Disinfect Workplace Bullies

In walking through the hospital today, I noticed a janitor sweeping up fallen leaves from some of the large plants in the common area. He was addressing the things that visitors to the hospital could see, not the things they can't see - like those who were sick enough to be admitted to hospital who had touched door handles, arms of chairs, vending machine buttons, elevator buttons and counter-tops. How often do you see janitors wiping down the coffee vending machine with disinfectant spray? How many dirty hands touch the daily-mopped floor versus how many flu-infected hands touch the elevator buttons or touch the arms of a chair in the Emergency room?

Now before you go thinking I'm some sort of weird germophobe, let me explain why I point this out.

Every single business and organization runs like this hospital: they spend an inordinate amount of time on things that might address how they are perceived but little or no effort on things that might affect their customers and clients profoundly. A poorly disinfected waiting room could result in a patient's second trip to Emergency in a few days. But if there's litter on the floor, one might perceive the hospital to be unclean. So you clean what they can see and ignore what they can't.

Think about when an organization offers their people a chance to air their griefs as a team-building exercise - but no one does because the staffer they want to complain about is sitting beside them. What about organizations whose front lobbies are immaculate but their shipping department can't seem to get a delivery done on time to save themselves. Then there are organizations who preach a safe and happy workplace but refuse to reprimand workplace bullies for fear of the employee union.

Management's failure to address a workplace's silent issues is no different than a hospital janitor rarely wiping down bacterial surfaces. Either way, someone will end up not well enough to come into work.

And then you have absenteeism which costs you money; big money. Soon it becomes a lousy place to work because your standards are lax. Your culture suffers and your new-hire candidates become more mediocre. If only you had just wiped the doors more often, enforced the rules and dealt with the bullies, you could have kept your good people.

A germ is a germ. Disinfect it before it makes your whole organization sick. 
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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How To Deal With Disappointment

Everyone gets disappointed at some point. Moms express their disappointment at the actions of their 6 year-old when they hit another boy. Fathers express their disappointment to teenage daughters in the hopes that the outward expression becomes a lesson to make better choices. Bosses express their disappointment on performance reviews in the hopes of motivating the affected employee. Teachers express their diappointment because they know the student isn't applying him or herself.

These are all expressions of outward disappointment in someone else. But what happens when disappointment is focused inward - when things don't turn out the way we had hoped?

There are some things in life that you just don't have any control over and there are other things that are within your control. Understanding which is which will help you to bounce back quicker from disappointment - to develop a resilience attitude.

Planning for months to visit the Grand Canyon only to be turned back by a snowstorm, a rained out family picnic, a power outage during your wedding reception or a cancelled flight to an important meeting are all things out of your control. You have no control over the weather, the electric company or the airlines. It's fine to feel disappointed for a short while but it isn't the end of your life. You can try again tomorrow.

However, disappointment about how much you get paid, your job-performance review, your golf score, that promotion you really want, your relationships at home and how your money is budgeted are all within your control. Only you determine how valuable you are to the company, how well you do your job, how much you practice at golf, how you self-improve to be the logical choice to be promoted, how hard you work at your relationship and how you spend your money. No one else is to blame for your results.

You have no control over other people, things or events outside of yourself. But you have complete control over your reaction to those things. You also have ALL of the control over every part of your life that involves YOU and your results.

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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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Make A Decision To Make A Decision

Louise Hay’s book, “You Can Heal Your Life” is a bit of a mind-bender when it comes to understanding that every disease or physical ailment has a psychological root. I first read this book about eight years ago and it opened my eyes to the possibility that physical ailments are nothing more than the manifestation of psychological problems – not that I'm saying you have mental health issues but instead it's about the stuff you have been thinking about but done nothing about.

Now before you go off and think that the reason you have a bad back is because you’re crazy, let me explain what Hay is offering.

A nagging sore lower back, according to Hay, is the result of experiencing financial problems. A sore upper back comes from difficulty in your current relationship (that doesn’t give you the right to tell your partner to get off your back). Colds and the flu are the result of too much going on – too many balls being juggled. A toothache is the result of not making decisions. A stiff and sore neck comes from not being willing to be flexible.

If you follow the logic, you can use your body to assess what is going on in your head at any given time and to adjust your attitude accordingly.

In essence, from what I read, Hay is saying that if you start making decisions on the unresolved issues in your head, you can start moving forward with a solutions-based focus and that many of your physical ailments that manifest as a result of a current crisis can be lessened in their severity.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Nagging thoughts, indecision, analysis paralysis (not making any decisions for fear it may be the wrong one) and worrying about change and not embracing it may be the reason you’ve got little aches and pains. Trying to treat the symptoms and not the root cause of aches and pains will leave you in a long battle with that stuff that just never seems to go away. Putting a heating pad on your lower back may bring you some short-term relief but tomorrow you're likely to still have the same sore back because you didn't deal with the underlying issue.

Make a decision to make a decision. That’s the answer. If there is an issue that you have been resisting making a decision on, simply set a date and time for when you will make the decision. For example, you could declare, “I will make my final decision next Thursday at eleven o’clock in the morning on whether or not to pursue that job opportunity I’ve been thinking about.”

I can almost guarantee that the missing piece of information that you need to make the final decision will show up between now and then. When you make a decision to make a decision, you set the wheels in motion that attracts the answers and information you require.

Now before you go off half-cocked thinking this is some sort of new-age fluff, why not test your attitude on it and give it a try first. After all, you’ve been putting up with aches and pains from not making decisions. Why not give this a try. Worst case scenario: nothing changes – you still have pain – but you’ve finally made a decision on something you’ve been avoiding and can move to the next step. Honestly? This process has worked for me for eight years now so I thought I'd bring you a little relief too.

Hope I Didn't Complain Too Much

I spent a little time with Bill recently. He’s in his eighties now and lives alone. He spends most of his days in front of the TV as he needs a walker to get around. He has a boarder who lives downstairs and she is supposed to fix his meals and keep him company in exchange for a substantial reduction on her rent. Meals are mostly frozen prepared dinners from the grocery store. She never spends more than five minutes at a time with Bill and he complains about it. And I understand that. For a man in his eighties, he’s being taken advantage of.

Our conversation lasted about an hour. We covered a lot of things including some regrets he has in his life, his loneliness, his estranged family and his quality of life. There’s no one to talk to. His meals come out of a microwave. He can’t drive anymore. He’s bound to his house. It’s kind of tough to be upbeat about life when those are the results you have near the end of it.

As I was walking down the front walk after our visit, he simply yelled out, “Hope I didn’t complain too much.”

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Perhaps Bill’s last words to me that day should be the last words you leave people with. Instead of saying, “goodbye” or “so long” perhaps you should close with, “hope I didn’t complain too much.”

What different conversations you’d end up having with others if you knew you were going to end the conversation with, “hope I didn’t complain too much.”

In fact, I think ending a conversation with “hope I didn’t complain too much” would actually cement the conversation you had with someone else. Both of the talk partners would be forced to reflect on the conversation to see if one or the other did complain too much.

But it will never fly. People just don’t want to be accountable for their conversations. People just want to complain. They want to whine and moan about how tough their lives are and use it as an excuse for not doing better. They don’t want to get out of their ruts and routines and enjoy something better. They don’t want to improve their circumstances or their lives because, well, it’s hard work and they already work hard enough. No. You’ll never hear those words at the end of a conversation because no one really would mean it.

So I guess life will just go on the same way, getting the same results and complaining about the same things. It’s easier to be lazy and complain than it is to fix a sorry life. So feel free to make your choice. It probably won’t be any different anyway.

Hope I didn’t complain too much.