We live in the environment that we create for ourselves

Note published on March 28 in Expansión, Opinión [Opinion] Section by Blanya Correal.
Read original source

We create work environments in which the only priority is obtaining results, and then we wonder why collaborators are not fully committed to the company! states Blanya Correal.

A few years ago, I was about to enter a restroom at a shopping center; however, I ran into a furious person that was damaging the paint on the walls; you could tell she was really upset, and she was trying to “take it out on the bathroom”.

Beyond the shock, what caught my attention was the fact that she was wearing a shirt bearing the logo of a store that was very close to the restroom, surely, she was an employee at that place. I imagined, from what I was able to gather from the whole situation, that this person was letting off steam as a result of a problem with the supervisor at the store.

She made me think of what she was in fact obtaining from her behavior, in her anger, she probably wanted to affect others. however, she was damaging her own environment because, as an employee of that store, she surely used that restroom at least a couple of times a day.

Seeing this from a broader perspective, we could say that this same thing happens in our companies and even in our country. We believe that skipping the line, taking economic advantage of a situation or even skipping a procedure thanks to a favor is a sign of cleverness or of being smarter than others, but then we complain that each day we are subjected to more regulations and controls, creating more bureaucracy or simply “forcing us” to give bribes in every situation.

And this same thing happens inside of companies; we create work environments in which the only priority is obtaining results, and then we wonder why collaborators are not fully committed to the company! For years we have developed a culture of productivity, in which efficiency is rewarded; nevertheless, the equilibrium with the human side of things is being increasingly broken.

How would companies operate if we were able to (as some of them are doing) create a balance between better conditions for the people and for the business? if we were able to ensure that people who are truly connected to their work find a source of personal fulfillment that motivates them to do their best? If this was not just a speech but the reality?

We live in the environment that we create for ourselves.

The way in which we treat people within organizations is the same way in which they treat their tasks or their clients, you cannot ask someone to go the extra mile for your business when you are not willing to do the same for that person.

This means that we often ask a collaborator to “help us out”, to stay longer, not to go on vacation, etc., but when the worker has a personal situation that merits our support, we give him the runaround, or we require that he brings us all sorts of evidence! And then we ask ourselves why people don’t trust their bosses and companies?

We have the opportunity of creating places in which we evolve the concept of employment beyond any trend or of the “best place to work” rankings, we truly have the opportunity of turning companies into places in which people can grow and find a connection with what they do and who they do it with; in which learning is encouraged as a means for improvement, but we are talking about improvement beyond results, an integral improvement that always keeps in mind the equilibrium between people and the business.