Well, who wouldn't be motivated by a barking toilet seat

My friend John sent me this  link to a local Houston blog he saw that noted a curious motivational tactic used by a sales VP at Royce Home Builders.

While I am surely no expert on what might motivate a sales force in the home building biz, I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that being forced to rub a toilet seat with my boss' face painted on it, while chanting the company's name.

The toilet seat would also be manipulated, puppet-like, and would seem to be barking out the name Royce.

It couldn't have been that powerful of a motivator, since the VP who used it was apparently laid off recently as part of some pretty substantial cut backs at the company.

I've been to a number of sales conferences, so I've seen my share of motivational speakers, but nothing like this.

No, I've just been subjected to videos of football tackles, rah-rah chanting, and - once - a pep talk by Mia Hamm. (She was actually pretty good.)

I've also seen some anti-motivators in my time, like the product line VP at one company I worked for who started his preso on his new products with a bastardization of Thomas Hobbes. "Last year," our VP intoned, "was nasty, brutish, and short."

Well, I had remembered it as nasty and brutish, but it hadn't seemed all that short.

At the same sales conference, the VP of my product line told the sales force that we'd be "moving forward with all the momentum of an entrenched juggernaut." I was sitting next to my buddy Bill and he yelped, "How much momentum does something entrenched have?"

I was too caught up in trying to figure out why anyone would want to use the image of a juggernaut  - entrenched or otherwise.

Another time - same company - the president came by a meeting with my group and said that the only reason we'd been successful the year before was because the market was up. That was pretty much true, but I sure wish he'd thrown us a bone or two about our hard work.

Ah, motivation.

If it were all that easy, no one would have to resort to the barking toilet seat, I guess.