Do you ever suspect that the rate of progress at work is likely to be having a significantly negative impact on the bottom line?
Many employees are frustrated by very prevalent financial restrictions which are often laid at the door of UK economic circumstances. In this blog I will show how difficulties which turn up in the bottom line are often predominantly connected to the organisational culture.
The majority sense that organisational stagnancy is draining employees’ mood at work. On a semi-conscious level employees mental health is adversely affected by taking a salary whilst being unable and sometimes unwilling to get anything done. The somehow dishonest exchange of money for little tangible output has a profoundly negative impact on people’s self-esteem and self-respect.
Even the most highly motivated employees lose the desire to try to get things done when they are seeking to deliver in a cultural environment that often feels like porridge.
My recent article about paradigms of structure and control established that excessive use of one single mindset is responsible for delivering untold harm on every level. In an organisational context paradigms of structure and control are a primary cause of:
- Interdepartmental feuding
- Disempowerment of employees
- Often counter-productive re-structures which lead to no tangible change
It’s easy to see that none of the above indicate a healthy organisational culture.
If you want to take a simple thermometer reading of the health in your current team you can achieve a clarifying outcome by tracking the ‘direction’ of the language in meetings.
Tracking the Direction of Language in Meetings
Nearly all the sentences people use at work have a directional undercurrent, they move the conversation:
- Forwards – towards problem-solving, doing and agreeing e.g. “How about if we do X to progress this project?”
- Backwards – stalls progress by providing counter-examples to the direction of travel or establishing reasons why not to take action e.g. “I don’t think we can spend 50 quid until we have established the output of the next budget round in nine months time.”
- Upgrading– improving things to a standard beyond the current status quo e.g. “Wouldn’t it be better if we did X to improve our customer service?”
- Downgrading – suggestions which deteriorate the quality of output or service e.g. “Let’s not bother to fill in any potholes for a decade or so, I’m sure the public will get used to it.”
A fifth category has no directional undercurrent but does have the effect of simultaneously taking up time and delivering nothing.
5. Neutralising – statements which fail to add useful meaning or refer to the blindingly obvious which doesn’t need any comment e.g. “I think that nothing has happened because no one has done anything.”
It’s easy to see that if there is a high percentage of sentences which are neutralising, backwards or downgrading standards, motivation, output and any reasonable return on investment for employees’ salaries will fall.
You can do a simple diagnostic test by tracking the direction of the sentences used in any meeting you attend. To do the test:
- Attend the meeting with a simple chart which has five different directional categories
- Notice the functional direction of each sentence
- Keep track of the number of sentences in each category
It’s possible that you will have a pretty clear sense of what the ‘data’ you collect is likely to show. (Of course it’s good to include your own sentences in the data and they will provide insight into your own current mindset.)
If you think your team would benefit from a shift in the directional sentences you can read my next article which will give you details of how to take the relevant pill.
If you are the kind of person who is keen to elevate organisational performance for the benefit of greater delivery, team harmony and personal satisfaction, learn more about how you can get trained to be the ‘go-to problem solver’ in your business area by clicking here.
