Fear breeds cowards
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Mr Geoffrey Pink, group training manager 'of RHM Ltd, had been invited to talk on "Men at workâmotivation and attitudes," by the PTA president, Mr Bob Beckham. The address was 'a tour de force; in the view of many present one of the moist brilliant extempore talks ever heard at a conference.
Geoff Pink's aim was to shock people into thinking about the real work motivators. He quoted from Jerome K. Jerome : "It (work) fascinates me. I sit and look at it for hours," and from Thomas Carlyle, who once wrote : "Blessed is he who has found his work; let him seek no other blessedness."
Most people, in Mr Pink's view, felt like both the quoted writers at times. For good measure he quoted the near1Vlarxian view of St Paul : "If any would not work, neither should he eat." And then he analysed the all-too-typical industrial 'situation in Britain today. Excessive de-skilling of jobs had meant that the intelligent workers could 'only get relief from boredom in striking, or organising strikes and confrontation's.
Mr Pink discussed the Common motivators of money, fear, sticks and carrots and exhortation. He felt that those who backed money exclusively regarded men and women as machines. The use of fear could make people into cowards, with demoralisation of management as an end product. He quoted from a sales manual : "Two pats on the nose and one one the back and people actually enjoy it ! " Were men such donkeys ?
The exhortation idea could also be 'heavily critioised. People responded in different ways. "The Scunthorpe grocer may not be impressed by war imageries and sandbagged barricades."