How connected do you feel to your community?
When I learned about IT Starts with Us a couple of months ago, I immediately thought about applications to retirement communities, support groups for health issues, and even a lite version for children going through a rough patch -- teenagers thinking about quitting school, kids who are victims of bullies, and so on.
Another needed application could be for employees inside an organization. Over the years, I have had the good fortune of working with great leaders in good environments. However, there has been the rare occasion when I was immersed in a highly dysfunctional environment. If you worked in one, you know what I'm talking about.
Feel free to steal these ideas for an internal version of this concept:
- swarm in to help a colleague who has a fuller workload
- join in to describe how you appreciate colleagues regularly
- help connect colleagues who can benefit from meeting each other
- provide a recommendation for someone without prompting
- give support and resources to groups that are burning the midnight oil
- learn to notice when someone needs that extra emotional boost
- surprise someone with the gift of time and listening
The organizations that do well with customers are those who have turned on the human factor. They are those places where people feel loved and appreciated on the inside. The automated HR ways of regulating and policing company life, the productivity imperatives, have taken a lot of the human touch out of people. In a connected company, it starts with each and every one who works there.
Fitting in is a to-way conversation. One you cannot have with an entity. So it's up to the people who work within it to make a difference. Talk can and does change our lives.
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Those are such good ideas. I too think supporting people working with/for you is the key element in a successful work environment. I'll be sure to retweet this hoping someone will take the hint, thanks for sharing!
Posted by: Gabriele Maidecchi | October 08, 2010 at 11:57 AM
Thank you for stopping by, Gabriele. With two weeks of solid travel, I had missed this thoughtful comment.
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | October 18, 2010 at 09:29 PM