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Inspiring Thin-Skinned Employees: Transforming Insults into Purpose

In the workplace, your employees can be remarkably sensitive. The slightest hint of bad news ignites a wildfire of rumors, fueled by the rapid spread of WhatsApp messages.

What you perceive as unproductive behavior is often the result of your interventions only addressing surface-level symptoms rather than the root causes. As soon as you tackle one popular complaint, another fresh grievance emerges to take its place, leaving you feeling like you’re trapped in a never-ending cycle.

To break free from this pattern, it’s essential to rethink your approach to addressing thin-skinned staff. Instead of merely treating the symptoms, consider these three strategies for fostering a more profound sense of purpose and inspiration among your employees.

Hurricane Heroics: Unleashing Extraordinary Potential

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, we often witness acts of everyday heroism. Neighbors who once refused to speak to one another put aside their differences and unite to overcome the shared challenge at hand. In the face of life-threatening disruptions, people tap into hidden reserves of resilience and compassion.

But what if this extraordinary energy and resolve could be harnessed within the workplace, without the need for a catastrophic event to occur?

The answer lies in understanding the powerful influence of the future on human behavior. When people have something significant to look forward to, they inherently act differently. The problem is that many employees have become jaded, expecting only disappointments and discomforts from the future. This negative mindset fuels their hypersensitivity, causing them to perceive every error as a personal slight.

However, what if this obsession with the future could be reframed as an opportunity rather than a hindrance? Perhaps their reactions stem from a genuine desire to care about the future, and there’s a way to channel this passion in a more constructive direction.

An Urgent, Inspiring Future: Harnessing the Power of Purpose

The ability to envision a return to normalcy is what empowers people to bounce back swiftly after a hurricane. This imagined future provides them with something to look forward to, uplifting and inspiring them even in the face of tremendous loss.

As they survey the wreckage, they help others find hope, moving themselves out of their comfort zones, taking risks, overcoming historical biases, forgiving debtors, sacrificing time, and donating money. In other words, they tap into their hidden reserves of discretionary resources to spend untapped treasure.

As an employer, witnessing this transformation in the same staff members who nearly went on strike over cafeteria lunches can be astonishing. However, instead of dismissing your people as unsolvable mysteries, it’s crucial to recognize their wider humanity. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

Offering your staff a compelling “why” can be achieved by crafting a joint future that deviates from the default trajectory.

Your Company’s Peculiar Destination: Embracing Discomfort for a Greater Purpose

Most employees go through the motions, primarily concerned with their creature comforts and conveniences rather than anything else. In response, many managers become afraid to ask too much, habitually lowering their expectations to avoid conflict.

However, the reality is that they simply aren’t asking for enough.

Imagine a manager who asks their staff, “Are you OK?” each day. Eventually, someone musters the courage to respond, “No, I’m not.” The manager inquires about the issue, resolves the problem, but continues to ask the same question the next day, perpetuating a cycle of addressing surface-level concerns.

Now, consider a dramatic alternative: A manager convenes their staff to create a vivid picture of the department’s future – an invented future that goes well beyond business-as-usual. This joint aspiration becomes a win-win for all involved, instantly repelling those who are the most resistant while attracting the best employees who crave a greater sense of purpose.

It’s as if a metaphorical hurricane has swept through, igniting a shared desire to take extraordinary actions, even if they cause personal “discomfort.” This phenomenon was observed by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who noted that those who found a “why” were more likely to survive the concentration camps. Additionally, Frankl stated:

“… mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish… Such a tension is inherent in the human being…”

“We should not, then, be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him to fulfill…What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

Unfortunately, prioritizing purpose over comfort is a concept rarely taught in classrooms. However, it offers managers a powerful tool to inspire and engage their employees. By crafting a shared vision of a future that transcends the mundane, you can tap into your staff’s innate desire for meaning, fostering a sense of urgency and determination that propels them beyond their perceived limitations.

In the face of adversity, people are capable of remarkable feats. As a leader, your role is to create an inspiring “why” that ignites the same level of passion and commitment, transforming insults and hypersensitivity into a relentless pursuit of a greater purpose.

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How to Find Clarity Amid Workplace Adversity

Navigating professional challenges can feel daunting when your usual methods of coping fail. Friction with colleagues, performance setbacks, economic pressures – these issues can linger and even permeate teams. In times of turbulence, a fresh perspective is needed to build resilience. But where can you start?

Author Byron Katie provided just that with her notion that, “When you are perfectly clear, what is…is the same as what you want.”

While this may sound like a description of what it’s like to be insanely rich, it’s not about achieving all your goals.

Instead, this idea carries powerful implications for managing mindsets when facing adversity. Here is a 3-step, experimental approach to embrace clarity and acceptance:

Step 1: Taking Stock

Begin by taking stock of your immediate surroundings through your senses – the feeling of your feet on the floor, the airflow from the vent, the muffled voices down the hall. Include the observation that you reading this on a screen. Make note of these concrete facts and sensations that comprise your present-moment experience.

Next, turn attention inward. What thoughts, emotions, and social dynamics are swirling within at this time? Name each aspect, from fleeting feelings to charged exchanges with colleagues. These intangible factors also constitute your reality right now.

Let’s mentally label them a pile of stuff you are “Having.”

  1. “Wanting” One at a Time

Now comes the transformative step: transitioning from “having” to “wanting.” After acknowledging each element of your experience, pause and consciously shift into a state of desire. Embrace the desire for what you have, whether it’s this article, your emotions, or even unwelcome sensations like a screen that is too dim.

The key here is to practice acceptance and embrace every facet of your experience, even the ones you’d typically resist. It’s a form of mental jiu-jitsu, where you actively notice a fact, and the feelings around “Wanting” it.

This “having-then-wanting” can transform even the most awful moments.

  1. Building Resilience for Future Challenges

While seemingly simple, the true challenge lies in applying this framework during times of stress. That’s why proactive practice is crucial. Think of it as training for your personal mental Olympics. By regularly practicing “having-then-wanting” in calmer moments, you build inner strength and resilience for when the next hurdle arises.

Notice that in these high-pressure moments, unwanted thoughts forcefully occupy our minds, followed by negative feelings and sensations in our bodies. As we respond, we ignore our inner state in order to survive.

Now imagine embracing, i.e. “Wanting” each of these elements. These could keep us from denying the truth of situations such as the January 6th insurrection. Many are not “Having” it – denying eyewitness testimony and video tapes.

But this isn’t just for you; it’s a team leadership superpower. By collectively acknowledging reality and embracing experiences, you’ll bounce back from setbacks faster and remain grounded when faced with adversity. Imagine the collaborative power of a team where everyone accepts “what is” and works together to navigate it.

Ultimately, this approach empowers you to face stress with grace and emerge stronger. Remember, you would now have the tools to weather any storm. Embrace the practice, cultivate resilience, and forge ahead with confidence, knowing you possess the inner strength to find calm amidst the chaos, even when challenges feel overwhelming.

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Transcending the Ambition Trap

As a high achiever, you likely gauge success by the scope of your accomplishments. Your career advancement, financial security, family growth or other goals are realized through diligent work and conscious effort. When you attain those tangible targets after years of strain and sacrifice, it validates your talents and grit.

Or so it seems initially. But in time, you may come to a sobering realization – hitting each milestone does not equate to an enduring sense of happiness or contentment. After each hard-won promotion, the thrill fades within weeks. Upon hitting your net worth targets, your appetite for more remains. Settling down with your dream partner or having kids fails to fully satisfy for long.

You find yourself needing to establish the next set of ambitions and goals once the euphoria of the last ones dissipates. It becomes an endless cycle of achievement followed by newly uncovered voids to fill. You chase the next rung up the ladder, hoping it will be the one to provide lasting fulfillment, once and for all. But it never does.

This phenomenon is perfectly encapsulated by insights into the psychology of the ultra-wealthy. In interviews, numerous billionaires admit that regardless of their princely bank balances, they do not feel truly carefree. Asked how much money it would take to make them happy, most respond “just 20% more.” Even those with more money than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes feel they require a bit more to be content.

Clearly, there are dangerous pitfalls in deriving your sense of happiness and accomplishment strictly from ambition. Yet modern society offers few viable alternatives. We feel frustration and dismay when our goals – whether career, finances, relationships or other benchmarks of “success” – are not attained on the expected timetables. If only we could get that promotion, save up enough to retire comfortably, find our soulmate or start a family, then we would be happy. Or so we tell ourselves.

Happiness as an Obligation

When voicing disappointment over missed goals or setbacks on the road to ambition, there is no shortage of well-meaning people willing to remind you that, “You should just be happy and grateful for all the blessings in your life!” They will recite all the accomplishments you’ve achieved, the comforts and security you possess, the people that care for you and advantages you were lucky enough to be born with. Just be content with what you have, they insist.

But simply telling someone they should derive happiness from their existing circumstances is rarely effective beyond temporary lip-service gratitude. It also implies there is something wrong with you for not being perfectly content and cheerful at all times, regardless of setbacks. This just reinforces unrealistic expectations of constant joy.

Yes, cultivating gratitude and perspective around what we already have can be highly beneficial. But this is most effective as an intentional, proactive exercise, not a passive obligation. The path to genuine fulfillment requires examining our relationship with ambition itself. It means understanding the neurological roots of concepts like greed, desire, and suffering. This enables consciously shaping habits and mindsets rather than being controlled by them unconsciously.

Two Modes of Wanting

An enlightening distinction made by some languages is between two different forms of “wanting” things. In English, we use the same term to convey both varieties. However, they represent distinct neurological states:

Wanting (a) refers to craving continuation or permanence of positive conditions and experiences. It manifests as ambition, greed, lust, attachment, or addiction. There is an insatiable quality, where fulfillment is always contingent on something not yet obtained. This ties your happiness to external conditions and goals not under your control in the present.

Wanting (b) means embracing and appreciating the positive elements of your reality in the moment, without requiring them to persist indefinitely. Think of deeply savoring an ice cream cone without any expectation or need to continue eating it forever. Or admiring a beautiful sunset without wishing it would never end. No attachment to continuity – simply gratitude for the gift of this ephemeral experience.

Practicing Intentional Wanting

Wanting (a) has its place in moderation. Ambition provides forward momentum and drive. But problems arise when Wanting (a) becomes excessive and grids out Wanting (b). Every positive experience gets taken for granted or leaves you needing more.

Companies often leverage Wanting (b) during strategy sessions. Teams accept current weaknesses in the business to diagnose issues before working to change course. But individuals have difficulty applying Wanting (b) to appreciate life conditions in the present.

The next article will explore daily practices that strengthen your capacity for Wanting (b). This helps short-circuit the dissatisfaction loop of unending ambition and anchors you in gratitude. By consciously focusing Wanting (a) only on select priorities, you gain control over your happiness. Your contentment then stems from within, not hostage to external conditions. This inner footing provides the stable base to sustainably grow and evolve.

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How WhatsApp May Become a Big Disruptor

There are moments when a new innovation rides in on the tracks of existing habits and technologies, changing everything in an instant. How does your firm prepare itself for such changes?

Millennials are amused to hear stories of an age when a fax machine was thought to be a major breakthrough. It’s hard for them to grasp the fact that before its popularization, the only way to connect remotely with other people was via hand-delivered paper.

When email supplanted both fax machines and snail mail a few years later, it seemed to be the ultimate answer. After all, just about any digital object could be sent via this new channel. However, the predictions were ultimately incorrect, at least in the case of Jamaica. Today, for personal communication, WhatsApp has completely displaced both channels.

Yet, the number of companies who use it officially is small. Few local organizations even bother to collect contact information of any kind from their prospects and customers.

In fact, there’s an even smaller cohort of first adopters who are waiting for the day when they can use WhatsApp to contact large numbers of people. When the innovation arrives it’s likely to cause a stir in Jamaica for the following reasons.

1. Local vs. U.S. Behavior As you may agree, we often take our cues from American consumers. They are seen as leaders in the adoption of technologies which eventually become commonplace in local companies.

However, their use of messaging apps differs remarkably from ours. In 2018, only 12.1% of mobile users in the U.S. connected with WhatsApp versus Facebook Messenger, which reached 56.8%.

If you live in Jamaica there’s no need to explain – WhatsApp is by far the dominant method for individual mobile communication. In a few short years, the majority have picked up the habit of daily usage.

However, due to restrictions put in place by Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, even the early corporate adopters have been forced to stay with text messages and email channels. That is, they are stuck using methods most people are abandoning. Consequently, their messages are seen as an intrusion.

To see where they must go next, we need to look for examples outside North America.

2. Following the Chinese

Instead, we must pay attention to WeChat. Most Jamaicans have never heard of this Chinese-owned app, even though 700 million people use it every day for at least an hour. When it started, it was widely seen as a knock-off of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

However, while both have limited their expansion into added features, WeChat took the opposite approach and added them at breakneck speed. Consequently, once users enter the app’s space they don’t have to leave because it offers them the following features, among many: – company mini-sites for customer interactions – payments – e-wallets for individual money transfers – social networking cash rewards for following a brand – gamification – group followership – attracting influencers.

I’m no expert in these services, but the overall result is clear: people’s everyday behaviors are tied into the app in a profound way. Will that happen here?


3. Case Study: Jamaica

WeChat probably won’t gain traction here, but it appears that WhatsApp is waking up to the potential of its network.

So should our local business community. Essentially, each of us is walking around with an invisible train line – a digital link to our most important acquaintances. It’s sitting in our pockets, already being used to connect with the most important people in our lives every single day.

So far, WhatsApp has prevented brands from putting their digital locomotives on these tracks, but that’s changing. The firm recently announced the release of a limited Business App for small companies. But there’s much more coming, they promised, with the release of their API (Application Program Interface.)

Soon, far more functionality will be made available including automation and mass messaging. In other words, the app is becoming more like WeChat. Will this become a more dramatic disruptor than fax machines or email? If you follow my reasoning, you may agree that it may be a rare case of a powerful service following already existing daily habits. As such, the learning curve could be practically non-existent.

If this piggy-backing occurs, it could instantly change the way local companies do everyday functions like customer service, advertisement and bill payment. It would be a disruption that gains its power from existing, but seemingly innocuous habits.

Whether this transformation happens or not local companies need to pay attention. Seemingly small, boutique technologies can have huge effects that overturn industries. Consider this a clear warning: CEO’s must invest time and effort to appreciate the ultimate impact of digital disruptions that they may not initially even notice.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20200126/francis-wade-whatsapp-may-yet-become-big-disrupter

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How your business can sell a transformation

It’s obvious in hindsight. Our very best customer service memories happened when something special left us different than we were before. As a result, when we approached the seller again, we were not the same person: we had been transformed.

Lest you think it’s this is an impossible task for your business, take another look. This transformation can happen anywhere. For example, my local pan-chicken man offers more than food in each interaction.  It helps that his product is superb, but to really understand what he’s doing that’s special, let’s contrast transactional versus transformational products and services.

Transactional products and services only involve an exchange of value. You pay your money and receive an item or action.

However, those which are transformational leave you in a difference place once the transaction is complete. It could be that the experience consistently improves your mood. Or you learn so much that you become informed. Perhaps you may be motivated differently.

The reality is that you enter the next transaction transformed. You have been changed on the inside.

By contrast, buying chicken from KFC, Popeye’s or Island Grill doesn’t have this effect.  It’s an anonymous activity in which I only expect to be treated humanely, fairly and consistently. The seller is satisfied if they receive the funds, and I walk away with my meal.

However, when I buy from my pan-chicken man in Sterling Castle Square, he (perhaps unintentionally) offers more than barbecued meat. He knows my wife and I by name and and I expect to hear about him, his friends and the community. He’ll tell me some of the inside scoop on the latest happenings, such as recent efforts to develop a football field for local youth. I’ll ask him for extra sauce and give him specific feedback on the last purchase.

When I get home, I sit with a bottle of wine and eat slowly to prolong the experience. Sometimes, it even gets cold because I take too long. My wife and I have a recurring conversation about the finer points of the food, such as its spiciness, or sweetness. Plus, whenever we see him in the neighborhood we stop for a few minutes and have a chat.

It’s tempting to believe that a big business can’t be transformational. However, I worked for a world-leading training company that delivered transformation in 200-person workshops in dozens of countrues, making me think it can happen for your firm. Here are some strategies to adapt, regardless of size.

1. Define “The Transformed Customer”

This particular end-result is far beyond that of a satisfied or happy customer. It also does not occur simply because the buyer has received the product or service.

Instead, stand in the world of a customer and ask yourself what they would really want to have. Do they need to use your product in a unique way? Are they trying to improve the value-price equation? Are they hoping to get the service for free in the future on their own?

Make a list of these experiences, place them in rank order and brainstorm different ways to provide them.

To complete this exercise effectively, you must consider as many angles as possible without restraint. To feed your ideas, I recommend examining your personal, first-hand experiences for clues. Find those moments where you have received transformational value.

Then, study brands which are able to stack one transformation on top of another. Use them as inspiration to stretch beyond the edges of your thinking.

2. Look for Limits

Another way define a transformation for your customer is to look past your limits. For example, start by stretching the time boundaries of each interaction.

Some who have done so, like Disney, offer “Backstage” tours of their operations. They help customers learn what happens before a product or service is delivered. (Some firms are delivering such experiences virtually, via Instagram.)

The mindset needed to create such a transformation sees value in educating customers so that they become better people, and therefore more loyal. It’s a low cost way to offer a powerful kind of “Brawta.”

3. Plan for the Long-Term

If your company is currently transactional, don’t expect this shift to happen immediately. Instead, pick a number of smaller changes and spread them across several years.

Too many Jamaican companies are at war with their customers, giving as little as possible while keeping all they can. The few transformational firms are seen as aberrations, impossible to replicate.

This excuse just keeps brands stuck at low standards of customer delivery, turning their product or service into a commodity. This leaves their company ripe for disruption or displacement by customers who won’t hesitate to adopt a better solution (like Uber) when it becomes available.

Save your brand an awful fate: find a way to use transformation to gain a competitive advantage.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20181230/francis-wade-how-your-business-can-sell-transformation

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Toxic Culture Resistance

Leading in a toxic culture? Transform it by absorbing, not resisting

How do you escape a corporate culture you hate to work in each day? Should it be attacked head-on, or is another more subtle approach needed?

Perhaps you know the feeling of being trapped in a toxic work environment. The stress you experience each weekday is real. It can’t be escaped by positive thinking, thoughts, and prayers or any of the other techniques that work on lesser problems. Plus, simplistic advice like “Just quit, nuh?” isn’t helpful in a weak economy where everyone you know is scrambling to hold on to a job.

Unfortunately, we are taught from early on to conquer evil by launching strong resistance. After all, this approach worked to end slavery, get the vote and achieve independence. It also works in wars.

Fighting hard to win seems to be the best way to change your company’s culture. It appears to be a far better strategy than merely surrendering making it the tactic most corporate leaders use.

Unfortunately, it has faults which only makes things worse. Here are three examples.

Denial

An executive sits at her desk looking at the exit statistics. The best performers are consistently leaving for other companies, siphoning away the second-bests within a few months. Before long, only third-bests will remain—a recipe for disaster.

The head of human resources tries to convince her there’s a huge internal problem. But she refuses to accept it. Her people are being stolen by those with deeper pockets, an injustice. She angrily denies that the culture of her company is driving people away.

In her mind, she is the big victim.

Scolding

A CEO scrolls through the survey results. The staff has spoken: employee satisfaction and engagement scores have dipped even further. Obviously, the prior year’s interventions didn’t work, in spite of his hard work and extra effort. In fact, they actually made things worse.

“They shouldn’t feel this way.”

His response is all-too-human. As a species, we have a remarkable ability to argue with reality even when it’s staring us in the face. The response is instinctive – a way to protect ourselves from bad news.

It’s also beside the point. Given his goal of changing a toxic culture, the new scores provide valuable data which tell a nuanced story. Instead of being discarded, they need to be the basis for new plans going forward, as the leadership team “wheels and comes again.”

However, whenever he repeats the refrain in every executive meeting, real discussion stops. Lots of words are spoken, but his comment inserts a dangerous fiction at the moment the team should be grappling with hard truths.

As a result, they make no progress.

Selfish Disengagement

A Managing Director is stunned by the ungrateful nature of his staff members. His official Coffee Chats, an opportunity to meet with small groups of employees, has not turned out the way he wanted.

“Is this all you people do each day… just b***h and moan?” he finally lashes out, frustrated. All future open conversations are cancelled.

In his mind, they only became a bottomless pit of complaints. Instead of presenting a useful balance of positive and negative experiences, they dwelt on the bad stuff.

In response, he withdraws, turning into himself: an act of self-preservation in which he can lick his wounds in private. He limits his meetings to people he knows are happy, eschewing group gatherings. After all, no-one seems to care that he is also a human being who has real feelings.

The First Step

The behaviors displayed in the above examples are commonplace among leaders.

In each case, they experience unwanted internal feelings, triggered by other people’s unhappy expressions. To cope, they attack the source in the hope it will go away.

This tactic sometimes works in life, on simple problems. However, it fails to transform complex corporate cultures. In the high stakes positions they inhabit, the only answer is to learn how to fully accept, absorb and “be with” the stuff most people resist. In other words, instead of turning unwanted internal feelings into the enemy, they must mature to a place when they can be embraced.

While this is much easier to write or say than to practice, top executives need to evolve to the point where they can step aside from their own instinctive reactions. It’s the first, unavoidable step towards transforming themselves, demonstrating the radical kind of inside-out change that people need to see.

 

As such, this message isn’t only for top executives. It’s for any employee caught in a toxic company they can’t stand, but can’t immediately leave. Acceptance rather than resistance is the most powerful first step.

 

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. Missed a column? To receive a free download with articles from 2010-2017, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

 

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20180225/francis-wade-toxic-workplace-resistance