Don’t throw Education, Motivation and Training at employees until you add the adhesive that will make it stick – “The Desired Culture”.  Are you the employer that thinks you can stick people in a room with a motivational speaker until they get motivated.  Do you show them videos and send them newsletters promoting motivation in the work place?  And do you do all of this in vein because you failed to determine what the real needs of your employees are?  

Now don’t get me wrong I believe in motivational seminars, heck I am a motivational speaker.  But lets be clear if things are going wrong at home or at work its difficult if not impossible to get motivated.   Its like trying to put a Band-Aid on a deep wound.  It will not work.  First you’ve got to stitch up the wound, bandage it and then treat, not treat symptoms alone.

I know one organization I worked with that has sent folks to sit through a Fish-Tales video multiple times in hopes of sparking change.  This is ignoring the deeper root of the problem.  Motivational seminars and training is designed to support what is already occurring in an organization not creating it from scratch.

Once I had an employer ask me if I would be willing to conduct a motivational seminar for his employees.  I was excited to say the least.  I then asked several questions that would undermine my opportunity to get the gig.  I asked the CEO; “Are your people motivated?”  He said “Oh No, that will be your job”.  I told him that if his people felt they were being well treated then my seminar would be helpful and well received, But if they feel that they are not well taken care of, then he would be pouring salt on an open wound.  He and his organization could suffer and I could suffer from the ineffectiveness and inability to help his staff.  Employees would feel that management believed only the employees had a problem.

This one organizations employees that I spoke with have since proclaimed the “Fish-Tales” program to be a farce and not worthy of their time.  You see the Fish-Tales philosophy is excellent.  But now it has a bad rap because of the way it was administered.  Furthermore, back to the other CEO, I spoke of, if I had done the seminar, then later the employees would proclaim that what I had to offer was also of no value.  It was not the delivery that would have been the problem, it would have been lack of preparation for success from follow-up and follow-through.

So the next time you think about Educating , Motivating, or Training your staff, create a plan for delivery, implementation, follow-up and follow through or simply state this is a program designed to entertain and nothing more.  Oh, and by the way I told that CEO that if his people did not feel well treated, that hiring a comedian might be more beneficial, that way no one would have any future expectation about the presentation. And unfortunately, the entertainment would be short lived.

Article originally appeared in Ezine Articles