Did you think that your position on the leadership would demand creating an emotionally rich culture of you? Many of my clients come to me because of that very challenge. They are faced with low morale, declining revenues, a toxic work environment and the charge to turn it all around. Most are highly successful in achieving business goals, but at a loss when human emotions are concerned.
Traditionally in the industries I work most in, automotive, IT, engineering and manufacturing, emotions are not included in the discussions on where change needs to happen. However, the depth of negative emotions all around can be very evident. Interestingly, I also work in the healthcare industry and have witnessed scary evidence of a lack of caring for staff, which has a major impact on the patients being cared for.
It is easy to spot a culture of fear and anger. The healthcare example comes from a nursing facility I entered as a consultant. Within the first five minutes of being there I witnessed:
- A staff member storm into the room I was in muttering that the demands to be in two places at once were impossible and that she was hating her job,
- A staff member complain that in her 20 years of service to this establishment she had never been stressed to the point of wanting to leave the job she was devoted to,
- Several residents loudly protesting about various complaints.
I had visited this place numerous times previously and had always experienced it to be joyful and tranquil with lots of smiles an evidence of love and caring. I was shocked at the change! The difference had come as a result of a change in management who demanded longer hours and lower staffing ratios in an endeavor to make an impact on the costs of running the facility. The staff was unhappy and the residents were too. Several families started making arrangements to move their loved ones out of the facility. A drop in people to care for was a bigger financial threat than staffing costs.
Do you think that making the staff happy again would affect their bottom line?
It did not take money or bonuses to restore the peacefulness and happiness in the establishment. Showing the staff that they were cared for and getting rid of the caustic manager was enough. The leadership learned a lesson that creating an emotional culture of happiness was also profitable.
The first step for creating a positive emotional culture in your organization is to assess the current emotional tone of your workplace.
Start looking around and see how emotions manifest in your culture. Ask other departments to rate your team’s emotional culture. Your employee satisfaction surveys rating job satisfaction and commitment to the company may be indicators of joy or the lack there of.
I help companies understand their emotional culture and how to have a positive impact on this right now. Reach out to me and I will show you how.