“So What”
The new Chief Executive (CE) gave a great speech all about values and what’s important and their commitment to do the right thing. In the coffee break I circulated around the room eavesdropping with the intension of giving the boss feedback on how the speech was received. When I heard one attendee say,” I know what the organisation stands for -so what.“
It turns out this was not just the reaction of alone cynic. The general mood was weariness, people were jaded, over worked, feed up, discontented , bored. In summary they were exhausted. This was not the feedback the new CE was expecting. Here was an organisation that had come through a traumatic management restructuring , that had responded positively to a service reorganisation, had successfully managed changes in working practices , had taken a sensitive and corporate approach to the resulting redeployments, had demonstrated a willingness to embrace new technology and had found the reserves of energy to hit the ambitious year end performance targets. No wonder everyone was exhausted!
Maybe the CE should have expected this their audience was certainly hoping for recognition not just of what had been achieved over the last 18 months but how much it had taken out of people. But it was obvious the new CE thought they were coming to an organisation primed for success not one exhausted by the effort , suffering change fatigue with an increasingly disengaged work force and a very real risk of management burnout across the organisation.
It’s a situation that exists in many organisations, an exhausted workforce. It is not a situation where employees are going to respond well to further urgings for greater effort from senior management, more ambitious targets, talk of the need for increased efficiency or the intension to become cutting edge organisation.
It’s time to reengage employees, to demonstrate that the organisation cares about the health and well-being of their people , to recognise the organisation is in a marathon not a sprint, to move away from the obsession with performance and instead focus on agility and resilience starting with the emphasis on compassionate management. To recognise the individuals contribution and make them feel they matter. In short to answer the question,”So What! “
Blair Mcpherson former Director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
