Most
of the organizations today have attendance recorders where employees swipe in once
they arrive at office and many now also have biometric attendance
recorders. These recorders can only record
the physical arrival of the employee but cannot record whether the employee has
arrived with their heart and soul to work.
In my last blog on “Accounting
of Accountability versus Account of Accountability” I talked about
ownership and responsibility from a leader’s point of view and in this blog I
am sharing how employees can take ownership and responsibility (bring their heart
and soul to work). Let me ask you to recall your company’s last
offsite meet where most of the employees danced till late night and next day
morning on the breakfast table you hear the conversations like “I never knew
you can dance so well” or “You really have great energy to stay on the floor
for so many hours” or “You made others also dance with your energy and
enthusiasm” and so on. Now fast forward
to the Monday morning after 2 weeks of the offsite meet and you see the same
set of employees swiping the attendance recorder without the energy and
enthusiasm of the dance floor. The Atten(d)ance
now does not have the (D)ance (energy and enthusiasm) in them. Imagine if each employee like in the offsite meet
were to bring (D)ance along with Atten(d)ance to work. I was thinking about this and was wondering
why do many employees don’t dance at work and following are few thoughts that I
would like you to consider.
They don’t (D)ance with the
Organizations values: Each one of us have been brought up in different environments and
carry different experiences from home and at work from various organizations
that we have worked in the past. Many a
time because of these varied experiences, our values may not align with the
organizations value and this may bring down the (D)ance (energy and enthusiasm). However if you think deep there is nothing
wrong or right about values. Values are values and one should either align or
find some other organization but not continue without the (D)ance. For sure it may take time to learn to (D)ance
with the organization’s values. So if
you thought that the values of previous organization were like “classical
indian music” that you liked and the value of the current organization is “hard
rock music” then you may want embrace the new “hard rock music” by telling
yourself that “indian classical music” made you fluid from inside and now “hard
rock music” will make you a rock from outside. So being patient and learning to align with
new values will help you become rock solid and bring (D)ance to work.
They don’t (D)ance with the
Head of the Department: Very often we hear employees saying that the Head of the
department does not understand the ground realities, his vision, his ideas are
not connecting with what happens in day to day work and so on (in some extreme
cases employees may even say who made him the Head). These are the employees
who don’t (D)ance with the Head of the Department. They usually are on 2nd floor of
the building and can see only a small radius whereas the Head is sitting on 12th
floor and can see the Tsunami of change in the market and how competition has
already started to (D)ance. So it is
quite obvious that the employees on 2nd floor are upset with the changes
the Head is asking to make. Imagine if each
employee were to put in their offsite energy and enthusiasm in implementing the
changes, ideating with the Head of the department and not pulling each other’s
energy down they all can have the party with the Head on the 12th
floor almost every day.
They don’t (D)ance with their
G&O and their Supervisor: In continuation to the above since they don’t (D)ance
with the Head they don’t dance with the G&O set by the Head and the spiral
effect of no (D)ance with the supervisor.
They don’t (D)ance with their
peers: Finally
the whole (D)ance floor is empty as the peers are also swiping the attendance
recorder without the (D)ance in the Atten(d)ance.
Imagine
if one were to start dancing with all the above starting from organization
values to Head of the department to goals & objectives to supervisor to
peers, what an environment of energy and enthusiasm can get created. Which customer would not like to work with
such an employee, which father would not like to have such a son, which brother
or sister would not like to have such sibling or which colleague would not like
to have such a colleague who can dance with any music on any floor. The concept of dance is the same in business
world or under world. In underworld you
cannot say that I will not kidnap jewelers and I only prefer to kidnap builders
when the realty market is down and jewelers can give you a better top
line.
I
hope this blog will trigger thoughts on why we and people around us don’t dance and
bring dance in Atten(d)ance from the time we swipe in the attendance
recorder. Do share with me your stories as
my (D)ance (energy and enthusiasm) is seeing people (D)ance to transformation.
