Do You Have It? Anger? Rage? 2040’s Ideas and Innovations Newsletter, Issue 90.
Issue 90, January 12, 2023
A group of white men wearing T-shirts, Patagonia fleece vests or zip-front sweaters, Allbirds sneakers, and faded jeans are sitting around a conference table. It is 7:30 in the morning. They are collegial, familiar with one another, and engaged in friendly banter. The senior team turns their attention to their leader who has just walked into the room; he looks exactly like they do. Two women follow him, dressed in the female version of the unofficial company uniform. They are the comms and HR executives. The meeting starts; the agenda is to review recent diversity and inclusion initiatives and try to figure out why so many of their employees are quitting. The leader admits he has no idea why a third of his younger workforce is either losing pace or outright abandoning him. He is convinced he is a role model for a balls-to-the-walls work ethic, logging in longer hours and more weekends than anyone else to deliver on the organization’s short-term goals.
The executive team comes to attention, each with a Starbucks cup placed to the right of their mobiles, which they watch attentively not to miss any texts, emails, or breaking news. The meeting begins.
The HR executive has continued to emphasize the importance of maintaining and maturing a healthy organizational culture. Under advisement of HR, the CEO reached out to his peers at other organizations to learn how they approach their workforce challenges. Each has a slightly different strategy, and the CEO listened more carefully to those he agreed with who brought their workforce back into the office full-time. They, like the CEO, believe that physical co-location provides a firmer control on the work environment and culture.
Accordingly, the CEO announces to his team that he has rejected requests for remote and hybrid work, believing that everyone needs to be physically together in his on-trend designed workplace that is open spaces with no dedicated workstations. He sees physical collaboration as the solution to the quiet (and vocal) quitting plaguing the organization. He also announces that to cut costs, he is eliminating the free coffee and snacks and is converting the yoga space into a storeroom. The CEO felt these perks were a distraction from getting work accomplished according to his timelines.
You might think this scenario sounds like a screenplay for some startup or emerging tech streaming series. Sadly, it is not atypical of many organizations today, struggling with an outspoken, highly competent workforce, changing workplace values, and the potential implosion of their workplace culture infrastructures.
The top-down approach to addressing issues and problems often comes from a place of comfort and the perception of what worked in the past will work again. And in the case of our CEO, he will unlock a Pandora’s box of problems with his workforce by taking a command-and-control stance in today’s dynamically changing and complex environment.
Forced Change
The past few years have resulted in a society forced to change — even into transformation. This forced necessity to adapt, and change crossed over between personal and professional lives and for many redefined how to navigate life on a day-to-day basis. Prior pandemic, one could argue that we were wound too tightly into conforming to what we considered normal that mirrored what we were taught about how the world worked. Many believed that Type-A, balls-to-the-wall work ethics, achieving goals at any cost (including personal health and well-being) and ensuring every decision contributed to advancing one’s career and accumulating more money was the right approach
Change Is Hard
For those that have not yet read The Truth About Transformation, several chapters focus on exploring how William Bridges correlated change to the Grief Curve. A curve refined by others as a Transformation Curve explains how individuals and organizations manage the journey of personal or organizational change. Both the Grief and Transformation Curves represent the different stages that occur through the phases of grasping, internalization, confusion, and ultimately redefining reality that enables acceptance of change.
If you follow the curves; anger, confusion and frustration play strong sequential roles as mental states and emotions in moving towards acceptance. In consideration of the past few years, forced change left many of us without the tools or understanding how to successfully move through the curve towards acceptance of a new reality and therefore a new environment.
Continue to the Full Article to See How to Build Resilience Through Change>