Anyone who has ever read my columns or attended one of my seminars knows that I’m a big believer in the power of communication to motivate and engage employees, and change their behavior.

I’ve always said that if more organizations would treat employees like adults and enlist their help in solving problems, those problems would probably get solved.

It’s a simple theory, in my book: If employees understand that there’s a problem, and understand what they need to do in order to solve the problem, and see how it will benefit both them and the company, they’ll get on their horses and get it done.

The problem is that most organizations fail miserably in all phases of this:

First, they don’t tell employees about problems because they don’t feel the employees can handle the truth. Most companies don’t even say the word “problem.” Instead they sugarcoat everything and turn problems into “challenges” or “opportunities.”

And it’s really hard to get employees to help solve problems when you won’t admit you have the problem in the first place.

Second, even if they do acknowledge the problem, most organizations fail to show employees what they can do to help. They don’t give specific enough marching orders.

Instead, they rain platitudes down upon employees—employees are our greatest asset; there is no “I” in team; we need to be a world class organization; strive for quality in everything you do, focus on the core competencies, live the mission value guiding principles statement, blah blah blah, and blah blah blah.

Well, as I said, I’ve always been a big believer that if you treat employees like adults and a) acknowledge the problem; and b) show employees what they can do to help, then you can inspire, motivate, and engage an entire workforce to change their behavior and get things done.

But I may be wrong.

I’m being forced to rethink my thoughts on this, because of something that is happening at my own organization, Crescenzo Communications.

My wife Cindy, the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Information Officer of Crescenzo Communications, has launched an official Corporate Initiative. Like any good corporate initiative, it is an acronym: WWHIP. Pronounced: WHIP.

It stands for Weight Watchers Health Initiative Program. Cindy has created posters, promising to “WWHIP the Company Into Shape.” She has buttons. She has hired a consultant to visualize the initiative, and conceptualize a learning map to help teach it to employees (me). The learning map looks like some kind of ancient Greek Temple, as far as I can tell, with each column representing one of the companies new core values—healthy eating, regular exercise, etc.

When I first saw it, it made me think of Greece, which made me think of gyros, so I went out and ate one, with fries and a milkshake.

Cindy decided to launch this initiative after we met with a life insurance company doctor recently. Everything was going fine in the interview. He asked me my weight, and I lied to him. He asked me my height, and I lied to him. He asked me if I ever drank and I lied to him. I mean, how the hell is he going to know, right?

But then he pulled a scale out of his bag. “Now we’ll do a reality check, okay?” he said.

I didn’t know the little dirt-eating weasel had brought his own scale. And when I got on it, I couldn’t believe the number. In fact, I got a tad bit belligerent.

“What is this, some kind of tricked-up bullshit insurance scale?” I asked him. He just shook his head. Then Cindy got on the scale. And her number wasn’t good, either. It wasn’t as bad as mine. But it was bad.

“That’s it,” she said, when the fake, bullshit insurance doctor had left. “It all ends today.”

And she immediately enrolled in Weight Watchers, and launched the WWHIP Initiative.

The WWHIP initiative should work. It has all the elements of a successful corporate initiative:

Both Cindy and I understand that there is a problem: We are fat.

We understand how we will benefit from solving the problem: We will be healthier and happier.

And finally, we have very clear marching orders on what we can do to change our behavior and solve the problem: We need to follow the WWHIP Initiative, which has a proven track record.

The plan is simple and clear: Weight Watchers works on points. Every type of food is assigned a certain number of points. You add points for what you eat, and you’re allowed to have a certain amount of points per day, depending on what you weigh. And you get extra points for working out. If you stick to your points, you will lose weight. Guaranteed.

It’s all very clear. And I know it works. And it’s not confusing at all.

And yet I still can’t do it. I can’t follow the WWHIP Initiative, despite all that.

Cindy can, because she is a good employee. I cannot, because I suck as an employee.

Like many employees, I took this initiative and perverted it for my own needs.

For instance, as soon as I learned that Cindy earned extra points for exercise, I immediately tried to get sex out of it. Conversations like this started happening in our house:

Me: Hey, how’d you like to earn a burrito? Sex is exercise you know. You want to earn some serious points? You work with the love burrito now, you get yourself enough points to eat a real burrito later.

Cindy: (Pretending to check her weight watchers book): It says here that 47 seconds of low-impact aerobics will give me one fourth of a point. That’s not even a bite of a burrito. Leave me now.

And so on. Cindy is working the initiative to a tee, and losing weight. I, on the other hand, have completely mangled the initiative to suit my own needs. In fact, I now have my own WWHIP points system.

For example:

Nothing liquid counts as a point, because it’s not food. So I don’t assign points to Martinis, wine, gin and tonics, or beer.

And I have my own system for food, too. I happen to think that points values for food shift and change, depending on circumstances.

For instance, If I know someone else is picking up the tab for a meal, all points are suspended, and I’m allowed to eat and drink as much as I want.

Another example: a piece of hot pizza eaten at night, when the cheese is still gooey and the sausage still hot is worth 7 points.

But that same piece of pizza, if eaten in the morning when it’s not as good, is only worth 1 point.

In fact, I’m considering adding what I call the Morning Amendment to my system. The Morning Amendment would mean that you don’t start counting points until noon.

So that no matter what you eat in the morning—pizza, leftover burritos, salami sandwiches, cold gyro meat, etc.—it doesn’t count because you have all day to work it off.

Yes, I like the Morning Amendment very much. Consider it done.

And I have my own way of giving myself extra points for exercise, too.

For example, 45 minutes on a treadmill is worth 10 points in my system. But 45 minutes on a treadmill if there is a beautiful, shapely woman doing the stairmaster in front of me is only worth 5 points, because I am distracted and the time goes by much faster.

And it goes the other way, too. 45 minutes of exercise on a normal afternoon is 10 points. But 45 minutes in the morning is 15 points, because I hate working out in the morning. And 45 minutes on a morning when I’m hung over is 50 points. And if I drag my dead, hung-over ass to the gym on a Saturday or Sunday and do 45 minutes, when I could be on my boat, I get to eat whatever I want for a month and a half.

That hasn’t happened yet.

And so on. So you see my point? Even though every element is in place for me to follow this initiative and change my behavior, I am bending and twisting it to my own needs, and not doing it.

And I’m wondering if employees, when faced with their own initiatives at work, don’t do the same thing.