We have all been there. The company is going to have a kickoff event for an enterprise initiative. There is all the hype and execs pretending to be Steve Jobs on stage, a band or DJ, and maybe if you are lucky, you get a corny T-shirt that you would never wear in public. Yay!
So, let’s break this down shall we:
First gripe; often companies will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on such events. And so many times this new initiative or approach to business fizzles out six months later but no one will call it out because they are afraid to embarrass the CEO or execs who came up with this idea. What a waste of time and money. And also horrendous is the fact that there was not only a lot of money spent on said event but when a much smaller amount of money is needed on a real initiative, training, or much needed resource, the company will nickel and dime the request saying something about controlling spending. Hence the old phrase penny wise, pound foolish. Happens all the time.
Second, most of the time these events are a distraction from dealing with the genuine business or organizational issues that need to be addressed. Dealing with these issues is hard and deep work. So, to avoid this work it is easy to distract or give the appearance of doing something about it with one of these ineffective initiatives/events.
Also, these events are rarely sincere. They are directed at the employees to do something different while putting out more effort and yet the executives are not really looking at themselves and figuring out what they must change. The onus thus is put on the employees. At this time in our history, most employees are cynical about such events knowing they will fizzle out as they have seen this movie too many times and know how it ends. Plus, they have figured out that the root causes of issues are not being truly addressed.
Lastly, these happenings often involve some kind of slogan generated by the great minds from the HR or Marketing departments apart from the organization’s sensibilities. Instead of coming up with a real war-cry that unites the company and gets to the heart of the challenges, these slogans more times than not are made for the pleasure of those making it. That is to say, they make something that sounds cool (to them at least) so they can pat each other on the back and pretend they created a catalyst that they think will move the dial enterprise wide.
Om a positive note, events like this can help an organization but only if there is other serious work on the issues being done, the purpose of the event is to focus people on the challenge and not just foster temporary hype and energy, and provide relevant and tangible information and guidance to employees going not just at the event but on continuing basis going forward. Otherwise, it is just cotton-candy, tasting nice in the moment with no lasting impact or nutritional value.