The Feedback Wheel

From the decade that brought you Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and those horrible motivational posters comes The Feedback Wheel. This is, no doubt, just one of hundreds of giveaways and such crap pedaled to the types of managers who feel they need some sort of teacher's manual or cheat sheet in order to supervise their underlings. I know because 20 years ago I had a boss like that. He posted some of those motivational posters in the office! I remember one: "Attitude". He actually gave out little "TeamWORK" lapel pins and bought every one of us (with his own money, he stressed) a copy of The Flight of the Buffalo, whose theme is basically this: treat your employees with respect and listen to their ideas and everybody's happy. I don't think our boss read it, frankly. In fact, he plagiarized it to write a brown-nosing little speech during which his boss' boss ate candy. Oh, the 90s!

This ugly, flimsy, plastic-coated wheel is full of career-counseling-type bromides and bullet points. No doubt this originated as a PowerPoint presentation. But I'm being cynical, as usual. There isn't anything here that's, on the face of it, ridiculous or dorky, but jeez. I can just see my old boss, if he had this, using it during a performance review or a "team" meeting. Ugh.

Okay, here it is. It's 8.5 inches across and the copyright date is 1991. I appreciate the opportunity to have been of service.*


*actual closing line required for all outgoing customer letters