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“I see a lot of people in unstimulating relationships. If people were a little less scared of ending things they’d get more out of life. You meet the right person at the right time and they fulfill a certain something in your life. You fulfill something in theirs.
But there’s a time limit to that. “
Laura Marling
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“When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.”
Sigmund Freud
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So. Unstimulating relationships. This is actually about business and about ‘time limits.’
As a business manager you end up grasping a couple of truths about your employees and their relationship with what they do, their work, their careers and the company.
The first truth is that many of the employees are just doing their job. They are in a relatively unstimulating relationship with their job & career and they are kind of okay with that.
As a manager you genuinely try and make the relationship a little more simulating for them and, if you are truly genuine, while the these employees may never get as passionate or interested as you would like they appreciate you caring enough to try and, on occasion, will try harder for you and the company. This doesn’t mean they don’t care about their work and, in fact, if you highlight the contribution and impact their efforts make, they will care, just not find work particularly stimulating. I mention this as a first truth to acknowledge, which some organizational development people do not, that to some people a job is a job – no more and no less.
The second truth is that there are some employees who are actively seeking stimulated relationship with their jobs, careers and the company. If they are in an unstimulating relationship, suffice it to say, they will make you miserable out of their own miserableness.
As a manager you genuinely try and keep these employees stimulated. If you do it well, these people kill it. They are absolute monster achieving workers/thinkers/doers in the work place. Get it wrong with these employees and … well … most leave to find some stimulating relationship.
Understanding these two truths is surprisingly like getting a pail of cold water thrown in your face.
Well. At least it was for me.
I am not sure it was the same for others, but this may have been one of the most difficult things for me to understand, and deal with, when I moved from managing a group <where you get to hire everyone and try to have them match your attitude> to managing a company, multiple groups, departments and a bunch of people you do not hire yourself.
I, personally, struggled to understand how anyone could come into work each day, be relatively unstimulated and not only do good work, but actually want to come in and do good work every day.
But a lot of people do just that.
It took me awhile.
But I got it. At the same time I also understood that you never really let the unstimulated group of employees remain completely unstimulated.
You kind of never really let them completely start doing their work by rote or like robots. Mostly you just try to give them some positive stimulation on occasion like, as I noted earlier, encourage them to see how they contribute and their impact <this is different than incentivizing or trying to ‘game’ their behavior>.
Anyway.
The reality is that being an employee is a dance. You have a dance partner and sometimes there is a song you hate and do not dance, sometimes there is a song you hate and you are asked <or told> to dance and sometimes there is a good song and you will dance no matter what.
That is a fairly metaphoric example of a stimulating workplace.
But I will point out something I purposefully did. I suggested the bad song is playing in two of the three scenarios.
Yeah.
And that is still a stimulating relationship.
Go figure.
For some reason we seem to think people need to love their jobs all the time <or the significant majority of the time> or inject passion into what we do.
That is, frankly, a little nuts.
Mostly we should be seeking to have employees be proud of what they do <even if they don’t actually love what they do> and, as a manager, be wise enough to know what to overlook.
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“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
William James
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Work is called work, and not ‘play, for a reason.
It’s work.
And sometimes work takes some … well … work.
I could actually argue that the ‘working at work’ can be stimulating if you view it correctly.
But that really doesn’t sound logical enough to invest energy in.
And maybe that is the key to understanding this whole ‘unstimulating relationship” thing – logic.
I can truthfully say that behind closed doors senior managers talk far too much about “logical” ways to stimulate employees and tap into some mysterious passion muscle we absurdly believe every employee has within <to be focused on our business and their work within our business>.
Once again … that is kind of nuts.
To be clear. I do believe everyone has a passion muscle within, but to think it can randomly be directed toward ‘work’ <which, I will remind everyone, is called ‘work’ because it is work … and not play or relaxation or ‘fun’> is the nuts part.
Logically we should just accept the fact that many employees have mentally come to grips with a job in which they are not in an overly stimulated relationship with.
That doesn’t mean they don’t want to do a good job nor does it mean they will not care it just means that their job is more a paycheck and not a career.
All that said, let me close with where I started … “time limits.”
All employees have limits in an unstimulating relationship – all: the ones who live with being unstimulated and the ones who actively seek stimulation. I am fairly sure most employees don’t create tangible definable limits they more often probably fall into the “I will know when it is time.”
All business managers should recognize that all employees have ‘time limits’ when it comes to anything unstimulating. What that means is you cannot get away with being an uninvolved, uninterested, un-energy creating manager for too long. I don’t mean to imply many managers do that, but I will note that creating stimulation and seeking to energize a stimulating relationship between your employees and your business is hard work.
It isn’t about some motto or slogan.
It isn’t about donuts in the mornings and fun team meetings on Fridays.
It is about finding ways to show employees that their work is respected, their contributions are valued and that there are opportunities to grow as a person <intellectually, skills or responsibilities>. Yeah. I just offered that up as a solution to stimulate relationships and nowhere in that was any activity or initiative. All I outlined was possible destinations – mind, body or leadership.
Nothing stimulates an employee business relationship more than being a business that suggest they will enable an individual to ‘be more than they are today’ if they have the time and interest. In my mind businesses with an unstimulated relationship with their employees may be doing ‘things’ but they are just going through the motions , maybe using too much logic, to create some false stimulation.
Here is the truth. Show people where they can go and tell them you believe in them and a shitload will be stimulated, all on their own, to engage in the relationship with their job and work. Ponder.