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David
Lee
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For
More Information:
David Lee, Principal
HumanNature@Work
P.O. Box 430
Bar Mills, Maine 04004
Tel: 207-929-3344
E-mail: info@HumanNatureAtWork.com |
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AR
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Are Your Workers Whiners or Winners?
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David Lee |
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| Adapted from an article published in the Portland Press Herald, September 1, 2006 |
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When working with managers, the most common frustrations I hear include:
"There's so much negativity here. People complain about everything,
nothing is ever good enough. they always see things in a negative light.."
"My people are so immature, they argue over little things,
they sweat the small stuff. it's like we're in high school"
"I have to baby sit my people and it drives me crazy. They don't think for themselves.
They wait for me to tell them what's next
rather than see something that needs to be done and do it."
"I wish my people would care more about helping us succeed
rather than it always being all about them."
In short, many managers I work with wish their people acted less like Whiners and more like Winners.
If these frustrations sound familiar, I have a question -- and a challenge -- for you. Could you be contributing to the very attitudes and behaviors that drive you crazy? Are you willing to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you do the things that lead to Whiner Behavior instead of Winner Behavior?
Now, before we get to the Look-In-The-Mirror part, I want to make it clear I don't believe that ineffective or inappropriate employee behavior is completely caused by a boss or employer. Everybody brings his or her own personality style and emotional baggage to the workplace. Some employees are just naturally negative, difficult to deal with, and troubled. Some are just plain toxic. Part of being a good manager is responding clearly and decisively with these people.
That being said, every normal person - that would be you and I - can think of places we've worked where we were more like Whiners than Winners. Even if we didn't overtly complain or exhibit a negative attitude, we didn't feel or act as motivated, interested, and engaged as we did when we worked for employers that brought out the best in us.
Even more importantly and relevant to you, I bet when you look at the bosses you've had, you can see how - depending on what your boss was like - you demonstrated varying levels of confidence, initiative, interest, maturity, and even intelligence.
In seminars I do an exercise on this where managers describe their attitudes, feelings, and actions when they worked for their worst boss ever, and then for their best boss. We then create two lists: "How I was when working for my worst boss" on the left and "How I was when working for my best boss" on the right. Participants shout out how they felt, how they acted, and what their attitude was when working for their worst boss and then their best boss.
We then look at the two columns. In the left column, we see words and phrases like:
- Angry
- Negative
- Resentful
- "Why should I care about you. you don't care about me?"
- Didn't feel respected"
- "Couldn't wait until Friday"
- "Did the least possible required to get by."
In the right hand column, we see words and phrases such as:
- Motivated
- Inspired
- "Want to help"
- "Gave ideas"
- Confident
- "Went the extra mile"
- "Looked forward to going to work"
These two columns provide psychological composite pictures of our group under two different situations: who we were when working for a lousy boss and who we are when working for a great boss. These two pictures reveal two truths about human nature.
First, different people and different contexts bring out different versions of ourselves. If you've ever been in a bad or just plain unhappy relationship and then in a good one, you know how radically different you can be, depending on the relationship.
Second, an employee's boss has a huge influence on their attitude, behavior, and performance. In fact, according to Gallup's landmark research, an employee's boss is THE most powerful factor influencing that employee's performance, morale, and loyalty. In the words of Gallup's researchers: "People join companies and the leave managers."
So whether you are a business owner, senior level executive, or front line supervisor, you have a huge influence on whether your people are Whiners of Winners. Obviously, the higher up you are, the more people in your organization you can impact - positively or negatively.
While it would take a far longer article to fully cover the many managerial behaviors that lead to a culture of whining, not winning, here are a few of the most damaging ones. I've framed them as questions, because I don't want you to respond "Oh, yeah, I know that's bad to do". I want you to ask yourself "Am I doing this?"
- Do you make changes that affect your employees' daily work without asking for their input. including how it might affect their ability to do their jobs well?
- Is your response to employee complaints about changes "We need you to be a team player" rather than listening and taking them seriously?
- Do you allow bad behavior and sub-par work performance to go unchallenged?
- Do you take hard work and going the extra mile for granted, while immediately pouncing on mistakes?
- Do you speak to your employees or treat them in ways you wouldn't dare treat your boss, or your boss's boss?
- Do you go beyond confidence into the Know-It-All zone when discussing differences of opinion with your employees?
- Do you have an "It's my way or the highway" posture when giving assignments or talking about how to deal with something?
- Do you give minimal direction when giving assignments and then blame your employees for not delivering what you wanted?
If you answered "No" to all of these, but you don't feel like you have a workforce of Winners, conduct an anonymous survey and/or have someone conduct focus groups with your employees. If you answered "Yes" to some of these, I'd still do the anonymous survey and focus groups and I would explore management development and coaching opportunities. Being good at managing people is a whole separate skill set than the competencies that make you great at your particular profession.
If you do the above, you will be on your way to having a workforce of Winners.
Note: To reprint this in an association or corporate newsletter, please contact the author first at David@HumanNatureAtWork.com |
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About the Author: David Lee is an internationally recognized authority on organizational and managerial practices that optimize employee performance. He is the author of Managing Employee Stress and Safety, as well as dozens of articles on employee and organizational performance that have been published in trade journals and books in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. For information on his programs and service, click here.
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