Despair, Inc. Audio Podcast
By www.despair.com
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Podcast Description
For the better part of a decade, Despair, Inc. has been engaged in a fierce battle in the marketplace of ideas with the multi-billion dollar motivation industry. In 1998, Despair introduced the world to a darkly insightful line of motivation posters parodies known simply as Demotivators®. In 2004, Despair co-founder Dr. E.L. Kersten unveiled his landmark management book, "The Art of Demotivation"- a work quickly praised by Financial Times Management Columnist Lucy Kellaway as "the most daring, funny and subversive management book ever written". With the introduction of audio podcasts, Despair opens a new front in the war on motivation- while simultaneously offering a tantalizing glimpse at life inside the company itself. (video podcast also available)
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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1 |
Addressing Employee Complaints | In this segment, Dr. E.L. Kersten provides executives and managers with a shockingly effective strategy for responding to the complaints of their subordinates. | 2/13/06 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Radical Demotivation (Introduction) | Motivation has become a multi-billion dollar industry, courtesy of the patronage of corporations and the noble intentions of the executives who lead them. At the heart of this colossal confederation of inspirational speakers, platitudinous posters, parable-filled management books, and increasingly complicated incentive programs lies an alluring promise: that with enough encouragement, incentives, and esteem, employees will become productive and loyal, to the benefit of both their employers and themselves. Yet, in spite of the staggering expenditures on packaged motivation, polls show that worker morale has reached critical lows, with a majority of employees even claiming to hate their jobs. How is this possible? And more importantly, what can executives do about this crisis of employee dissatisfaction? With the boldness of an executive and the lucidity of a social scientist, Despair, Inc. founder Dr. E.L. Kersten plumbs the depths of employee discontent and identifies its root cause. Though most employees live lackluster lives full of wasted opportunities and trivial accomplishments, they are products of a narcissistic age, afflicted with an irrational sense of entitlement that simultaneously increases their dissatisfaction with their jobs and prevents them from accepting responsibility for their lackluster lives. Thus, in a terrible irony, managers who attempt to motivate employees by bolstering their self-esteem have only worsened the problem. By reinforcing the delusions of grandeur that imprison and torture the average worker, management has only further reinforced their sense of entitlement to the wealth, stature and privilege that justice dictates be reserved for the truly accomplished and inarguably worthy: namely, executives. With The Art of Demotivation, Kersten offers not only a comprehensive analysis of the problem but a prescriptive solution; one grounded not in the humanistic fantasies of infinite human potential so often espoused by the motivation industry, but in the grim realities of a broken world. Managers who seek a productive, loyal workforce must first seek to liberate their employees for their prisons of narcissism by forcing them to confront that which they spend enormous energies to avoid: their true and sorry selves. | 12/30/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Disconfirmation, Pt. 1 (Unabridged) | "Face-to-face interaction of executives with their employee subordinates is an unfortunate necessity in most organizations. However distasteful, such exchanges do provide fertile opportunities for the seeding of Radical Demotivation in the employee psyche. In this segment, Dr. E.L. Kersten explains one of several disconfirmational communication tactics which can helpful to disabuse employees of their narcissistic delusions of parity." FIRST IN A SERIES. (NOTE: Video Podcast available at http://outcasts.despair.com/itunes) | 12/14/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
Principles of Organizational Storytelling (Unabridged) | "Dr. E.L. Kersten provides an helpful overview of storytelling techniques that can aid executives and managers in the creation of a Radically Demotivating work environment." (NOTE: Video Podcast available at http://outcasts.despair.com/itunes) | 12/12/05 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 4 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
The Video Podcast is funnier and more interesting
The audio version is just a companion to the funnier, cinematic version of this podcast. The primary advantage of this audio version is that the selections include expanded discussions and commentary, at least thusfar.
Loved it!
My family has been buying their products for a few years now and were so excited when they came out with yet another lmaf product... except this is free and u should watch it right now. Keep in mind this is a joke to go along with their company and this is probably not him in real life. Enjoy! and also go visit their website. Despair.com
Fantastically motivating in a demotivative way...
If I may borrow a quote form Despair, Inc., "If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon." I spent many years working with a company who loved to use those trite sayings on scenic posters to try to motivate its employees on one hand and then treated us horribly on the other. Poetically, the company went down the tubes. Despair, Inc. is honest and straightforward with its blatant disdain for "the little guy". How painfully refreshing!!
