Last night my son had very specific instructions for me and my husband. We were to stand on either side of him, facing each other. We had to be close, but not touching. The three of us had to hold a business card in the center of our little almost-circle. The card was to be held between our right thumbs and forefingers. We had no idea why we were doing this, and The Boy wasn’t sharing his thought-process.

Any deviation from the strict instructions above was swiftly corrected.

It’s a funny story – two adults performing a weird ritual that has no meaning to them just because someone says so. The fact that the person in charge is a five-year-old adds to the amusement.

But it got me thinking about all the times I’ve performed rituals just as devoid of meaning at the behest of employers. When every move a worker makes is scripted – sometimes years in advance by managers that have long since moved on – that worker develops a sense that he is a placeholder. “Do this, in exactly this way” is what they hear. And, implicitly, “It doesn’t need to make sense. Don’t get creative. We don’t want your ideas.”

“A trained monkey could do your job.”

Companies like that wind up with the employees they deserve.

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