Most people behave acceptably at work, despite too high a level of employee disengagement across the entire workforce.
However there is a minority of people who behave unacceptably and are definitely disengaged.
These people cause the greatest problems and weaken the enterprise culture dramatically.
This is where I get most requests for help, when the leadership is overwhelmed with the task of meeting business objectives whilst expending too much energy trying to deal with the unacceptable.
Invariably I find the apparent cause of these people behaving badly is their disconnection from their fellows.
Most of them have suffered from ineffective supervision at an earlier stage and have never recovered from that experience.
Furthermore they have been isolated and threatened with further disconnection ‘unless they change their ways’.
In 100% of the turnarounds I achieve with these people, the remedy has been re-connection and re-acceptance into their workplace. This is simultaneous with them realising that what happened in the past is no longer relevant and acquiring improved attitudinal competence through my coaching program. Often it also involves up-skilling the supervisors.
I was reminded of the root causes when I saw this TED talk. Put simply, even though the apparent cause of their unacceptable behaviour is disconnection and isolation, the root cause is their fear, habits and ignorance – fearing the state they are in, habitually behaving to avoid their perceived reality, and not knowing how to overcome it.
The remedies are courage, better practice and continuous learning, leading to improved attitudinal competence. That is their pathway back.
And the leadership and fellows forgive them and re-embrace them.
Forgiveness is an under-utilised leadership capability, which takes courage, better practice and learning.
I believe every leader needs to be aware of these possibilities and act accordingly.
What do you think?
