Harvard Business Review recently published an article as a preview of the new book by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall – “Nine Lies About Work”. Both authors warn us for some lies considered as truths.
Lie 1: people love the company they work for.
Who is working, playing, living with me? There is always someone near us to work with, the so called dynamic, multi-cultural, diverse teams. When we survey people and their engagement in organizations, they always respond related to the organization and report an engagement of about 16 to 17%. People are not attracted to an organization. When we survey their relationship with their team leader or coach the score goes up to 44%. The more diverse the team is, the higher the engagement scores. Team leaders who care to make their people better score the highest. (cfr. Lie#4: “well-rounded people are the best”).
Lie 5: people crave feedback.
People primarily need attention from others. Not you? Sure you too. Attention is something completely different from feedback. Mostly people don’t even know what the real criteria are nor what they have to do to be successful. Annual evaluation meetings in companies or competitions in sport (evaluation moments) often are torture-times. People only want to get better by using as much as possible their assets. When people pay attention to these the others start excelling in what they are doing. The other becomes the coach who improves the results of the other. Every person knows whether the performance is good or bad. Saying that their performance is good or bad only makes them defensive or happy. They stop using their brain. (cfr. Lie #6: “people can accurately rate other people”). Describing facts makes people curious and stimulates learning. When you are in for the yearly evaluation moment, you might ask people to make a personal development plan. But will they ever start realizing results? (cfr. (Lie #2: “the best plans win”).
Curious about the other lies? Do not hesitate to contact us.
Ref.
Book : Nine Lies About Work
Authors : Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall, Harvard
Artikel : Harvard Business Review
