No matter how many times you thought you cleaned up, glitter always seemed to find a way to resurface months later in the most unexpected and most unusual areas. For this reason alone, glitter was banned from use in my programs. Like confetti, it was an unwelcomed small assortment of flat shapes which at different angles caused the surface to sparkle or shimmer causing an “ooh and ahh” by the children. Some of my best staff were just as fascinated by it, as if they were thrown into some trance by the glitter hypnotist. If you didn’t catch my point, it brought me no joy, none of the excitement and definitively caused a great deal of angina and heartburn throughout my years of working in these programs.
The glitter I am writing about is not the one I banned from my programs but investments in the human capital of the organization. The administrators of organizations need to reprioritize in which staff are treated as their greatest assets and not their largest liability. An investment in time to cultivate relationships, encouraging job training, afford opportunities to climb the ladder, mentor for success and to provide work-life balance. These investments are often create the same angina and heartburn to administration as glitter did for me. The liability occurs when the staff turnover is like the revolving door at the local department store and staff morale falls below the dingy ring around a dirty sink.
Technology has been a great time saving appliance in our workplace. It has made countless mundane tasks less burdensome and provided efficiencies to take on additional tasks. Nevertheless, the end result also brought those furthest away from us closer (i.e. Facebook, FaceTime, SMS, IM, e-mail etc) and pushed those close to us further away for the very same reasons. Think of it. How many times was it simpler for you to go (pick choice technology) then to go do a face-to-face or make the phone call or better yet, visit someone? We rarely ever take time to cultivate relationships as time often interferes with our tasks to be done. A simple morning greeting at the coffee machine or the gathering at lunchtime to catch up with one another is today’s workplace the exception not the pleasantries exchanged in years past. With the limited exchange staff have with one another, how is it we hold them accountable to a higher standard of customer service and interaction with our members?
Once hired, staff are rarely provided an orientation to the company’s culture and expectations. The expectation here is the staff member will perfectly sail on their first day. Coupled with lack of interest in cultivating relationships and the releasing of dollars to encourage job training – these new staff members are setup to fail from day one. It has been said, failure to plan is planning to fail. New staff members are often left to their own initiatives or there lack of to either succeed or to fail in their first weeks in a new position. The investment of proper training, informal relationship building and seasoned with a little praise and attention provides the right ingredients for achievement in their position. The opposite occurs when staff left to their own instincts, individual interpretation of policies and procedures, isolation into their own silo and lack of interaction of others fosters lower morale, staff members who work against each other and the grain of progress.
An effective organizational leader not only can take pride in realizing a mentee has been able to pack the tool belt of career skills to begin climbing the ladder. This is the initial stages of effective succession planning to allow the supervisor to step up on the next rungs. With the right investment of cultivating relationships and encouraging job training, organizations can begin to coach for their own for growth through purposeful succession planning and not be trapped in the trenches of trying to stay afloat in a pool of uninspiring wannabe leaders.
With proper guidance and a well-equipped tool belt, both the supervisor and the upcoming leader can focus on a mutual progression of moving the organization forward through common and purposeful goals to meet the mission of their organization. Together, a healthy work-life balance and the realization and development of a whole person becomes a win-win for all key leaders. The characteristics of an effective leader affords opportunities for others to climb the ladder, mentor for success and to provide a work-life balance in a new career era of being available twenty-four/7 as a result of our codependence relationship with our technology. It is then when a leader recognizes the importance of this balance and values the emerging leader a mutual respect has now helped to begin building relationships that currently is missing.
The rock group, Led Zeppelin had many convinced from his song “Stairway to Heaven”, “there's a lady that's sure, all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.” I remain steadfast in doubt, that in today’s workplace, all that glitters is not gold. However; with the right leadership, the glitter may start to begin sparkle and shimmer as it once did when both employer and employees had respect, loyalty and integrity for each other. It is now time for the paradigm to shift once again to balance a successful life with equal weights of family and friends and things we enjoy with a career filled with goal attainment, self fulfillment and leaders who inspire us to see us shine and shimmer to our highest potential.
No comments:
Post a Comment