At least at GD I can say with authority, that it did not make one convert. P
Did it work?
“Did it work?”
Two events caused me to never speak to any employees I didn’t already know. A black technician reported me for incorrect political thinking. The manager of HR told me I should never speak to him again. He was dead serious that this was an actionable charge. A woman accused me of sexual harassments, not for herself, but for a going-away roast of another woman. That woman said she was not harassed, but the standard is, if an uninvolved third party believes it’s harassment, then, it is.
I worked briefly for a spinoff from ITT. They had a rule that there could be no non-work related conversations. At lunch, I had a discussion with a machinist who made his own guns. The HR manager overheard it and wanted us both written up. I was called into the VP’s office and pointed out that we were at lunch. He said, which is on company property. He managed to stop the write-up because I dealt directly with the customer and it would have been bad politics.
So, yes, you’re right about the speech.