Getting ahead of the danger!

A few days ago I was asked by Jacinta Murigi on LinkedIn to elaborate on a post concerning workplace bullying and how we can now "get ahead of the danger".

Jacinta rightly stated that "We should catch the bullies way before they are in"

If I could just slightly alter the narrative here and reword that particular sentence to say,

" We should be preventing people from becoming bullies before they harm all those around them, including themselves and their own families!"

Please take a moment to process that change in that perspective...

For me workplace bullying is actually another exhibited symptom of something else that is going on within an organisation. The symptom of a root cause issue, that is festering and hidden deep below the surface of an organisation. An issue that requires surfacing and for the cause of that pain to be explored at a deeper level. Yes, a sticking plaster may be required initially in order to give the organisation that time and space to explore, but for a long term solution we need to go deeper.

Some of those other dangers* could just as easily be exhibited as:

• Poor staff retention
• Poor staff recruitment
• High staff abstractions/ sickness rates
• Staff burn out
• Toxicity
• Poor decision making
• Limited creativity and innovation
• High staff/ customer/ public complaints

*Please feel free to add in your own danger signs and symptoms or what is causing you to remain awake at night.

I sadly seem to be using this quote all too frequently at the moment,

Sadly, we are now struggling to even pull people out of the water. So many people are simply surviving and, as a direct consequence, their ability to help others "floating by" becomes even harder as it is a distraction, sapping their limited amount of energy they themselves need to preserve in order to keep themselves afloat.

So,

"how far back upstream do we need to navigate in order to find the right place from which to provide that support and insight?"

Well, we first need insight and then context. As the initial headline image implies,

"We need to understand and appreciate each and every tree in the wood!"

or

"We need to understand and appreciate each and every person's workplace experience within the organisation". (From the office cleaner to the CEO)

Wow, that sounds impossible and also very expensive and time consuming!

Surely by the time you had obtained that insight and captured a picture of the organisation it will have moved on? You would always be "behind the curve" continuing to be reactive rather than proactive to those symptoms, reliant on the exhibition of behaviours before action can ever be taken! Constantly putting out fires.

A bit like obtaining a car MOT! Your car may be legal on the day of the test but 2 days later it may be illegal as a you hit a curb and the tyre now has a dangerous tear or bulge in it! Sounds like an annual staff survey?

What if you were now able to get ahead of the danger becoming aware of the wear and tear your organisation is experiencing, reacting before real damage and harm is caused to those within?

By creating a "fluid complexity risk matrix" that is continually in flux, breathing and being shaped by those within the organisation on a daily, weekly or monthly basis we can now become proactive, even reacting to issues even before they are exhibited in behaviour and those maladaptive practices. There is a human and financial cost to those maladaptive practices and the broken relationships that result. A new hire, a newly promoted leader, someone retiring, someone who is experiencing issues on a social level will all have an impact. Each "impact" (or life!) causes a ripple effect on those individual workplace experiences which we can now monitor having captured an initial and very individual baseline from which to work from.

Importantly, and this is where the magic happens, this data generates dialogue and a shared awareness. Timely, constructive and non-judgmental dialogue which builds sustainable and trusting relationships.

Going back to my flying days and having a unique "helicopter" view of the surroundings below, a wood (or even a housing estate, a town, a village, an office block etc.) it could easily look, to all intents and purposes to be extremely healthy and flourishing by the general outlook and appearance. But if we were to look more closely from the inside and from the root system and ground level, it will undoubtedly be coping with and managing any number of unseen issues!

Surfacing problems and exploring solutions is what we do, using groundbreaking psychometrics accelerating and generating those vital conversations. In the process we allow your people to engage, co-create and employ their very own solutions. Why not, are they not the very people who are living with those issues and solutions on a daily basis?

Jacinta Murigi I hope this explanation goes some way in elaborating on that initial comment.