Challenging Times Create Opportunities

 Recently, I've talked to two different companies. One, a financial services firm, and another one in the manufacturing sector. Both were telling me of potential pending layoffs. Change is coming. Now I'm gonna do something that's gonna be perceived, at least initially, to be a little bit insensitive. Now, what are employees gonna do? Are employees actually gonna come and say, What can I do to help you? I know the company's in trouble, or the company needs extra effort. See what's been happening the last couple years is we've gotta figure out ways to make sure our employees are happy. We gotta give them flex scheduling, and I'm not against any of those things yet. I also go back to an article I wrote a few years ago. What if we abolished payroll and employees invoiced for their time? And somebody said, Wow, that would really drive work ethic. See, I'm afraid we've worked around employees, their issues. I'm gonna say it, stress, anxiety, mental health, all important things. Yet we've also had a certain percentage of the industry and population say, Well, I'm feeling a little stressed. And they kind of grab ahold of that as a tool to not work as hard as potentially as they could. Now, my little company here, we don't have that choice. We have to work hard. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

<affirmative>. Recently, I've talked to two different companies. One, a financial services firm, and another one in the manufacturing sector. Both were telling me of potential pending layoffs. Change is coming. Now I'm gonna do something that's gonna be perceived, at least initially, to be a little bit insensitive. Now, what are employees gonna do? Are employees actually gonna come and say, What can I do to help you? I know the company's in trouble, or the company needs extra effort. See what's been happening the last couple years is we've gotta figure out ways to make sure our employees are happy. We gotta give them flex scheduling, and I'm not against any of those things yet. I also go back to an article I wrote a few years ago. What if we abolished payroll and employees invoiced for their time? And somebody said, Wow, that would really drive work ethic. See, I'm afraid we've worked around employees, their issues. I'm gonna say it, stress, anxiety, mental health, all important things. Yet we've also had a certain percentage of the industry and population say, Well, I'm feeling a little stressed. And they kind of grab ahold of that as a tool to not work as hard as potentially as they could. Now, my little company here, we don't have that choice. We have to work hard. And we're lucky enough to be busy in our organizations. Things are changing. Managers need to coach. Employees need to seek and accept feedback. See, one of the funny things about what happens in an organization is that when people need something and they don't get what they want, they go into fight or flight mode. Typically it's flight mode. Well, I'll just get a job somewhere else. And when companies get into trouble, employees typically go into fight or flight mode. Well, I'm gonna get my resume ready. They tend to gravitate towards flight versus fighting through it. Yet, I think the employees we need to celebrate are the ones who have battled through change, who have supported the organization. And we as leaders have to recognize them in a way that drives greater engagement. Succession planning. So again, going back to both of my conversations, I was absolutely stunned. Stunned by what I heard. They said, This is really gonna rock the boat. Do you have any recommendations? Both firms, non clients, by the way. And I said, You have to go down to each manager and ask them, who is your top talent? Who has showed the greatest attitude? Who has embraced change? And I'll never forget this, Both people said to me,

Speaker 2: 3:34

I'm not sure they would know that answer. I go, That's why you coach. See, the reason we coach is we know who we can rely on. The reason we coach and ask questions is we understand where people want to go, what they need to do. See, challenging times reveal people. Challenging times also create incredible opportunity. See, when there's a layoff where things go sideways, guess what happens? Doors open up. Now that doesn't mean everybody should stay and everybody should just wait for a door to magically open. See what employees have to understand, what organizations have to understand. We don't open the doors for people. People need to open doors for themselves. So think about your organization. Do your managers know what motivates each and every employee where they want to go with their careers? Number one, if they don't, therein lies an incredible opportunity. Number two, if you know the answers to number one, Number two becomes easier during challenging times because then we can have conversations that most companies wouldn't have with them. Cuz most people don't take the time to understand their employees and where they wanna go. What we tend to do is give them what they want, appeal or appease, placate, and then we try to motivate them specific to the job. That's a lost opportunity. Cuz when you find out someone wants to become a future leader or wants to work more in data or wants to do more with social media, whatever the case might be, knowing that gives you a point of leverage to have conversations during difficult times while driving what they want, not just giving them what people perceive that they need. Let me know your thoughts.