#Stately: Scare Tactics Work

by Audrey O'Rouke
September 13, 2006

Survey results released Monday by the Leadership Awareness Management Experience show that scare tactics will easily work on twenty-five percent of the workforce.

“We are extremely pleased to be able to confirm information that has been passed around as rumor for far too long,” said Ivan Carson, president of the Los Vegas-based LAME, the nation’s largest coalition of professionals dedicated to deflating morale in a workplace. “Much of the results are expected, and we are eager to take our results and apply them to a wider employment environment.”

In the survey, LAME members worked undercover at various state agencies in management positions to instigate a series of “scare tactics” to test whether said methods boosted productivity and lowered morale. The tactics were defined, according to LAME members, as “an appeal to force or threat, instead of trying to convince someone with facts or a logical argument, the person with undesirable consequence. Typically the result is not a change of opinion, but an action (or sometimes a failure to take action).” Results showed that about a quarter of a given group of twenty believed their manager’s attempts to jolt employees into working harder and longer. This is slightly lower than 40% that had been thought to be convinced.

Vinnie “the Tooth” Dimacko, the undercover LAME member acting as manager of the State Administration of Human Services and Health Related Stuff’s Prescription Services unit, told how he could scare the Help Desk improving operating. “Yea, see, I’s told zem grunts that’s they gots to pusha themselves. Theysa all do a lot of shoddy werk and all. Youa no get raise and da unit cannot hire additional staff if youse guys don’t shows up more often and gets the levels down. Ya punks!”

“I found the results staggering,” SAHSHRS employee Jillian Johnson said. “I mean, I knew the call volume was higher than normal and our service levels were sinking further down the toilet than Bill’s lunch but I didn’t know that if we didn’t get our numbers back up our job would be turned over to outside contractors. At least that's what Mr. Dimacko said.” “Yeah, that Dimacko fella really made me change my ways,” employee Willihelm Mauhweuher said following a meeting with his manager. “I really had no clue that because I didn’t show up regularly and failed to comprehend whatever it is I do with,,,the stuff...on my desk...that I could lose my job. I’d hate that – it’s my livelihood.” But some saw through the thin threats and weak lies.

“I don’t know when I saw the light, but it wasn’t long thereafter,” said Jerome Whitley, a member of the Prescription Services team. “We had the meeting about how our jobs would be out-sourced if we didn’t get our service level back up and how Vinnie would prefer us all to work a full nine hours, forgoing lunch and breaks to concentrate on calls. But I went and talked with Her Majesty the Bureau Chief, and I discovered there had not been any thought of getting rid of our staff.”

Even with such detractors, Carson and other LAME professionals are pleased with the findings. “It just shows how gullible people are and how they react more to wild speculation than confirmed decisions from middle management.”