The motivation to write this post stemmed from a meeting I had with a client where I noticed dumbfounding characteristics about corporate employees. The meeting was about a presentation on which I’m currently working. How can Corporate America continue to be profitable when it seems like not getting fired is the primary focus of the majority of corporate employees?
How do you spend your time? Is your time or motivation being soaked up by gossiping or the fear of getting fired? I searched Google for “how do I not get fired”. As a result, it came back with 64 million articles, blogs and websites lol. What is wrong with people?
Beating Around The Bush in Today’s Corporate America
Corporate employees literally spend so much time dancing around conversations and trying not to commit. They’re simply trying not to get fired so consequently, they don’t express sometimes pivotal facts and ideas. I see this more and more and it has become prevalent to me because I come from a “noncorporate” background.
While creating a presentation that was consumer-facing (for the general public), the presentation had to be reviewed by compliance. This presentation was for a client in the financial services industry. The people in compliance kept pointing fingers at each other, rather, and no one wanted to answer my question. They didn’t want to tell me exactly what they wanted. It blew my mind.
As I was putting together this presentation, I had compliance tell me that I shouldn’t use certain phrases that talk directly about an issue. They said that I should instead use words such as, “may we suggest”, “for example”, and “as a suggestion”. This is instead of just coming out and telling them what you want them to do and what you want them to know. Pair this with a coworker of mine, who is a brilliant person. He’s much smarter and more analytical than I am and he tells me, “I don’t think you can really say that. I don’t think you should really put that in your presentation”.
Blending in & The Lack of Motivation
When I got up the next day, I decided to go on a run. I was in Georgia by a river, and doing sprints on the river walk. I thought to myself during my ‘unplugged time’, “Everybody is spending half of their time in Corporate America just trying not to get fired, not having an opinion, and not telling people what they really think. They’re not commenting directly and instead, they’re talking behind people’s backs.” It made me feel sad.
To think that employees can try to work NOT too fast, or work NOT too slow. The employees think, “I don’t want to stick out” and “I don’t want to get noticed”. WTF. Most of all, blend this slow “Steady Eddy” mentality with all the “water cooler” talk. They are probably only at 30-50% production for that corporation. Seems like the corporation has a skewed perception of what factors can boost revenues.
I don’t understand this. Please explain to me how people can get a job and then how that job gets away with motivating them to be “complacent” or lazy!
I can sit down and work for four hours and the only reason I will even stop and get up is that I need to use the bathroom so bad that I could literally pee my pants!!
Misinformation & Deception in Corporate America
I walked into an office today and met with one prospect but the office had 7-8 prospects that needed to hear what I had to say. On my way out I ask the office manager, “Do you hold group meetings? Which is a blatant lie. She went on to explain that they are NOT part of a larger organization with any sort of hierarchy, furthermore, she does not have a boss. This is all BS. The company that employed her hired me to help them lol. She was happy not to help, which meant she was not committing, not going out on a limb, and not going above and beyond. She was just doing barely enough. It was mind-boggling to me. It was dumbfounding.
How do you spend your time? What do you focus on? How do you treat others?
What’s your working style? Do you stand up straight and walk tall?
What’s your thought process in the workplace? Do you motivate yourself?