When Good People Go Bad
Remember the book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Rabbi Kushner? We have a different question: Why do good people - the best people in your organization, even - go bad? What makes them lose interest in their work? What drains their creativity? What sucks the life out of them? What pumps up their sick day numbers and pounds down their productivity levels?
A USA Today Snapshot (Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009) tells us that senior executives have the answer. When surveyed, they gave two top reasons for why good employees quit.
Reason #1 - People are unhappy with the way their organization is managed (35%).
Reason #2 - They feel like there are limited opportunities for them to advance (33%). In other words, they feel like their potential is being wasted.
Only 13% said good people quit because of dissatisfaction with salary and benefits. In a tough economy, when a lot of organizations CAN'T reward good employees with more money, this is good news.
The challenge, though, is to build an organization that is really people-friendly...that taps into the extraordinary power, talent, intelligence, and creativity that dwells within them...and puts them to work doing what really matters.
Green Jobs Should Be Good Jobs
The folks at Good Jobs First have produced a report arguing that green jobs are not always - not necessarily - good jobs. In fact, their research shows that many of the jobs in Green businesses - in recycling plants, for example - aren't paying living wages and offer no benefits to their employees. This organization and others like it are calling on Green businesses to take the high road when it comes to how they treat people.
"One of the greatest risks," they say, "is that, in our haste to create a large quantity of green jobs, we pay too little attention to their quality."
We would argue that you can't finally be planet-friendly if you're not people-friendly. Who, finally, is going to care about a tree more than they care about a person?!
Archbishop Desmond Tutu - a longtime advocate for human rights - has said: "We need to be accountable to God's family. Once we start living in a way that is people-friendly to all of God's family, we will also be environment-friendly."
The urge to make a quick buck on the suddenly hot green business market may be enough to motivate some companies to do right by the planet. But if they are not doing right by their people, too, you can bet that their planet-friendly initiatives will be short-lived.
Put people first. If you do that, you'll do right by the planet. After all, it's the only home we people have got.
Click here to download the report "High Road or Low Road: Job Quality in the New Green Economy.
How To Keep People Motivated In Scary Times
This Month's Top Five List
#5 - Tell the truth.
Let them know they can count on you to be straight forward with them. Don't promise that everything will be "ok" unless you know for sure that's true. Do promise to be honest. They'll appreciate that.
#4 - Make time for fun.
This is always important but now more than ever. Have a picnic in the conference room. Play a game of UNO at lunchtime. Post an (appropriate) joke of the day in the office. Give people permission to blow off a little steam in playful, fun ways. It'll reduce the tension and increase productivity levels. It's hard to think straight when you're scared out of your mind.
#3 - Plan ahead.
Do some worst-case scenario planning with your team. What's the worst thing that could happen? Figure out ahead of time how you would deal with it. Feeling prepared for anything will give your whole team a new level of confidence.
#2 - Listen.
People need to be able to work through their feelings about what's happening. This is especially true if you've been through layoffs. Create appropriate times and spaces for people to talk things through if they want and need that. Listen to the things people aren't saying, too.
#1 - Stay focused on your common purpose.
Now is the time to get intentional in a new way about (re)articulating your common purpose. If it's been awhile since your organization did revisioning and/or spent time developing a purpose statement and guiding principles - or if you've NEVER done it - do it now. Use a process that is as participative and broad based as you can manage. Get everybody involved. Ask purposeful questions like: Who are we? Why are we here? What really matters to us? More than any single thing, having a common purpose and vision will motivate people to work together and work hard.
Book of the Month: Kelly's Pick
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom's book
"The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations" (2006) argues convincingly that decentralization - a new fact of life, thanks to the internet - is changing the way we live and work together. The metaphor in the title captures the main idea: Both a spider and a starfish look alike. But if you cut off a spider's head, it dies. A starfish, on the other hand - which doesn't have a head, exactly - is capable of multiplying and growing exponentially. Cut off a leg and a whole new starfish emerges! Kelly says, "If you've been toying with the idea of moving towards a more organic, renewable way of working together...read this book and then go to work flattening that hierarchy. A new way of doing business is coming whether you want it to or not. Might as well get with the program."
(Kelly Fryer is a managing partner at A Renewal Enterprise, Inc. and has always suspected that the little guy would one day rule the universe.)
January's Survey Results:
How Are You Responding to The Economic Crisis?
Last month our readers said:
What crisis?! This is an opportunity! - 37.50%
We're taking it slow and steady - 50%
We're pretty scared - 12.5%
This is probably the last straw for us. - 0%
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