Let me start at where the end begun.
After years at the same company, with good times, bad, joy, sadness, stress, I feel attached to the project. I have developed multiple skills, grown professionally and personally, and I still have the desire for more and to keep growing.
In short, I am a motivated employee.
How to achieve that motivation is a topic I would like to address in other articles. Let me talk to you today about the opposite: how to destroy that treasure, the holy grail of team management, motivation.
Salary cuts? Bullying? Uninteresting projects? Not feeling valued? Well, the key word is precisely one that appears infrequently in the business world. Let’s talk about honesty and trust.
Imagine that suddenly a layoff of 20% of the workforce is carried out (COVID, change of strategy, acquisition of the company, etc.). Your bubble of protection against discouragement and routine begins to weaken, but it resists that first blow. No problem, tomorrow is another day, we will get through this and come out stronger. The problem comes when at the next All Hands, everyone is smiling, and management constantly repeats an optimistic message with a smile on their face. What’s going on? Why are they smiling? You have to be positive, but bad news is serious, and those people were my colleagues.
And… why are inefficient people kept, and key employees fired? Maybe there is a good reason for that, but what has happened is that I have not been treated like a person (smiles?) and the explanations have been nonexistent or clearly false.
If performance doesn’t matter, will I be next? Can I trust what my managers tell me? I don’t live in a fantasy world, life is tough for everyone, and I was aware of the bias in the communication with employees of the strategic decisions, but at the next All Hands I don’t even bother to ask questions because I no longer trust the answers or the people who give them. My bubble is broken, and I start dusting off my CV. My performance decreases.
You will think: of course, but the reason has been the layoffs. Only a part. Empathizing with the feelings generated in the rest of the workforce, and giving a credible, adult, and professional explanation, would not have caused the disconnect with the company. Maybe we would have cried for the fallen, and continued to fight to save the ship. My trust in the leadership of the company was totally destroyed by lying to me, hiding information, and not taking into account the human element when managing the situation.
Talking about honesty, integrity, and emotional intelligence is not in fashion in the business world. Maybe that’s why good leaders are so scarce.
Note: All of the above is pure fiction, and no animals were harmed in the writing of this article.