Thursday, April 29, 2010

At the End of the Day...

Have you ever heard the expression "at the end of the day" and pondered on what it really meant? Who actually coined this phrase anyway? In my quest to find its origin, I went to my favorite search engine Google and discovered a website called LawGeek with some interesting information. Jason Schultz states on this site the Plain English Campaign has announced the English language most irritating clichés and the number one most hated is "At the end of the day". No further research required for me. I am convinced that this cliché is the most hated and "at the end of this article" it will "give us a clue" clichés are all too common.

At this moment in time, like, it really makes a big difference how we communicate in our organizations. With all due respect, we must stay focused 24/7 in order to absolutely get the picture. As we address the issues, we may find that around 100% of organizational communication is done in clichés that basically reflect theoretic communication approaches. It is awesome to find impressive ball park figures in our email correspondence on a weekly basis so please bear with me while I work my way out of this rock and a hard place. Confused yet?

Hang tight while I bring you to my blue sky and boggle your mind with the bottom line of cracked troops and diamond geezers. Organizational communication is like an epicenter where one can find a glass half full (or half empty) and going forward, you will see what I mean. So, again, bear with me because I hear what you are saying and in terms of rhetoric and meaningful communication, it’s not rocket science. Literally, when you move the goal-posts on an on-going basis and prioritize, while pushing the envelope, it will be evident that we all sing from the same hymn sheet. Having said that, let’s take a look and see how we stack up against the odds.

The fact of the matter is that when organizations do not think outside the box, all hell can break loose, not to mention, lots of stuff can hit the ceiling and there is no telling what other negative attitudes will flare up and create unnecessary chaos and havoc in the workplace. To be perfectly honest, this is just the beginning of something big. Touching base up to and including terminations, HR departments can truly be recognized as the value-added department that will bring the organizations to the next level and stop the bleeding edge.

Now, let us back-track and see how we did so far and ask "How is this working out for our cutting edge organizations?" The reality is that as we speak (or read in this case), millions of emails across organizations of every size are about to be delivered containing most of these clichés that are part of the English language as we know it. I will give credit to the LawGeek website for listing most of them for me to use in this article but nonetheless, they are public domain with no end in site. Can we improve upon our communication without these clichés anymore? At the end of the day, we can all do our part to contribute to the communication style of our organizations because it is what it is. No worries though, it’s all good. :-)

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Winning Isn't Everything??

Have you ever poured your heart and soul into a task or goal that you wanted desperately to achieve only to fall short? Obviously, everyone has not been successful at achieving every goal and we have all experienced disappointment. Certainly, we have all had the friend or business associate utter that famous adage, “winning isn’t everything”. This seemingly empathetic phrase is used frequently on such occasions. Some people believe that they may be helping the disappointed person by offering these stale words.

Communication Theorist, Leon Festinger developed a theory called cognitive dissonance outlining a distressing mental state caused by inconsistency between a person’s two beliefs or a belief and an action. ‘Winning’ is a belief system embedded in every person and ‘losing in something’ alters the attitude to accept the situation and subconsciously agree to be a victim in order to avoid bad feelings of oneself.

When someone is weeping and experiencing an emotional reaction to a hurt of some sort, the comfort and counseling by another person actually elevates the emotion to a higher degree of intensity. The action of misguided consoling reinforces and feeds the emotion and the action is now the new belief system. A more beneficial approach, after the emotional release has subsided, is to recognize the brief window of opportunity for restoration and objective analysis as to the reasons one failed. The friend or associate can actually help the disappointed person assume more control over their ability to succeed by helping him or her deal with the possible shortcomings that led to the failure. This allows for an adjustment in one’s emotional state because the powerful emotion of failure has given way to a sense of control of one’s destiny. The mental states of ‘Winning’ and ‘Losing’ are incompatible. Winning is indeed an attitude.

In a business setting, Festinger’s theory can prove to be an objective approach for winning if it is applied with purposeful intention. A winning perspective is not found in a company’s policies and operational procedures or in the strategic planning for growth and expansion. Winning is a culture that emanates from the senior management of the company and permeates down through the ranks. Often management undermines its intention of establishing a winning culture by the separation of employees from involvement in the creation of new ideas and the failure to communicate how the business is progressing which impacts he corporation’s cognitive dissonance. Lack of clearly stated objectives for the company and communication on how each employee contributes to the objectives often creates confusion, anxiety, and distressing mental states and thereby fueling a sense of personal failure.

It is imperative that companies that want to win and survive in today’s economic conditions be pro-active in communicating with their employees to avoid the dissonance and disconnect with the organization’s overall mission and vision. Effective communication will ensure that the winning attitude stays in the forefront of each employee’s mind and is reflected in their work and loyalty. Every step towards improving morale can build on a winning attitude.

Empowerment always comes from a winning attitude lived by senior management. Team and individual confidence is restored when honest communication takes precedence over policies and dogmatic nonsense that produce unhealthy attitudes. When good changes are implemented and the future looks bright, a fresh new sense of well-being grows through the organization and the power of winning takes on a new meaning.

To take winning to a whole new level today and reap the benefits for years to come, everyone in the organization should be empowered so that the expectation of winning all the time is the norm. With a positive attitude and expectation of winning, the occasional setbacks are viewed as opportunities for growth both personally and corporately. With the expectation of winning firmly entrenched throughout the organization, recovery from setbacks is hastened and the adage of “winning isn’t everything” can be replaced with “winning is better”.