It's not work, it's war.

Some people don't realize how easy they have it these days. Awesome managers like me are much more lenient than the people we had back when I was just starting out.

My subordinates complain to HR that I don't motivate them. This really stumps me, because I spend my whole day trying to motivate them. I will concede that my methods of motivation may not be traditional, but, nonetheless, they are very effective, to say the least.

I believe that you don't motivate someone by dangling a carrot in front of them as a reward for their hard work. People only work hard if you put the fear of God inside of them. (FYI, by God, of course I mean me. But you got that!)

The following is my philosophy of motivation:

1. Divide and Rule - You need to be sure that you create a situation of acrimony between all your subordinates. They should hate each other more than they hate their mothers-in-law. If the people on your team get along, they probably are plotting against you. The best way to do this is to play each team member against each other. This way they will continuously undermine each other at every point and will cease to be a threat to you. Hey, it worked for the British empire, it should work for you. An added advantage of this would be that the pithy amount of money allocated for the monthly team parties can be used to finance your own alcoholism because no one in the team will be willing to hang out with each other outside of work.

2. Never give any credit - Under no circumstance should you ever lavish praise on a subordinate. This is a strict no-no. This will keep them on their toes, and they will be subconsciously always trying to seek your approval. If you give in, it will give them a sense of satisfaction and thus will lead to them slacking off. In fact, even if the person has done an extremely good job, all you need to do is try to find some fault or the other. This might have the added advantage of damaging the team member's psyche and their self-confidence may take a hit. Well, I won't lie to you. That is my favourite part.

3. Always short on time - Never give your subordinates enough time required to complete a task. This way they will have to compromise on the quality of their work in some way or the other and you can hold it against them during their appraisal. It will also ensure that they remain indebted and will not try to plan a coup against you.

4. Make a mountain out of a mole hill - Whenever one of your subordinates makes a small mistake, always make sure to let everyone in the company know. Specially your superiors who think that they can replace you with any random young hot shot. Also, this is a great opportunity to humiliate your team members. For eg: If a subordinate has a typo in a client email, contact HR to arrange a "Business English" training module for him.  Team meetings are the best place to highlight individual flaws. This helps to add unnecessary tension to even the most menial of tasks. I consider it a personal failure if at least half my team doesn't suffer from high blood pressure. The thing is, the more tense people are, the more mistakes they are bound to make. The more mistakes they make, the more opportunities you get to humiliate them. The more you humiliate them, the more secure your job becomes. If they can't replace you, they can't fire you.

The gist of my strategy is, if anyone who works for you doesn't think of the office as a war zone, you're doing it wrong.