Understanding the energy at the workplace: Being the Lighthouse
In the L&D space for more than 10 years now, I have often encountered people complaining about dissatisfaction at the workplace. Usually in every corporate monthly or quarterly meeting the team members have a plethora of problems in their plate at display rather than ideas to improve the grueling situations.
The meeting starts with a major problem (the major dish at the table), gets served with enormous number of miniscule problems (smaller dishes which are add-ons to the main feast) and then ends up with a mammoth sized ( supposedly a sweet dish at the end turns out to bitter the entire feast altogether) unexpected problem.
Considering a similar meeting in an organization, team members come out of the meeting with gloominess hovering all around them. They are distressed right at the beginning of the day.
Now let’s take two members out of all, who were attending the meeting, and check out how they dealt the aftermath.
Rishabh and Shubodh, both at par, designated to execute the same level of responsibilities at the company, were also part of this meeting.
After the meeting they went to the cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee and something to munch. Rishabh who has joined this organization, just about three months back is yet to come to terms with the way this team, this organization works. And Shubodh has been in the company for more than four years now.
Shubodh without realizing what his take on a situation could do to a new employee started blasting off at the policies, procedures and the way the manager is taking the team ahead. Shubodh has been part of all major projects which the company has taken up in the recent times. He is an important team member too. Rishabh is aware of Shubodh’s stature in the company.
He kind of admires Shubodh’s efficiency and result oriented focus at a given task. Hence Rishabh is prone to get easily influenced by whatever Shubodh expresses.
Somehow Rishabh gets influenced grossly by the discussions on various tasks at hand, and most of the times it was Shubodh who was the key influencer.
Rishabh, who had a flourishing track record so far in all his previous assignments at the other companies he had worked with, had yet not taken off here in this company. He had already spent six months in the organization. In the very next month he had to undergo a performance review with the team head and the HR.
We as readers know what had influenced him so much that his career was at stake, but would the team head or the HR would ever be able to uncover the actual reasons.
The real understanding is, would even Rishabh be able to find out the reasons for a situation he had got into.
That’s something real, to ponder.
So I have my quick 5 ways to understand the energy at the workplace and keep it positive to foster great individual and team performance
- Keep your home at home and work at work: Neither try to bring the work at home nor the emotional baggage’s of home to work. Keep it separate, as much as possible.
- Be a lighthouse of positive energy: Smile, keep a positive attitude at everything which comes across you. See, think and act with the positive lens on. Try and spread the positive elements of being an old member of the team.
- Communicate effectively: Keep absolutely clear understanding of every communication happening between two people. Don’t leave room for any ambiguity because if that happens, it creates a maze of gossips and complaints and the chain engulfs the team’s positive energy.
- Approach problem as an opportunity: As an individual task owner, a problem which has surfaced before you should not always be approached as a problem. You should not get helpless and perturbed by it, rather should focus to look at it as an opportunity to find out one more way to resolve such a problem.
- Organize self and the workplace: Ensure to keep yourself and the workplace organized all the time, because it reduces chances of errors at any given point in time.
Happily Changing Lives!!