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Entrepreneurial Environments: How to Make Them Fast, Fun, and Free

Guest post by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: Is it possible for your employees to leave their problems at home? How do you, as their employer, help create an environment that allows for communication and increased productivity?

Entrepreneurial Environments: How to Make Them Fast, Fun, and Free

We all wish everyone could leave their problems at the office door and just get the work done. Most of us also wish we could help when an employee's personal situations get out of hand. Yet, there is a fine line between being caring and compassionate or cold and callous. This fine line takes an understanding of ones own reaction patterns when faced with employees who need help in resolving out-of-office issues. Tensions that go unresolved cost millions of dollars in lost productivity, conflict, absenteeism, and health issues. Research indicates that senior executives spend over half their time resolving staff personality conflicts. The amount of time has doubled since the 1980's and as economic pressures increase so does the time dealing with personal employee issues. It is estimated that HR executives spend up to one-fifth of their time dealing with litigation activities, and a full thirty percent of a typical manager's time is spent dealing with conflict.

Why does stress get so dialed up at work? One of the main facts is that when stress hits the hot button we are all prone to revert to behaviors we learned as children for survival and security. So, if you think your co-workers are behaving like babies, you're probably right! Knowing this can help you with the difficult conversations that inevitably need to occur if the business of business is to get done. You may not be able to resolve issues, yet, you can point employees in the right direction. Patterns we learned as youngsters may have helped us cope when we were young. As adults they get in the way and act as smoke screens we hope will be our protective shields.

Here are some guidelines to help navigate that narrow place between being too cold or too caring. Please remember, work is not a rehab facility. If you have a valuable employee who has been a great producer you can offer the help of an EAP, modify work hours, offer short term leave, or if possible, realign responsibilities.

It is not your job to diagnose or treat. Yet, often when employees are reticent about getting help you can ask some open-ended questions that will help them decide to take action.

First, here are signs of distress and reverting to old patterns of behavior:

* increased absenteeism (pattern of avoider)

* reduced productivity (pattern of procrastinator)

* friction with employees (pattern of persecutor/bully)

* crying or yelling (pattern of drama queen or king)

* dressing inappropriately (pattern of rebel)

* becoming accident prone (pattern of victim)

* comes in very early/stays very late/complaining (pattern of martyr)

* making jokes out of everything (pattern of clown)

* constant forgetting (pattern of denier)

* always me, me, me (pattern of super achiever)

* jumping in to save everyone (pattern of rescuer)

* drowning in work, can't say no, burnout (pattern of pleaser)

* Talks about everyone to everyone (pattern of splitter)

Your job is to be gravity! Open-ended questions can begin the process of defining what can and can't be achieved. First, share your concerns using "I statements". Start with "I don't know what the problem is, I'm here to help and if you choose not to share personal information that is okay, it's really not my business. Yet, your performance is my business. Help me understand how we can make changes that need to happen."

You do not have to outline all the concerns, this is not a performance review, it is an offer to be compassionate and look for solutions. If you begin to list all the problems or offer quick solutions you are in the role of "good/bad parent" and the childhood patterns lock in.

You want the employee to respond from a mature, healthy place rather than from knee jerk old behaviors. Therefore, ask the questions that will give them the responsibility of their own accountability. Some will be willing to stay in the conversation at that time, others need time to recalibrate and can be offered a set time later that day or the next to respond. Let the employee choose the time, this is part of accountability. However, no more that one day should go by without a response.

When the employee is ready to talk, it is your job to let them present their concerns. You can listen actively and then say "Tell me more" and wait. That is part of your "gravity role". It is after that point that you can respond with a set of conditions that need to be met and a time line of agreements.

Next steps: If there is no change and no response that shows change is possible, you again come from an "I statement". Here is an example: "I feel frustrated that there is no change. I don't know what the personal problem is, however you are putting your job at risk". Do not lecture, plead, use fear, blame or judge. Be clear and concise. This meeting is usually shorter than the prior one. Again, if you take on the role of judge it often does resemble that of parent and the old patterned behavior gets embedded.

Besides keeping alert to specific personnel problems, firms need to adopt a structural orientation, creating office environments in which old patterns don't get much room to grow. Until recently, most companies have frowned on the public expression of emotions, especially negative ones; there is simply no room for anger, jealousy, disappointment, fear, frustration, rejection or sadness. There was no place to talk about financial problems at home or relational issues such as separation, divorce, ill or poorly behaving children.

Don't bring it to work is the mantra. Only work issues are allowed. However, if we shut down expressing ourselves in an adult way, sharing our concerns and struggles, stress builds and emotions get buried in deeper, more primal parts of our nervous systems until, like a latent volcano, they begin to bubble and finally erupt.

Here are some suggestions for rethinking workplace structure. These are long term thoughts to help:

*Create Balance: Offices structured with excessive emphasis on rules and boundaries create secrets and silence; those which are too flexible are filled with gossip and rumors. In a balanced workplace there is a requirement to ask lots of open ended questions and check out assumptions directly with the source. Accountability is rewarded.

*Encourage the safe expression of emotions: Stiff upper lip cultures promote an every body is always happy and in control setting, impossible and phony. Tell it like it is - cultures often promote too much time talking about and analyzing what is done and said and work is put on the back burner. When we can say what we feel and think and express ourselves respectfully and honestly, there is a healthy capacity to "see it, say it, and let it go".

*Educate: Have brown bag lunch lectures to discuss heath subjects, financial information and relationship tips. This is in addition to wellness programs to help employees stop smoking or consider weight issues. Although firms cannot take away fear of financial concerns, offering educational seminars can help. This is the same with parenting and partnering issues. Sometimes just one seminar can get an employee started with exactly what they need to solve a personal problem.

Workplaces for the 21st Century are more complex than they have ever been. We now go at the speed of light and take so little time to think through priorities. We often stay on the treadmill of patterned responses. Studies in emotional intelligence call upon executives to understand not merely the financial nuts and bolts of a business, but also the communication patterns of those they lead. Becoming pattern aware builds upon cognitive psychology and emotional intelligence.

Helping employees observe, understand and transform their patterns is a way to engage a healthy workforce. When the healthy opposites of patterns surface, avoiders become initiators, and procrastinators become realizers, persecutors become visionaries, rebels become community builders, and victims become explorers and so on. The full list is in the book "Don't Bring It to Work" as well as the tools for transforming the old out-dated patterns to ones that enhance positive adult relationships both at work and at home.

The best employers, the smartest entrepreneurs don't just want their employees to survive; they want to support a culture that is open, fun, and cooperative. In a thriving work culture, individuals are proactive, taking charge of work relationships, being initiators to resolve conflict, being accountable for their part in any difficult situations that lead to hard feelings.

Making changes in the culture of a work setting takes courage. It means speaking up in a clear and responsible manner. It means knowing that everyone in the system is part of the problem and also part of the change. The rewards are many. The jackpot includes healthy, productive, and fulfilling relationships up and down the organization.

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Article Tags: Communication, Create Balance in the Workplace



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