“If they’re not happy with how things are run here well they know where the door is!” “They should be happy that they have a job in these trying times!”
“Dem does never see when anything going good! Make one mistake though and you’ll see! Is hell on earth!”
“Yuh see me, doh ask me to do anything extra. I doing MY JOB and that’s it. I’m not working any overtime and I DEFINITELY NOT giving up my weekends for these ungrateful people.”
I’m sure that everyone has realized by now that something is SERIOUSLY wrong with this picture, yet we do exactly as I’ve described – mouth off and complain and start all over again every Monday morning!
If we didn’t know better we’d think that this was how business was set up – just to create a sense of hopelessness and despair. Isn’t it insane to think that in this kind of environment you can actually make a profit, come up with new and innovative ways to operate AND make customers happy?
What DOES in fact happen on a day to day basis is the following which actually happens with dead teams too, according to Leadership Expert Dan Rockwell:
- Meetings are held, lofty ideas are discussed, new solutions are suggested, but no action is taken
- No one tells the truth. Everyone is lying. Everyone is going along just to get through the day while they bide their time at the company.
- WHY are we doing this again? Compelling purpose was the reason we came together. Today, we’re just going through the motions.
- While “elephants are usually in the room” at ALL meetings, they are ignored, never discussed and everyone pretends that despite the challenges we are doing “ok.”
It is very clear to me, and I hope by now clear to you that “old school” leadership styles just don’t work anymore. Want proof of how outdated our management styles are? Harvard-Newcomen Fellow Caitlin C. Rosenthal is studying the meticulous records kept by southern plantation owners for measuring the productivity of their slaves, some of which were forerunners of modern management techniques. The work is part of her current book project, “From Slavery to Scientific Management: Capitalism and Control in America, 1754-1911,” and the forthcoming edited collection Slavery’s Capitalism.
According to Rosenthal, the history of detailed record-keeping on plantations goes back to at least the 1750s in Jamaica and Barbados. When wealthy slave owners in the West Indies started leaving others in charge of their plantations, she found, they asked for regular reports about how their businesses were faring. Slave owners were able to collect data on their workforce in ways that other business owners couldn’t because they had complete control over their workers. They didn’t have to worry about turnover or recruiting new workers, and they could experiment with different tactics—moving workers around and demanding higher levels of output, even monitoring what they ate and how long new mothers breastfed their babies. And the slaves had no recourse. This led owners to experiment with ways of increasing the pace of labour, Rosenthal explains, such as holding contests with small cash prizes for those who picked the most cotton, and then requiring the winners to pick that much cotton from there on out. Slave narratives describe how others used the data to calculate punishment, meting out whippings according to how many pounds each picker fell short.
As leaders we need to think about our responsibility to people. People cannot be managed as if they are simply assets—or worse, liabilities. Workers must be seen as “whole people” who have a unique contribution to make in moving the company forward. Team leaders must manage not just the tasks those workers are responsible for completing but influence them so that they do those tasks willingly, and consistently, while meeting company quality standards, WITHOUT DRAMA.
Let me ask you a question: Do you think your business can change if everyone on board “became the change” they wished to see?
Will it actually happen? It will if you are committed. Not everyone might jump on the bandwagon immediately, but does this mean that you should wait till ALL your team members are convinced, or become complacent and just maintain the status quo because creating the company you would like to create TAKES TOO MUCH EFFORT?
Get your leadership team together and I’ll teach you a step by step process for getting the results you want!
Let’s stop the drama, stop complaining and get into action!
Your expertise is your business! 