Not long ago at $JOB I sat through what I call "mandatory psychobabble day". The particular psychobabble being peddled to, or rather, imposed on, us was the DISC system -- a variant of which was recently outed on Hackernews as pernicious hucksterism which somehow held much of Sweden in its sway. It was supposed to make us better collaborators, under the rubric that understanding the traits of both your own star sign under this 20th century horoscope and those of your coworkers will enable you to formulate better communication strategies. Oddly, the most fruitful discussions that day, or at any time at $JOB, were held without reference to DISC at all.

My single moment of satisfaction was in trolling the interlocutor at the end. He still recognizes and smiles to me in the halls, which tells me my trolling was sufficiently subtle.

You must have more tact than me. I caught the ire of the iridologist when I asked 'What if we disagree with the chart?' Could not find a more uncomfortable way to spend a morning.

For anyone else wondering:

Iridology: the inspection of the iris of the eye as an aid in determining a person's state of health or in diagnosing a health problem.

What did the instructor do to you for the remainder of the morning?

I was used as the example for the rest of the session. Either I could take it in stride or dig in. That was not the hill I wanted to die on so I sucked it up. Still find it hard to let go of it though.

Or he also realizes that it’s bullshit. I led a “diversity workshop” in my company at the request of management because I’m known to be an excellent public speaker. The content was 100% crap but I was commended for my work and was rewarded for it so I’d gladly do another.

I also got invited to one of these diversity workshops at $JOB once, by our VP of diversity. Cost was >$5000 but I would have to get my manager to pay for it. They sent this email to me, not my manager. No thanks.

Edit: why the downvote? You could tell me what I did wrong

Link for the recent HN DISC post? Not finding it via search and would be interested to read...

For anyone else wondering if Bitwize just came up with the word of the week or Psychobabble is really a thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychobabble

Do you have a link to the HN article about DISC?

I think it was about Thomas Ericson.

Edit: found it! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22064530

When Japanese companies came to the West some of them tried to push the Japanese company culture into their subsidiaries without any modifications.

Starting workday with everyone standing in attention outside and singing company song when company flag was hoisted did not go well.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)

If by not go well, I'm assuming you mean adopted by many American firms. I'm assuming you're unfamiliar with "the Wal-Mart cheer".

I'd love to say it was isolated, but my wife worked for a big 4 consultancy firm straight out of university. Just do a Google search for "Ernst and young happy day". I'd paste a link, but I'm afraid I'd actually have to watch it again...

There's a long history of US firms doing this sort of thing. IBM used to have an official songbook and employees would sing "Ever Onward" like they were at a school pep rally.

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_EO1.htm...

Actually, I'm not a historian in this area, but it would be fascinating to know whether this kind of thing actually started in America, got exported after ww2 (like Japanese baseball), and then reimported with new/old takes from the likes of Japan post 80s and seemed weird to the now globalizing US corporate culture. (Like how 'do the needful' supposedly got imported into India during the days of the English empire, fell out of use in the modern English world, and is now being reimported from India).

I only bring it up as there are just so many parallels in American culture that would see corporate team building and identity type activities as a natural extension: prep rallies, cheer leaders, pledges, marching bands, frats, school songs, etc.

These activities have some parallels outside the US, but they're activities that can seem distinctly 'weird' and not done to the same extent if you come from outside the US.

And not only do we have actual history (ibm) and many contemporary US companies doing these kinds of practices, in many ways the practices make much more sense if taken as a natural extension of already common American cultural practices...

Oh man, I'm getting flashbacks to the cringe I felt the first time I heard the KPMG song: https://youtu.be/NCvKXgp-Awo

It's no coincidence that corporate anthems like this sound similar to the Scientology hymn We Stand Tall: https://youtu.be/XyNh1j3dsp8

You need to tell us what happened

LOL. I’d do it if they had those adorable Japanese mascot characters.

𝅘𝅥𝅮 There's a thrill in store for all 𝅘𝅥𝅮

𝅘𝅥𝅮 For we're about to toast 𝅘𝅥𝅮

𝅘𝅥𝅮 The corporation known in every land... 𝅘𝅥𝅮

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ChoHNEgRI

I used to work in a facility that was doing manufacturing as well as software/engineering. The manufacturing techs were generally treated like cattle and subjected to this stuff as most of them were max high school level education and/or foreign and while plenty intelligent, didn't have the financial capability to tell them to fuck off. As such they were generally able get them to play along with all the synergizification training because whether they bought into it or not, they were conditioned to play along through social pressure.

I think what we're seeing is the same principles that worked on the mid century manufacturing laborers being refined for the information economy age.

What a waste of time! People doing processing of any kind, be it biology, chemical, or mechanical, require certain spaces of time through the day to be free so they can do their job efficiently. This kind of bullshit is the worst possible interruption for such workers and would certainly produce the maximum possible resentment towards management.

I had a former employer do a mandatory Sean Delaney-led session for thousands of employees. I found it to be quite good, but much of our dysfunction was at the leadership level (directors stabbing each other in the back, etc.), and leadership—despite also attending the sessions (management had even more training, IIRC)—quickly reverted to the same toxic habits.

My trick for no multitasking: pen and paper notebook. Looks like I’m taking notes, I’m actually working on my novel.

> every employee had to attend a course that took between one and three whole work days, with no multitasking allowed

That reminded me of the Clockwork Orange.

I call it ritualized spanking. a la "the beatings will continue until morale improves". Even more effective than fat shaming.

"Heidrick & Struggles" -- the second part of that name is apt!