we all cheered and jumped in to make it happen and reap rewards proportionally. (Oh, and the big-small dichotomy is bogus. I'm thinking of the biggest conglomerate where I worked, and where cross-operational synergies happened frequently.) We really did do great things to make all kinds of our own and other companies' products better.

Now, it's all image and zero substance. Cheapness without value (even without ethical values).

The other thing that's happened as an effect of this shift is that we've all gone through our A lists of most promising seeming employers, the B list, C list... No one is enthusiastic. We don't like the execs evil schemes. We don't like the low-quality over-priced products. We don't like being bodyshopped. We want real jobs, again, making great new products, and new kinds of products to serve good purposes.

I remember an "all hands meeting" held by my last Fortune 500 employer where they were showing us the latest quarterly results. Our division, US based IT vs. a global powerhouse that everyone would know, was proudly touting their results on a Powerpoint presentation.

Our division leader was crowing about a return to profitability on the slides. I had to look twice but was still astounded. Our division managed a $40K profit with 700 FTE employees for the month! In my previous employer this would not even have been a rounding error!

Needless to say, it was about a year before I was laid off due to economic factors. I should have jumped ship right and then when I saw the slide.

Everything in big corps are so manufactured that you can just replay the previous quarter's meeting video and change the figures. Voila! you have seen the FUTURE.

I just hate it when they temper good news with the dreaded 'but' and never seem to stop emphasizing on the balance sheet...like when did enthusiasm, creativity, hospitality, get quantifiable!!!

I guess the reason the executives are not enthusiastic is they're not all that interested in what they are doing. If you prefer your staff to be passionate, keen, enthusiastic etc. instead of just good at what they do, you'd best make sure that they are able to bring their interests to work and make use of them.

When I was in the US Navy back in the mid-1960s, the commanding officer at my naval air base spoke to us a couple of days before Xmas. He said "There will be a Christmas party on Christmas Eve. You will all come, and you will have fun!"

I guess you can order people to be enthusiastic. You just can't reasonably expect anyone but the toadies and sycophants to actually take such orders seriously.

"Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans"

Friday is Hawaiian shirt day. You are required to wear a Hawaiian shirt. That didn't really happen, but it was something similar. My department, to build "team spirit" required everyone to wear a certain color on day... yellow. 1) the color is not one that looks good with all skin tones. 2) I'm one of those people. It makes me look like I need a liver transplant. 3) I own nothing with that color. 4) I and most employees came to work without wearing that color.

When asked, I replied that if I was going to be required to wear a uniform, then I'd expect a uniform allowance. Until then, I was following the organizations dress policy. All it did was fuel resentment instead of team spirit.

When told to stand in a circle and fall back and trust my co-workers to catch me, I refused on the grounds that catching me had nothing to do with their job descriptions, and that while I knew they were good that their jobs and trusted they were trained to answer the phones, file, etc..., I was not confident that they'd been trained in the latest rescue techniques, and I'd require proof of their paramedic licenses. Luckily, the instructor had a good sense of humor.

I always thought it was only the Germans who had ways to make you laugh.

Lack of enthusiasm is because all the money is made by the Management and Shareholders! Does profit growth reflect on salaries and incentives of employees everytime? Hardly! No matter how much you slog, your earnings depend on that appraisal or review (that's very much politics driven) and not on profits. So who cares really? "There's not much in it" and naturally you can't expect any enthusiasm to flow out like some fresh desert spring. It's money that really motivates - SHOW US THE CASH, WE'LL SHOW YOU THE ENTHUSIASM!!

.... I worked as a beach photographer. I recall one woman, harrassed by her three children on their way down to the beach: "You're going to enjoy yourselves whether you like it or not". I still chuckle over that one.

For the record, and despite the fact that we suspect that all appraisals are 'satisfactory' (no pay rise above cost of living), my employer really does big up its employees. I like working where I do despite the fact that I could earn more elsewhere. Job satisfaction is worth several thousand a year.....

How about telling the gang they had a great third quarter, mention a few people by name who helped make it happen (and not just those who are high-profile to begin with), and express some excitement and gratitude to employees?
.. And a cheque as a token of appreciation.

My Gawd, man, don't you realize that giving money to corporate employees (unless they're top executives who cause the corp. to lose money and shed employees) for whatever reason reduces the amount that can be paid to the saintly stockholders whose invisible spirits dictate the direction in which the invisible hand of the free market travels? What would Ayn Rand, von Mises, von Hayek, and Milton Friedman say about that? "Not in the objective self-interest of the corporation to pay more than necessary for human resources when they're so cheap and abundant these days."