Herding Cats

I receive monthly newsletters that are supposed to help me as a supervisor. They contain a number of questions and answers like the following from April's newsletter:

"I have many employees and must ensure that they stay motivated. I know employees have to motivate themselves and that I can't do it for them. So what is my role in the process? How do I play an influential part in motivating employees?"

Great question right? Usually what I do to motivate my employees is reward them with the occasional lunches and cigarettes when they are doing well and point out when they are not doing well and suggest ways they can realistically improve... well that or I fire them. I post daily scrap rates and compare first shift and second shift scrap rates which seems to have created a healthy competitiveness. Anywho, that is what I do but this is what the newsletter suggests:

"It has been said that motivating a large group of employees can be like herding a group of cats. Each one is an individual, and therefore you must look at employee motivation in much the same way."

Shrug. I'm not that into cats but I have owned a couple in my adult life because my kids like them and mice don't like them. In all fairness I have never tried to herd a group of cats. So I picked up a spray bottle from the dollar store at lunch and filled it with water. To comply with safety requirements I put an MSDS sticker on it and everything showing the contents of the bottle. Dave came into my office about 20 minutes ago and asked me a stupid question. I looked him in they eye, firmly said, 'no' and sprayed him in the face with the water. I wasn't to convinced about this treat your employees like cats thing but Dave did reacted just like a cat. There was a high pitched screech and he scurried away.