Declining a project, task, or collaboration doesn’t mean you don’t care about the workplace or your colleagues. It helps preserve time to make sure your priorities are at the forefront. Remember, working is a part of our life, not our entire life.
As the new year approaches, it’s an opportunity to examine leadership styles and make a resolution on how to improve them. Together, we can build a better workforce and retain the talent we worked so diligently to attract.
Imagine this – you are interested in building a home. Contractors are plenty and you want to hire the right one to support your vision. Before you see any of their work, you ask them to fill out a fifty-page document so they can describe who they are. A couple weeks and one novel per contractor later, you set a meeting and ask them to tell you what they can do rather than asking them to customize your dream home.
If ol’ Bernard Shaw could see us now. In early 20th century, he made this statement at a time of mailed letters, face-to-face discussions, and the introduction of the telephone. Can you imagine his astonishment in today’s world with countless ways to reach an audience? And yet, is anyone really listening?
This is not a debbie-downer post but more a cautionary tale that I wish I could have read for myself 20 years ago. Would I have even listened to my older self? Probably not. Hopefully someone out there is much wiser at that age than I was.
There is a big shift happening throughout our country as we move to understand the value of different personalities. Individuals, teams, and companies make concerted efforts to look for assessments that will define who they or their coworkers are in order to enhance collaboration and bring strengths to the surface.
For those who are two decades into their careers, the workplace has changed dramatically in that short amount of time. When they got their first job, it was still the “first one in, last one out” mentality of how to be successful and how to get recognized for that next-in-line promotion. Employers wanted to see employees “eat, sleep, and live” their brand, and whatever life looked like outside the office wasn’t anything employers needed to know.
Contrary to how it may feel for my fellow communicators, our industry has seen so many shifts about how the department is organized, who we report to in a company, and the best technology to connect with employees. That’s one of the beauties of communications though – we are constantly learning and adapting as roles, technology, and expectations evolve.
Job seekers and employees alike are over the “check the box” method. Without the full weight of the company behind its programs, we won’t see true change in company culture. And in today’s world, that’s the ultimate reason for staying or joining an organization.
With countless personality assessments out there, it can be difficult to decipher between them all. Which one is right for your organization, and which one will give you the biggest bang for your buck? At Mission Recruit, each of us has been through several “either/or” assessments, all of which ask the same set of questions. The purpose of these “tests” is to understand who you are and how you can work better with your team. However, we find these results fall short in providing real value.
