Saturday, September 26, 2009

Don't Lose a Bet

I'm fairly new to being a boss at work, but I have to say - after about three months on the job, I've learned a few lessons on what not to do. Perhaps the biggest lesson came just this week: don't lose a bet to your team.

I bet my team that if we got to a certain inventory level for Halloween last week (by far our biggest season of the year), I would do something to embarrass myself. Little did I know, that this became a motivating factor for my team...and they EASILY reached this goal. Quite possibly, I underestimated my motivational skills :-) ...but needless to say, there were some ground rules we agreed upon beforehand.

1. I only had to do this while on our floor or at my desk. Yes...I did have one meeting on Friday on our floor - fairly embarrassing.

2. I could get short-term relief during bathroom breaks and lunch.

3. There had to be a picture taken - bonus if it was with upper management. (Obviously my team's rule...not mine...)


And so it happened...on Friday, from 8:00am to around 3:30pm at work, I did the following:




Yes, that's me...wearing our top-selling men's Halloween costume this year - a BANANA SUIT! And yes, that's me...posing with my Divisional in her office (the "upper management" alluded to at the beginning of this post). Keep in mind that she is just three "rungs" below our CEO - not too shabby - but pretty embarrassing for me.

As a side note, one of our guests at Target said that this costume was "provocative." I don't know what's provocative about it...but we thought that was a fairly funny complaint!

So...lesson learned. As a boss, when you do the right things to motivate your team, you can get some pretty fantastic results. It's all about choosing the right "carrot and stick"...or "banana suit and boss"... Anyway...have a great weekend!!! (There will also be a post tomorrow...so check back!)

3 comments:

Kyler said...

Killer banana suit. I am sure your team got a good kick out of it. haha

Proud Banana Mama said...

That is GREAT!!! You are the cutest banana I've ever seen! Also...thanks for sharing Dana and Karter with us this week! We loved every minute with them, but I know you were lonely.

Looking forward to todays' post...

Love you!

Unknown said...

bananas in pajamas...emily's favorite tv show as a kid. hm...she did like dragon tales though too.