Dont coddle me at work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Dont coddle me at work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Some businesses seem to think that they must protect their employees from all the dangers of working life. Before people can be happy at work, the thinking goes, they must be shielded from all manner of ills: angry customers, unrealistic deadlines, unfair decisions, overwork, boring meetings, stress, annoying co-workers, insecurity, diffiult situations, hard choices you name it. Wrong. The best and happiest workplaces in the world havent become so by shielding their people from problems, but by giving their people the skills, the energy and the freedom to deal constructively with problems. We must of course work consistently to solve the problems in our workplaces, but happiness at work does not come from eliminating them altogether in an effort to create an ideal, idyllic work environment. Which is a good thing, because we never will. The perfect, trouble-free, garden-of-eden workplace does not exist. It never will. Trust me! The people I have met who really, truly love their jobs are certainly not coddled by their workplace. They are nurtured, not protected. They are helped, not shielded. They do magnificent work and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They succeed in spite of the odds. They face down challenges that let them grow and learn. Here are some areas where businesses can change their thinking and help their people grow instead of coddling them. 1: Know that we WANT to do great work Very few people come to work to be mediocre. But many people have the drive and exhuberance knocked out of them early on in their careers. Dee Hock, the founder of VISA, wrote something great in his excellent book The Chaordic Age: Given the right circumstances, from no more than dreams, determination, and the liberty to try, quite ordinary people consistently do extraordinary things. We want to do great work. But not if the organization plans for and expects mediocrity from us. Expect great things from us and well deliver. 2: Dont shackle us with rules and regulations People can think for themselves. Setting up elaborate rules for every possible situation is not really a reflection on employees needs its probably a reflection of managements need for control. Or the illusion of control. Nordstroms, a department store famous for its good service, gives its employees very wide latitude to make decisions. Here are their corporate rules: Rule #1: In all situations, use your good judgment. There will be no additional rules. Thats all the rules we really need. One reader of this blog said this in a comment: The place where I work is managed by good people who don?t want to be bureaucratic jerks, but they can?t grasp one simple concept: they are giving me money in exchange for doing something I love?they don?t have to shackle me with schedules and policies to get me to produce! I will be here working my little heart out because *I want to be*. 3: Allow us to fail and allow us to learn from it Businesses cant protect their people from failing. Failure happens everywhere. The important question is how failure is handled. Is it treated as something shameful and wrong that must be hidden or as a learning opportunity? Menlo Innovations has a big banner hanging in their main office. It says Fail faster. THAT is a good attitude to failure. Dont avoid it, because failure is a necessary part of progress. But fail as soon as possible to learn as much as possible. 4: Tell us what we can do better Another failure of coddling, is when employees are never criticized. In some workplaces, you will never get constructive feedback on the things you did wrong or badly either out of a desire to protect people or to avoid potential conflict. This is a bad idea. We want to know when we do great work. We also want to know when we can do better. It may not be as much fun as being praised, but we need it. And we can take it were not that fragile :o) The best workplaces praise people whenever theres a reason to do so. And this makes it much easier to also tell people what they can do better. Of course some workplaces only criticize and never praise. That is a really bad idea, that leads to nothing but cynicism. 5: Let us do it Let people act themselves. If management steps in every time to micromanage or to solve problems for employees, how will they know what they can do on their own? And, hey, maybe the employees way was actually better than anything management could come up with. The only thing wrong with it was that it wasnt managements way. Ricardo Semler, the CEO of Semco, describes in his excellent book The Seven-Day Weekend how his executives have one very important leadership strategy: Inaction. To NOT interfere. They believe that once top leadership steps in and clears up a situation, they must now do so every time a similar situation occurs. When they step back and let people fix it themselves, they increase the organizations ability to deal with these issues without them. The upshot Rather than focus solely on reducing the number of problems employees face in the workplace, its vital that businesses focus even more on giving people the skills, the energy and the freedom to do something about those problems. No adult is happy at work when he is coddled and protected. We want to be challenged and to have the skills, energy and freedom to overcome those challenges. This does not mean throwing people to the sharks to see who survives. Some organizations give their employees absolutely no support, help or encouragement, which is probably even worse, and certainly makes no one happy at work. The organization must still help people, back them up, help them grow. But trying to protect us and to set up rules and regulations for all possible contingencies, the way parents protect their children, does not make us happy. It makes us powerless. And that is the worst thing you can do to people. Whats your thinking on this? Where is your organization on the throw them to the sharks coddle them to death continuum? Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related