Motivation through shame

We've probably all worked at places where shame was used as a tactic to theoretically elicit higher quality. This kind of tactic has always struck me as childish, but don't take my word for it.

The link below is to a Q/A site for professional programmers, but you don't have to be a programmer to understand the tactic. The #1 voted answer takes into account the various concerns around someone making a mistake, including quality control, team morale, and the fact that the person making the most mistakes is often the person doing the most work. I love the method proposed for dealing with it in the top-voted question, especially because it addresses all of these concerns without needless shaming. For those intersted, in programming terms "breaking the build" is what happens when a programmer writes in new changes that introduce bugs into the system - a somewhat minor incident that, when correctly quickly, is simply another small, rather insignificant daily event. But just replace "breaking the build" with whatever common mistake happens at your workplace, and see if you don't feel the same way.

Appropriate punishment for breaking the build

Having worked for more than one place that tries to "motivate" through shame, I simply won't work at another place like it. If you read through several of the other answers, you'll see that the various punishments suggested run the range from silly, to funny, to reasoned, to down right ridiculous and counter productive.

Do you work at a place that employs shame, either publicly or privately, in a supposed effort to created higher quality and fewer mistakes? If so, I'd love to hear your story. Write to me: jeff@karmanebula.com