Why do bosses ask their workers to do this?

I’ve never understood why organizations ask their workers to do silly stuff that really has nothing to do with the kind of job a person can do, or has any relevance to the organization’s success.

 

Like expecting employees to attend various social events.  Why is this kind of thing so important?  Do you really need to feel liked by everyone in your organization?  Do you really think that camaraderie among people can be created? Not likely. If it’s going to happen it’s going to happen naturally. You can’t force it to happen. A better idea would be to have several events that might appeal to large group of people within your organization. Going to a basketball game, volunteering at some kind of activity, or having a day at an amusement park for people with kids are better than expecting people to hang out at the bar after work, or expecting people to donate money so you can “celebrate” every single person’s birthday at the office.

Along those lines, what’s the point of “team-building” exercises? You don’t need to know about an employee’s private life. You do need to know how to help an employee improve their performance on the job.  When hiring a new worker, you need to know if they can do the job in an efficient manner. Asking them what kind of an animal they would like to be isn’t going to help you to determine that.

A person’s private life is considered private because they don’t want the whole world to know about it. Getting to know someone too well can make me want to work with them less, not more. Team-building activities can make people too uncomfortable to work together, not work well as a “team.”  Discuss performance and results, not inner demons.

Another question is, why ask certain people to do someone else’s job?  John has a project to do but hasn’t finished it, so you ask Tom to do it since you know it will get done on time. That’s wrong. If you’re going to do that you better pay Tom a bonus.  Come one, deal with John and let Tom do his own work.

Maybe a lot of these concepts came to be because certain people in organizations didn’t have enough to do, and they felt like they needed to justify their salary. ….