I’m not making this up.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, an employee says he was subjected to waterboarding by a motivational business coach in front of fellow employees to demonstrate to the employees that they should work as hard as the employee being waterboarded was working to breathe.  The employee being waterboarded was apparently unmotivated.  He quit and filed suit against the coach and his former employer for assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wrongful termination.  The employer says that the team-building incident has been sensationalized by the former employee and that the former employee’s version of what happened has gone uncorroborated by other employees who were there.  For more on both sides of this story, click here.

I have no idea, of course, what version of the motivational training event is accurate.  I do know that, sometimes, some type of goofball training occurs in the workplace, and it always leads to trouble–maybe not a lawsuit, but bad morale, feelings of disrespect, and a loss of confidence in management.  In other words, the result is just the opposite of what was intended.  I must confess that this is the first time I’ve heard of the use of waterboarding in the workplace, but I have heard of sexual harassment training, sensitivity training, and diversity training gone bad.  Occasionally, a lawsuit will indeed result.

Usually, this unfortunate training occurs because there hasn’t been enough communication between the employer and the trainer/coach, the trainer/coach wasn’t checked out thoroughly enough, or the trainer/coach was trying to be too dramatic in making certain points during a so-called team-building or hands-on exercise.  Training, coaching and team-building are good things, but you need to be comfortable with the person or persons doing them; you need to have a clear understanding of what the training, coaching or team-building will involve; and someone with authority needs to be present to stop something that gets out of hand or goes awry.