THE FLOGGINGS WILL CONTINUE…

Part I

You’ve probably heard this tongue‑in‑cheek description of a toxic business culture: “The floggings will continue until morale improves.” It’s one of those lines that gets a laugh because everybody recognizes the truth behind it.

The phrase conjures up images from another era—teamsters trying to coax a stubborn team of mules up a muddy hill, or laborers being “encouraged” with the crack of a whip. Crude, obvious, and, thankfully, mostly gone from the modern workplace.

Or is it?

Recent conversations with an employee in the construction world made me question how far we’ve really come. The more he described his work situation, the more it sounded like a modern-day version of flogging. No, there were no whips involved and no one was chained to anything. From the outside, it looked like a successful company. But beneath the surface was growing stress, anxiety, and resentment among employees and an impact on company performance that wasn’t immediately obvious. It appeared that they were just unaware of how their decisions and actions impacted their people.

As we talked, a pattern started to emerge. Different form. Same message. The floggings didn’t really disappear. They just changed form. Today, they show up in ways that don’t look like punishment but affect employees just the same.

Take communication, for instance. Or more accurately, the lack of it. People are asked to do a job without being told the full picture … or sometimes without being told much of anything at all. Priorities shift, information is held back, or directions come in pieces if they come at all. Then, when things don’t go right, the consequences aren’t shared equally. It tends to land squarely on the person doing the work, often in front of the customer. That’s a flogging.

Consider unclear directions. A project is handed off with a vague sense of what “good” looks like. No clear expectations. No definition of “done.” Just a general sense of urgency and a hope that the employee will somehow read the manager’s mind. Then, when the result doesn’t match the picture that was never clearly described, criticism fills the vacuum. Different method. Same result. Flogging.

Then there are the promises made to customers—the kind that sound great at the point of sale but can’t possibly be delivered at the point of execution. Tight schedules. Aggressive pricing. Top‑tier quality. All at the same time.

Eventually, reality shows up. And when it does, it doesn’t usually land on the person who made the promise. It lands on the people trying to make it happen. And trying to settle a very unsettled customer. That’s not motivation. That’s a flogging.

You see it again in unrealistic expectations about how long things should take. Someone decides a task ought to be done in a certain timeframe, often without having done it themselves recently or ever. The clock gets set accordingly. The pressure builds. Corners start to get cut, or frustration starts to creep in.

Either way, performance suffers. People spend more energy managing pressure than doing the work. And once again, they pay the price.