In these dark days, the struggle for existence, on the last days leading up to Christmas, can be tough. Now that in itself is not a problem if we could freely share that feeling with each other, among colleagues. Rather than telling success stories to each other, we could tell what went wrong, how we made ourselves immortally ridiculous with the customer and, above all, how miserable we felt about it.
Our organisational culture is however still based on a model
of competition. Showing weakness and vulnerability is not done, because our
assessment and our salary depend on it. We bottle up our emotions until they
reach heights we didn't know existed. Is it because our organisations are
mainly run by men? It looks like a competitive macho culture plays a role
everywhere. Moreover, our society is still permeated by a certain stoicism.
The problem is that the competition model has reached its
limits. One of the symptoms of this is the burning of employees – the so-called
burnout. In a knowledge-based society, competition is neither effective nor
efficient, because it prevents the sharing of knowledge. Collaboration is much
more effective than competition. Our evaluation systems are based on individual
performance and not on willingness to cooperate. And to evaluate the latter,
you should not ask the boss, but the peers.
In an atmosphere of cooperation, it is easier to show
vulnerability. The advantage is that you don't need to hide your weaknesses so
much and that you can therefore call on colleagues in time to compensate for
them. This reduces the burnout rate and increases customer satisfaction. Don't
get me wrong. We don't do this just for the numbers. We improve the quality of
our lives and we make the world a little more friendly.
I refer to my blog resilience.
Picture: Michelangelo, Madonna with Child, Church of Our Lady, Bruges, ©Wim Lahaye
No comments:
Post a Comment