On the back of last weeks post and the reference to The Office. I had a conversation with an old buddy of mine I worked with when I first started selling.

It was great to chat about old times. As usual the conversation included a good laugh about a notorious boss we both had. As we  looked back it was amusing and outrageous some of the things that went on.

This of course was a number of years ago. When employees where seen and not heard! Particularly brand new sales reps with a swanky new Ford Cortina!

I have been lucky in my sales and management career in working for pretty forward thinking companies. Where people are important and their welfare and development is paramount.

In the new business economy, the only true advantage organisations have is their cultural capital. For the simple amongst us thats the people who work there. The ones that turn up everyday and are totally comitted to what they do. This is never more so than with a sales team.

Get your team firing on all cylinders with an upbeat attitude and they are awesome. Treat them like a number and at best they are uninspired and resentful and at worse and they will walk away.

It is sometimes still surprising for me for me when I go into organisations where old fashioned ways of treating people still go on.

I found a great article. On 50 ways to get employees to quit. I laughed when I read it. Though when I got to the comments I reaslised that many had taken it seriously. Which makes me appreciate how much poor management still goes on. The psychology of how to work with people has still got a long way to go in some organisations.

It would be great to hear how many of you have experiend any of these?

Read on and let me know what you think

The article

I polled the other guys in my group and we built a damn good list of things that our IT manager did that led to him losing his $100K/year job. Note that I left a few specific things out because I don’t need anyone getting pinched. If you repeat these things successfully, you too will get your team to hate you. If you are a reporting to someone that does these things, print this and do the old Office Space under the door routine.

Assign enough projects with tight deadlines so that your team has no choice but to work a 60 hour week while you only work 30 hours

Cap overtime pay.

Do not offer project pay.

Constantly underestimate the time it takes to get things done and then penalize employees’ bonuses because they didn’t hit the goal.

Talk more than you listen.

Tell the team to begin planning for tons of deployments but never obtain the budget to actually implement any of them.

Don’t trust written time cards. Make employees email you when they get to the office so you can see a timestamp when they get in.

Always take sides in disputes instead of moderating.

Avoid looking people in the eye.

Reprimand employees in front of the entire team.

Hire someone that is very weak to take the place of a veteran and expect the same results from the team.

Reprimand Mark but don’t reprimand Tony when he makes the same error.

Consistency is good. Never ask you employees if they are challenged enough or want to take on more responsibility.

Make promises to internal customers but have no idea on the elements involved in getting the task done.

You know that Tony is a slacker, but he is really cool to hang out with so keep him around and give him good reviews.

Suzy can take 20 minute breaks instead of 10 because she’s a little cuter than Paul.

Give your employees 2nd tier systems to work with but expect top tier results.

Never cross train anybody on anything. The skills they walked in with are the skills they are leaving with.

Mandate a new policy without consulting a single person that will have to live with it.

Give employees low raises because the more you save, the higher your bonus.

When talking to an employee on the phone, type away at your email. That’s a great time to catch-up!

When someone comes to you with an issue regarding another employee, use a lot of big words to explain the situation but really take no interest or action.

Create a desk cleanliness policy.

When Suzy comes in late and leaves early, and we complain, do nothing about it.

Instead of offering to help hands-on, watch from a distance and provide support over email.

Mandate that the entire team use a single to-do list application simply because you think it’s best.

Make your best employees train the newbies for weeks at a time but insist that all deadlines be met.

Never answer your cell phone.

Never be the on-call guy to share in the team burden.

Have a group of employees that you get a long with and go out to lunch with while those that you don’t like get left out.

Send employees lots of chain letters, poems and other crap spam when they are hard at work.

Constantly give your employees vague project plans and get pissed when the result is not what you wanted.

Refuse to upgrade a system after the entire team asks for it and then be sure not to give a valid reason.

Blame everything on your boss because no one will ever call you on it.

Make all men wear ties.

Do not let employees expense cell phone use but require a cell phone number for the on-call guy.

Shut off access to Google and Ebay because it’s not “required for work”.

Never let employees hangout and use the corp. network to play games after hours.

Tell employees to do plan B because you will save $11 even though plan A is the safer, more efficient way to go.

I don’t care what they are working on. No one should get a monitor larger than yours

Insist employees come to your wife’s silly Barbecue.

Give advice on topics you are only partially educated in.

When the kudos are handed out, you should take the credit because you managed the team. Do not give credit to anyone else.

Monitor all phone use.

Charge someone .25 days off for a dentist appointment.

Lecture the team at least weekly.

Hold team meetings to provide updates even though the updates only pertain to one-third of team.

Buy the team lunch and always forget that Vegan in the corner…he’ll come around.

Make the team fill out self evaluations but provide very vague feedback on what they type.

Sleep with that girl Suzy on the team. No one will suspect she’s getting preferential treatment.

Call the redhead guy on the team Rusty. Everyone will laugh and you are sure to win their hearts.

Make sure the cubicles are as close to each other as physically possible. The open areas surrounding the group will be used eventually.

Make the entire team read a book and then set aside 3 hours to discuss it. This is sure to increase productivity.

Let a couple people work from the house, but provide no reason for it or ways for others to obtain the right.

Insist that employees complete projects that even you admit are worthless.
In the new business economy

As industry and business has moved on

As time moves on and

I am sure there are many more ways than this to demoralise a team

Yes these things still go on. Not with Sales Team of course. Let me know how many of these you have experienced.

To you and your teams success

Best Wishes

Denise