Things are definitely different today. They’re faster, more complex, and changing all the time. Expectations are higher, and with less security and less stability than before. There just isn’t as much time for chitchat.
It’s definitely different.
Unfortunately, many people equate different with bad. They think, “If it’s not the same as it always was, then it must be worse.” They think, “The old days were better than now. Back in the day, organizations cared about people and the people cared back. Thanks to all this change, we’ve lost the human touch. It’s just a cold, callous job and people aren’t happy anymore.”
But wait a minute!
There are two important points to consider when talking about happiness:
You will never make everybody happy.
So stop trying. Whether you change or don’t change, whether you change a lot or a little, whether you change fast or slowly, it does not matter. For some people, nothing you do will make them happy.
Happiness is a choice.
Morale and satisfaction are personal choices. People choose every day to be happy and satisfied — or not. People decide whether to let the weather, the drive, or the job affect their happiness.
Take charge of your own happiness. It is a key part of surviving and thriving in The New Reality.
How can you own your own happiness?
Stop grumbling
Accept this reality and let go of the past
Look for opportunity and find solutions
Take care of yourself
Make your own happiness.
We all know that things have changed. The rules, the careers, the expectations — they’ve all changed. What companies value in employees and what employees want from employers have changed. The skills needed to compete have changed. The level and intensity of competition have changed.
So, here’s the next level of understanding we need about all this change: It’s not over and done. It’s still changing and will continue to.
Just when you begin to get comfortable, it’s changed. That’s why it’s so critical to be flexibly adaptive. Simply changing isn’t good enough anymore. Simply getting through this change leaves you unprepared for the next change. Now, what’s most valuable is how well we handle change after change in change over change while changing.
When approached with a new responsibility, location, a new set of customers, tool, team or technology, your response should be, “No problem!” A chance to learn? “Great!” An opportunity to broaden your skills and/or understanding? “Terrific!
While the past tense coveted and rewarded stability and mastery, your willingness to be flexibly adaptive is your trump card in the FutureTense. An open mind coupled with open arms makes you more valuable.
How can you be flexibly adaptive?
Be open to new challenges and opportunities
Let go quickly and easily
Be lighter on your feet
Go with the flow.
Organizations working in the past tense have an abundance of employees who just point out the problems: “That will never work.” “That sure was a dumb idea.” “You should have asked me first — I would have told you.”
These people actually believe they are contributing to the organization! They think they’re valuable because of their keen eye and ability to spot the problem.
But simply pointing out the problem is no longer a prized behavior. What will set you apart — and above — the rest is your ability to bring a solution or 2 or 3 along. Even better, actually implement what you see as the best solution and communicate how the fix is working. Do something, anything to solve the problem.
You know the problems and challenges in your job better than anyone else. You also know how to solve them. Give yourself credit for being an intelligent, capable, talented individual with the skills and motivation to do the very best you can. Trust yourself and your instincts. Then, take action — call on your intellect, stir in some common sense and do what needs to be done.
How can you be solution oriented for the customer?
Be the solution
Think, act, look for the solution
Fix the problem
Put out the fire
Tackle the challenge
In today’s environment, you must have everyone in every position contributing creative and innovative ideas. There’s no room for, “It’s not my job,” or “I couldn’t possibly come up with new ideas — I’m too busy.”
There isn’t a nook or cranny in any company that can afford to be without creativity and innovation. Every job description should be written to include these attributes.
Each employee is paid to think creatively and is required to incorporate innovation into daily responsibilities. In every organization, it doesn’t matter how good something is — it isn’t good enough. It doesn’t matter how well it works — it doesn’t work well enough. It doesn’t matter how satisfied the customers are — it won’t last. And it most certainly doesn’t matter how much better the most recent new way is than the old — it’s already the old way again.
If you don’t think you know how to create and innovate, it’s time to learn. If you don’t think you have it in you, look again. If you don’t think you are the type to do it, think again. We all have the capability of being creative and innovative. And today these qualities are a foundational expectation of every employee.
How can you can create and innovate?
Look at what you do every day and make it better, faster, cheaper
Honestly decide whether it needs to be done at all (for the customer)
Keep the intended result in mind and constantly look for a more effective way to achieve it
Be constructively discontent
Yesterday is gone. Yet for many people, years of yesterdays still rise with the dawn of each new, fresh day. As a result, today becomes just like yesterday — gloomy, cold, and bitter.
There’s a lot of resentment out there for those people. They walk around their organizations reliving their yesterdays and holding onto perceived slights, mistreatments, and grievances like gold. And like gold, the burden is heavier than it looks. Out of their resentment grows animosity, rancor, hostility, malice, and antagonism.
In reality, no one cares what your organization did or didn’t do to you 5 years ago or 5 months ago or even 5 minutes ago. It is time to MOVE ON.
How can your work be focused and flexible while you’re carrying around all that baggage? How can you be fast and agile for your customers if you are shackled to your yesterdays? With your daily performance under a microscope, holding onto a grudge from yesterday will drag down your performance today, which will add to tomorrow’s questions about what value you bring.
It’s a vicious cycle that eventually will spin you right out the door!
Don’t wallow in yesterday. Today is a new day and it comes with a fresh chance to perform. Take a new lease on your professional life and use the opportunity to prove that you fit, that you want to be here, and that you have something valuable to contribute…today.
How can you move on?
Let go of resentment
Clean the slate
Lighten up
Re-commit
Focus forward
Characterizing change as an “event” implies it has a distinct start and stop. But in reality, change is a process, not an event. There is no beginning and no end to change. It is constant and will continue to be.
You cannot reference change as if it is temporary or isolated. That gives people a reason to wait for the change to pass and implies a false sense of inertia. It will not pass. It will not blow over. This is the new normal. No, this is the new normal. No…this is the new normal.
Every minute you wait to change puts you farther behind the competition — individually and organizationally. Change won’t go away; in fact, it will go even faster. The hard truth is that there is no stop and no finish. Change is continuous.
In the old reality, we were able to finish — the project, the process, the upgrade. But not anymore. The language of delay and deferral that once was so common in the workplace has become unacceptable today. The pace of modern business requires us to start the new before finishing the old.
The satisfaction of closure has been replaced by the satisfaction of adaptability and by the instantaneous ability to change.
Be willing and able not only to change horses midstream, but to change streams
All major changes carry a temporary drop in productivity. In the wake of change, if productivity doesn’t dip, it’s only because people are working harder to compensate for the temporary drop.
Don’t worry, though; productivity will rebound eventually and should even exceed old levels. After all, that’s why the organization made the change in the first place (or it should be).
The key is to get through this drop as quickly as possible — if for no other reason than to prepare for the next change. Because, rest assured, there will be a next change… and another temporary drop.
Minimizing the transition time is more critical than ever.. There’s no time to get comfortable and assimilate the change. Today, quickly moving through it can mean the difference between success and failure, between organizational life and death.
It’s imperative to equip yourself and others with the skills necessary to manage through the transition quickly. Not doing this often casts a false shadow of failure on the change itself. An organization could mistakenly abandon a good change too early, not realizing the change was the right move all along. It was the resistance that doomed it to failure.
How can you pick up speed during change?
Anticipate the productivity drop, recognize it when it arrives, and mitigate it as much as possible
Remember that the speed of transition is essential
Overcome your discomfort and awkwardness as fast as possible through learning and practice
Focus on the gains.
If you’ve ever said, “That’s not my job — my job has nothing to do with the customer,” then you need a New Reality check.
Everything that everybody does is — or should be — for the customer. Customers are the reason for being employed. Take away customers, and the need for your job vanishes.
Each person in the organization needs to be clear on 3 things when it comes to customers:
Who they are.
What they want.
How every job connects to giving customers what they want.
All companies, groups, association, agencies or entities have customers. You are ultimately doing the job for someone, right?
So all employees should know:
• Who that “someone” is and what they expect — regardless of the job, role, purpose, or size of the organization. • Just how important customers are — and act accordingly.
Today’s employers need to be built from the customer back. Every window should provide a clear view of the customer; every phone line should be a direct connection to the customer.
Understand that today’s customer expectations are a moving target. Being agile, mobile, and adaptive is the only way to move with them and make change part of your competitive advantage.
Connect to the customer by:
• Introducing yourself • Knowing who they serve • Understanding how your job adds value for the customer • Exceeding customer expectations • Thanking and delighting your customer.
“We used to be such a family around here — the company really cared about us as people.”
Companies are different today. They have to be. Competition can and does come from every corner of the globe. New technology, constant innovation, and ever-higher expectations mean that yesterday’s performance is a distant memory. There’s no longer any room to carry those who don’t pull their weight — and more.
Organizations still care about people, but the people they can care about are only those who care enough to give their best by focusing on customers and taking accountability for their own future.
The world is a different place; the work world most certainly is, too. It’s time for paternalism to be gone. It’s time for all generations of employees to grow up. The old reality adult/child dynamic between organizations and employees has become obsolete. It’s time for us to take charge of our own careers, development, and employability. The relationship has evolved and will continue to evolve. If you understand just this one thing, you are immediately better positioned for the future.
Here’s good news: The path is clear. The responsibility is on your shoulders for your employment security, for making yourself more marketable. You are responsible for educating yourself. You are responsible for being one of the adults in an adult/adult relationship. Now you have the chance to seize your opportunity to shine.
Some suggestions for growing up:
Stop waiting to be rescued
Redefine your relationship with your employer
Let go of the old adult/child dynamic
Be proactive and take charge of your future.
In a word: dysfunctional. Research shows that over 11 million meetings occur in the U.S. each day, with most people believing up to 50% of their time spent in meetings is wasted. Yet our 25 years of working with thousands of organizations indicate the amount of wasted time is much higher. How about you?
What percentage of the time you spend in meetings is actually productive, customer focused, and action oriented? If it’s not 100%, there is room for improvement.
Many factors contribute to dull, ineffective meetings—including politics, personalities, and power plays. Structure, process (or lack thereof), egos, trust (or lack thereof), and behaviors all play a part as well. And one of the biggest contributors is role-specific advocacy. People are concerned only about their own role, department, division, or problem. “If it doesn’t directly affect my job, I’m not interested.”
People sit in meetings all day long and believe that if it’s not their meeting, if the discussion isn’t directly related to them, then it’s not their problem. “Good luck with that,” “Let me know how it turns out,” “Wake me up when you want to talk about my department.” But this disconnect—contributing only when you are directly affected or benefitted—means you’re leaving a tremendous amount of your intellect on the sidelines. And if everybody else is doing the same thing, meetings are fragmented, self-serving, political, ineffective, and dysfunctional.
Another big contributor is the lack of a shared problem-solving process. Here’s a quick quiz to gauge how well your process works.
Do you discuss a large percentage of issues that were discussed in previous meetings?
Do your discussions seem to go around in circles with no apparent end?
Does it seem you have to schedule meeting after meeting after meeting to address a single problem?
Do certain personalities dominate the meetings?
Do few conclusions or actions come out of the meetings?
Are the meetings boring, dull, and painful to attend?
Is there a lack of dialog, brainstorming, and customer advocacy?
If you answered yes to 3 or more of these questions, chances are good that you lack process or the process you do have isn’t working.
Meetings in most organizations today are a direct reflection of the culture.
If meetings are functional, effective, focused on the customer, and built on democratic problem solving, engagement is typically high and the company is usually a market leader. If meetings are flat, lack engagement and problem solving, and are internally focused, the company is far from reaching its true potential.
Among the numerous differing definitions of organization culture floating around, the best is the sum of behaviors that people demonstrate. Period. It’s not magical. It’s not mystical. It’s simply the behaviors that people choose to demonstrate, are expected to demonstrate, are allowed to demonstrate, and are rewarded to demonstrate. Today’s meetings are rife with dysfunctional, political, turf protecting, internally focused behaviors. So to change a culture of dysfunctional meetings . . . start by changing the behaviors.
The next article in this series will define the “should be” of New Reality meetings. In the meantime:
Replace role-specific advocacy with customer-focused advocacy
Install a process that democratizes the problem solving
Change the culture of meetings by changing the behaviors that are expected, allowed, and rewarded.
Karl can help your organization transform meetings from a drag on productivity to a driver of progress. Learn more.