Are you a dumbass manager?
Do you believe long hours means more productivity? Do believe controlling employees v. trusting them drives morale? Do you believe face-to-face meetings is the only way to build and sustain teams?
If you said yes to all those questions….Y
ou’re a dumbass.
Do you even like what you are doing for a career? Are you allowed to work in a way that best suits your skills and life?
I could beat up the premise common sense is lost on a lot of folks, but, well, you know this. However, when the absence of common sense impacts the way you live your life, what do you do?
How often do you take control and make a decision? Do you feel part of the decision making process in the workplace or do you simply just find yourself asking for permission?
Organization to organization and manager to manager, for too long the approach to driving success in individuals can best be paralleled to herding cattle. The destination for the group may be the same, but is there only one way to get there?
Too often, the working world likes to blame the personality for engagement issues or when social change is slow to happen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough to remove the personality from anything social, BUT sometimes you need to look at the system organizations have in place. Is it supportive? Is it innovative? Does the system encourage open communication and the opportunity for the individual to be successful?
What’s the personality of your organization’s system?
Have you ever been asked your thoughts about how you can be successful in your career? Has an organization ever asked you to design your job so you feel motivated and fulfilled? If not, why not?
Maybe you don’t think you are. Maybe you think you are clearly communicating what it is you need. Maybe you don’t think people “get it.” At the end of the day, you just may be stunting productivity and or annoying people, because you are, indeed, wasting their time.
Seriously, how long are you going to continue to just be told how to do things in your life? From how you are educated to how you are forced to work. Just because the systems have not caught up with the times does not mean you should be held back too.
OK, I admittedly get a little excited during this blog post. However, when I find myself in conversations about changing the way we are forced to work, I often leave out some of the most common absurdities found in a lot of organizations. What do you think?
And yes, that is my wife Justine, being all stealth-like behind me.
