Hello good people.
I spoke last week to a fantastic group of after-school professionals about workplace climate issues, staff retention,and personal job satisfaction. We had an excellent time together and the energy and conversation in the room was inspiring.
Since then, I’ve gotten equally great emails from quite a few of the session participants. Common to these emails have been pressing and challenging questions about the realities we all face when we come back from a conference or some type of departure and are suddenly met with the day-to-day stresses of our work.
I thought I’d share a few of these questions and my replies in hopes that you can find some fodder in your own work:
Question: I came back to loads of problems and issues, its hard to bring in new ideas when I can’t even get my team to complete basic directions. Any ideas?
My response:
Now for the bigger question: how to get a BIG idea addressed when the little things aren’t even getting done. That’s a tough one! Here’s one reaction I have to the question: how about doing something around the BIG idea first, so that the little stuff DOES get done? Staff happy hour? A group book read!? Unscheduled “meeting off”? Some of these little gestures sprinkled into your normalcy so that you better create the conditions to tackle some of these lingering issues and frustrations. Basically, invert the model from “we’ll take care of each other once everything else is done” to “we’ll get everything done once we take care of each other.” Oversimplified, yes. But not a bad approach as you seek to move forward.
Another question: When I noticed your presentation title in my booklet I thought WOW that one is for me. I am sure most attendees attended your session for ways to retain staff, but I attended to retain ME! There was a question that was posed to you that was in regards to how do we stay positive for ourselves? I NEED that answer!
My answer:
I wish I had THE answer for how to sustain yourself in this work, especially since you’re at a point where you’re questioning whether or not you can even stay in the work. I guess I’ll share this thought for the day: The more the merrier.
If you’re serious about changing the work climate and staff’s attitudes, then you’ll need a critical mass of people around you engaged in that goal. If you’re serious about sustaining your own peace and energy, then you’re going to need your colleagues, friends, and family involved. They’ll need to hold you to your promises, encourage you to be militant about your peace, and mindful of your limitations. This work simply can’t be maverick-like! You’ll need lots of insulation to pull this off.
These are just a couple of the critical questions people are facing. What advice would you have given to these same questions?
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