Out Of Juice

‘IF Ricky Gervais earned a penny for every time his alter ego, David Brent, was used to illustrate a story of office life, he’d be rolling in loose change.

‘But there’s a ‘me’ if you search hard enough’

So here’s Brent’s image today being employed to enliven a story in the Mail that reveals how messages designed to motivate staff have the opposite effect.

A survey by recruitment firm Office Angels found that peppering your staff with phrases like ‘There’s no ‘i’ in team’, ‘I praise loudly and blame softly’ and ‘I can’t spell success without you’ will brand you as clichéd and patronising.

Whatever the merits of heuristic reciprocal flexibility and so forth and so on, the phrase guaranteed to get your staff into a state of open revolt, the one that takes the pip, is to say ‘J.U.I.C.E’.

If you don’t know what this stands for, you may either be lucky or lacking in motivation. But, for the record, it means: ‘Join Us In Creating Enthusiasm.’

Enthusiasm for what is not specified, but use it enough and it may be for your own murder…’

Posted: 19th, November 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink