Welcome, welcome. Grab a lukewarm glass of function-room prosecco and take your seat, because today we honour a very special group of people: managers who, when faced with a tricky people problem, ignored the sensible option... and made a bad decision at speed.
Names changed, details blurred, lessons genuine. In reverse order, the countdown begins.
🥉 In 5th place: The Motivational Funeral
A sales manager wanted to make a point about missed targets. So he held a team meeting featuring a cardboard coffin, into which he ceremonially placed a piece of paper reading "YOUR BONUS," before delivering what he later described as "a eulogy, but inspiring."
One employee filmed it. The video did the rounds. Two people went off with stress,one resigned, and the manager remained mystified that his "creative leadership moment" hadn't sparked a sales renaissance.
Lesson 5: Theatre is not feedback. If performance is down, people need to know what good looks like, what's in their control, and what happens next - in an actual conversation, not an am-dram production. Stunts feel powerful in the moment. So does the grievance that follows.
In 4th place: The Job Ad Written in a Mood
A manager fed up with flaky applicants decided to "cut through the noise" and posted the job ad himself. Highlights included "no snowflakes,""if you need work-life balance this isn't for you," and my personal favourite: "mums returning to work: please be realistic."
He genuinely thought he was being refreshingly honest. What he was actually doing was creating a discrimination claim with a font choice - from people who hadn't even applied yet. You don't need to be an employee to bring one. The ad was taken down within hours; screenshots, sadly, are forever.
Lesson 4: Recruitment is the shop window of your entire people operation. Every word of a job ad is you, in public, on the record. Write the ad when you're calm, get a second pair of eyes on it, and keep your frustrations for the pub. Vetting for attitude is fine. Announcing yours is not.
In 3rd place: The Wellbeing Initiative That Required a Risk Assessment
A leadership team decided morale needed a boost, and the answer was a compulsoryteam-building day involving a fire walk. Compulsory. Fire. Hmm, what could go wrong?!
One employee with a health condition asked to be excused and was told, in front ofeveryone, not to "bring the energy down." Another burnt his foot. A third billed the company for new trainers. The Board's defence was that the fire-walking company had "seemed very professional."
Lesson 3:"Compulsory fun" is a contradiction, and "compulsory dangerous fun" is a claim in waiting. If a team event needs a waiver, it's optional. If someone asks to sit something out, the answer is "of course" not a public shaming. And if morale is low, the fix is usually how people are managed on a wet Tuesday, not how they walk across fire on a Friday.
🥈 In 2nd place: The Investigation Conducted on Speakerphone
Two employees fell out. Properly fell out - the kind of feud with factions. The manager, to his credit, decided to investigate. To his eternal discredit, he conducted the interviews on speakerphone from an office with paper thin walls, live-narrating each witness account to whoever was at the printer, occasionally shouting "well SHE says different!".
By day three the "confidential" investigation had a fan base, a running score, and a sweepstake. Both employees complained about the investigation. The original feud became the least of anyone's problems.
Lesson 2:An investigation leaks credibility every time it leaks information. Private room. Door shut. Notes written up, not broadcast. The moment people believe the process is a spectator sport, nobody tells you the truth ever again - and you'll need the truth, because you're the one making a decision on it.
🏆 And your winner: The Redundancy Selection by Raffle
The envelope, please.
A company needed to lose two roles from a team of eight. The manager found selection criteria "a bit corporate and cold," and wanted something"transparent that everyone could see was fair." So he put eight names in a biscuit tin and drew two out. In front of the team. He'd also bought doughnuts, because he felt the occasion "needed softening."
I received the call afterwards, and I will treasure the sentence "but Nickie, everyone had an equal chance" for the rest of my career. Fairness should not be a lottery. Redundancy selection must be based on objective, job-related criteria that are scored objectively, evidenced and consulted on. One of the two names drawn was on maternity leave, which took us from "unfair dismissal" to "please sit down before I tell you how bad this could be."
Lesson 1: Random is not the same as fair. In redundancy, fairness has an actual legal architecture: a genuine situation, sensible selection pools, objective criteria, proper consultation. It's slower than a biscuit tin tombola. It's also the difference between a difficult month and a very expensive year.
Before You Leave the Ceremony
Every single howler started with a manager trying to solve a real problem - low sales, flaky recruits, bad morale, a feud, a redundancy - with energy, initiative and zero guardrails.
That's the trap. The instinct to do something is right. It's the freelancing that exposes you.
The moment a people problem makes you think "I'll just handle this my own way", that's the moment to pause and pick up the phone. Advice taken before you act is a lot cheaper than advice taken after you've emptied the biscuit tin.
See you at next year's ceremony. Try not to be nominated!
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