Entitlement, Gratitude, and Connectivity
In the marketplace or in your community, small and medium-sized enterprises survive and thrive through innovation, creativity, creating and using their competitive edges, and evolving with their environment. Often this evolution is difficult, messy, and expensive both in terms of people and cost; but it is absolutely necessary to survive and by extension to thrive. Evolution isn’t necessarily about profitability as much as it is about change, people, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Evolution threatens people. Evolution threatens comfort zones, the status quo, people’s knowledge, skills, behavior, attitude, and security; and if perceived as negative people can and will respond with resistance, fear, anger, and absence. Evolution is natural and it is necessary for any organization, profit-based or charitable-based, to survive and to accomplish its goals.
“You’re forcing us to change too fast. Why are you imposing new systems and processes on us, the old ones worked just fine. You are not listening to us. You should sell us back to the original owners. We have always done things that way and we were successful. We like things the old way, not the way you want us to do things.”
Sound familiar? These phrases are often accompanied by threats of resignation, passive or active resistance, sabotage of new hires, anger and resentment, and many heightened emotions. They are symptomatic of evolution that is failing or has the potential to fail; endangering the organization and likely the careers of the leaders but also each and every one of the employees of the organization. Where these statements are common; stagnation and declining performance usually accompanying them.
The fear and anger experienced by people can be so great in these organizations that even obvious and common-sense suggestions are resisted or ignored because the sense of entitlement and anger is so great that any change is perceived as negative. For example, in a furniture store, an entitled or resentful sales team can be so resistant that even the elementary sales principle of walking customers to the door after a major purchase and thanking them is rejected because the staff is too fixated on fighting any new suggestions and their customers suffer as a result.
Entitlement is fueled by missed opportunities to express gratitude. One person or side is never totally at fault in organizations that fail to evolve. Showing gratitude or not showing gratitude either helps to build or destroy organizations, especially small and medium-sized organizations. Opportunities are missed when people don’t see them or aren’t looking for them. For example, a troublesome but dedicated long-time associate who is the constant bane of a manager might be someone who starts early and does things “over and above” what is expected because of their desire to “make things work;” isn’t thanked for their extra effort and becomes more resentful with each passing day because nobody sees how hard they are working. Eventually, this person will be fired or resign because of their lack of willingness to change and/or because of the lack of appreciation and gratitude from their managers.
Many organizations are guilty of noticing what is wrong or pointing out shortcomings while never acknowledging the many things that work or are equally worthy of praise. Entitlement by managers and supervisors is just as dangerous as entitlement by staff. A common refrain in poorly led organizations is “Nobody compliments me, why should I complement others.” Respect and trust are earned, and both are earned by consistent appreciation and application of leadership. Noticing and acknowledging is the key to enabling evolution.
Easy things to notice include people who start early or work late without complaint, people who consistently get the job done, people who own their mistakes and learn from them, people who take the time to help new people or people with questions, people who take the time to respect the systems and processes of their organizations, and people who offer their opinions and ideas freely. The more people look for actions or behaviors to praise, the more they will see.
Equally dangerous to an organization is the lack of connectivity between senior leaders and their people and/or purpose. Organizations can stagnate when top leaders only want an echo chamber for new ideas and concepts. When creativity and criticism are stifled and people are told to “stay in their lanes,” organizational leaders reveal their pettiness and defensiveness. Often these leaders are out of touch with their front-line staff, have not taken the time to know their people’s needs, and ironically are often extremely well paid, making several times what their front-line staff earn; but their organizations are in danger of failing, or worse becoming irrelevant in their community. Being better connected to their organizational goals, people, clients, and pay scale breeds trust, respect, and appreciation for the work the organization does. The best leaders are less concerned about legacy than they are about effectiveness.
A litmus test for connectivity of an organization is to ask the question when a discussion happens in your organization, does anyone voice an opinion other than what the senior leader thinks?
A way forward…
Organizations that are suffering from entitlement, lack of gratitude, and are poorly or not connected to their purpose, their people, their customers, or clients, are in major trouble; unchecked they will fail and lose their most valuable assets, their people and perfects even their organization.
It is important to realize these truisms:
Not everyone is able or will make it through an organization’s evolution and this is okay. People who cannot or will not change should be helped to recognize this truth and helped to find new positions either in the organization or in another organization.
No one person should be able to “bottleneck” change in any organization. Review, update, eliminate, and create systems and processes that are documented, cross-trainable, and easy to access by everyone.
Evolution is going to happen whether your organization is prepared or not. The best organizations realize and appreciate this fact and get in ahead of it.
Encourage everyone in your organization to notice positive as well as negative actions. Publicly acknowledge the positive ones and privately coach and make the negative ones focuses for individual growth.
Listen, ask questions, listen some more; and always try to encourage open and frank discussion.
Be fair and consistent and never shy away from difficult decisions ever!
Encourage your people to ask themselves and to be able to answer “YES” to the daily question, “Is what you are doing adding value to the organization?”
Encourage everyone to avoid engaging in negative and/or petty conversations or gossip about the organization, its customers or clients, and your people. If there is a problem or issue, empower everyone to bring the problem into the open and find solutions.
Encourage everyone to defend when necessary and justified, bend and show empathy and compassion when necessary, and always lead all of the time. Everyone in your organization should consider themselves a leader, some by their ability to motivate and develop people, and others by the examples they set.
Always be on guard for bullying, peer pressure, and intimidation. Not all bullying is overt, the most dangerous bullies are subtle and sometimes those whom leaders least suspect.
As a leader, appreciate there will be times where you will not be liked by some of your people. Effective organizations thrive because their leaders are always respectful, fair, and make the best decisions possible with the facts that are present at the time when a decision is required.
Entitlement takes many forms and can be demonstrated by anyone in an organization from the staff to the leadership. Entitlement stifles evolution, hurts morale, and will cost your organization its best people; whether they leave or just give up. Gratitude cannot be ignored, notice what your people are doing, the good as well as the bad; take steps to build on the positive and develop people to overcome the bad. Build connectivity between all of your people and your customers/clients, encourage new ideas, creativity, and the adoption of those ideas; and keep everyone in touch with the goals and vision of the organization. Notice, listen, and take action.
Good luck,
Paul.