Harvard Business Review Online | Let Me Take You Down
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Let Me Take You Down
Millions of people use motivational products to boost their
workplace enthusiasm. Lawrence Kersten finds that really
depressing.
A Conversation with Lawrence Kersten
Lawrence Kersten and Leigh Buchanan
Lawrence Kersten is no fan of soaring eagles, majestic peaks, or other icons of the motivational industry. He is
tired of bric-a-brac exalting “Leadership!” “Ambition!” “Success!” And he’s skeptical of such popular motivational
programs as Fish!, a management philosophy that initiates corporations into the secrets of counterintuitively
peppy fishmongers in Seattle. So Kersten, a former professor of organizational communication, decided to beat
up on the upbeat. In 1998, Kersten, along with Justin and Jef Sewell, founded Despair Inc., an Austin, Texas,
marketer of “demotivational products” that promise to “unleash the power of mediocrity.” The company’s
offerings include posters that trumpet such antivalues as “Arrogance” and “Irresponsibility” and note cards that
proclaim “Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.” Although
Despair Inc. is a real business, it is also a spot-on satire of the kind of walkless talk that characterizes too many
corporate morale-building programs. Kersten, whose book, The Art of Demotivation, is due out this summer,
recently spoke with senior editor Leigh Buchanan about motivation’s dark underbelly.
What do you have against motivation?
That’s a bit of a loaded question. I don’t have anything against motivation if you’re talking about genuine
inspiration, the values-driven desire to achieve a goal or well-designed incentives. But what a lot of motivational
gurus do is whip their targets into a frenzy of self-adulation, point them in the direction of their jobs, and say
“Go.” Sometimes they are instructed to work harder, sometimes to be nicer. But the process is the same: Inflate
them with emotional gas, and tell them they are now equipped to succeed. The newly energized targets make
unreasonable declarations about what they are going to achieve. Then they set off doing the same thing they did
before, only now they believe they can “make it happen.” Soon reality begins to chip away at their confidence.
Naturally, there are plenty of books and tapes they can buy to help recapture that magic feeling until the next
seminar.
Thousands of people profess to be genuinely energized by movements, like Fish!, that espouse some
of the philosophies Despair Inc. mocks. How do you explain that?
Thousands of people are also excited about the exercise gadgets and diet programs they have purchased
through infomercials, but manufacturers have recently begun making scales that measure up to 1,000 pounds.
One of the hallmarks of Fish! is an idea that’s a perennial favorite of the motivational industry: Namely, you
have the power to choose your attitude, so you should choose to be positive, no matter what your
circumstances. This idea gained credibility through Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning, which chronicled
the author’s experiences as a prisoner in a World War II concentration camp. For a person in a state of absolute
subjugation, it’s logical to make the best of things and try to salvage sanity. Many people feel they are in
similarly helpless situations: stuck in jobs they don’t like, powerless to improve things, devoid of opportunity.
The notion that they can choose to be positive, that the company will endorse having fun at work, gives them
hope.
Others, though, would rather improve their situation than make peace with it. For example, technical support
representatives may grow weary of dealing with customers who are irate about unreliable service offerings. They
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Harvard Business Review Online | Let Me Take You Down
might think the Fish! philosophy would amount to a tacit agreement to be the sacrificial lambs for the company’s
poorly engineered products. I would expect those people either to pressure the organization to make products
that are more reliable or to find another place to work.
Isn’t state of mind influenced by environment? So why doesn’t surrounding oneself with positive
messages improve one’s outlook?
If individuals voluntarily surround themselves with motivational products they find inspiring, there may be a
mildly positive influence. The products remind them of values or principles they find important. But when a
company surrounds employees with “inspiring” thoughts and ideals, it sends a message that it expects them to
live up to those ideals. Employees, in turn, expect their managers to meet the same standards. Because many
managers don’t, employees tend to become cynical and critical. We’ve heard this from customers who use our
products as a form of subtle rebellion against institutional hypocrisy. Where motivational products don’t breed
cynicism, they often breed indifference. Either way, it’s not pretty.
What is your opinion of the positive psychology movement?
In general, I like the idea of studying the positive aspects of life. I have long been interested in the concept of
optimal experience, what psychologist Mihali Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.” Moreover, for decades, organizational
scholars have been producing mountains of research on variables like job satisfaction, absenteeism, motivation,
optimal team functioning, goal setting, and organizational design, all of which reflect in one way or another the
tenets of positive psychology. So it’s not like it’s anything new.
Still, I have reservations. Some applications of positive psychology have degenerated into a simplistic agenda to
learn to think positive thoughts. To the degree that this happens, it's just a repackaging of the human potential
movement with an updated, quasiscientific rationale. I know that’s not how Martin Seligman intended positive
psychology to be interpreted, but that’s how some people apply it. Then there’s the conceptual gap between the
hedonistic concepts that drive much of the thinking behind positive psychology and the pursuit of wisdom and
maturity, which require self-denial. Positive psychology can’t have the impact that Seligman and others desire
until it abandons the idea of a “hedonic calculus” of everyday life. Finally, the agenda of positive psychology
involves a healthy dose of hubris. Proponents believe they can replace religion and philosophy with an
articulation of “the good life” rooted in experimental psychology. But their thinking is too ambiguous, the nature
of human striving and aspiration is too various, and social scientific methods are inadequate to meaningfully
handle concepts like wisdom and meaning. I think the movement should set its sights on less ambitious goals.
Satire is supposed to help fix problems by drawing attention to them. Despair Inc., as well as Dilbert
and some movies and TV programs, paint a very bleak view of how people fare within companies.
Can they also help make things better?
I think they can. Some people actually learn from satire and take steps to improve things. A sales manager at
IBM told us she found our Apathy Demotivator motivating. It’s a picture of a telephone covered in cobwebs, and
the caption reads “Apathy: If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they’ll stop bugging us.” When she
starts to get frustrated with customer demands and complaints, that message reminds her that it is better to
have difficult customers than no customers.
You’ve said some people consider your wares dangerous. Why do you think they feel that way?
I think some of these people are closet cynics working hard to maintain a fragile sense of optimism, and they
find our products threatening. Another group probably includes consultants and corporate coaches who are
“treating” people for cynicism and who fear our products may lead those clients to “fall off the wagon” of
optimism. Others just don’t share our sense of humor.
How do you motivate people at Despair Inc.?
Um, no comment, but we’re kind of drawn to that idea of absolute subjugation.
Reprint Number F0403C
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