The GarbageFactor™

Because Employee Engagement is not about the money!

Posts Tagged environment

Nothing Like Inspiring the Team

Nov 6

Posted by Marian Madonia in Communication, GarbageFactor, Managers, Toxic Environments | Comments off

I sat in on a business meeting yesterday where a department head was giving a report on what his team had been up to during the past year.  The meeting’s focus was team building and information.  His intention was to share changes and build confidence in his team so that other departments would have more confidence in the team. When he was done with his 20 minutes, the only thing I was confident of was that I’d never want anything to do with that team.

In 20 minutes, he managed to insult the team 8 times (and insult 2 other departments once each).  That’s one insult every 2.5 minutes.  The GarbageFactor™ in full force!

These were so bad, I had to write them down.  Ready for the groaners?

Regarding the mission statement “I’m not saying we’re actually doing these things.”

“We’ve had some challenges there, we’ve made some mistakes, but we’re improving.”

“We weren’t hired to be creative.” (The teams work involves about 70% creativity)

“We’re not smart enough to do this by ourselves.”

“We weren’t doing our job in the past.”

“We have to get better at it.”

“We’re struggling with quarterly updates.”

We’re going to continue to make mistakes.”

He then referred to one department as “obstacles to communicating with clients” and another department as “the big Gorilla.”

You can’t make this Garbage up!

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Don’t forget the “d”

Sep 30

Posted by Marian Madonia in Managers, Stress in the Workplace, Toxic Environments | Comments off

Just read a story about a woman who works with a manager that screams, storms around, disciplines & mocks people publicly, and frequently uses threats as part of her management technique arsenal.  Apparently upper management and human resources have been made aware of this garbage.  I don’t know their excuse, but it sounds like this manager doesn’t know the difference between “shrew” and “shrewd.”

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Bad Attitude in Three Short Stories

Sep 23

Posted by Marian Madonia in Attitude, Difficult People, GarbageFactor, Miscellaneous, Stress in the Workplace, Team Work, Toxic Environments | Comments off

I just found these stories.  I’d saved it under a title that I’m sure made sense at the time, but upon recall, it made me think it was a different document.

Background – all three of these encounters happen the same morning, in the same building, for the same organization.

Scene 1 – I arrive to teach a seminar about Flex Spending Accounts.  My mood is set, I feel great because I’m speaking and training today.  I’m especially pumped because I love the thrill of applying my inspirational approach to financial matters that people expect to be boring (I have a financial services background).  I enter the building and check in with security.  A guard takes me to my first encounter.

In introduce myself to the leader who looks put out.  She starts by treating me like I am a criminal or have done something wrong.  Angrily she says:  “I don’t know who you are!”  She didn’t hide that she was annoyed and put out.  She next challenged me as though I was lying “who sent you here?  Who are you supposed to see?  I thought this was Insurance, nobody told me you are here!”  What’s flex spending?!

Scene 2 – The insurance rep and I (we’d both been invited by the main office) were in a conference room to answer questions one-on-one.  The first employee that the Insurance rep (we were both scheduled for the day) had to deal with wanted the rep to make the changes for her.  The rep didn’t have a laptop with her and the employee got snippy “your website doesn’t work!”  The rep tried to verbally get the woman to come back to find out what the problem was.  The woman was determined to be a snot and turned her back on the rep and walked out ignoring the pleas of the insurance rep to try to identify the problem to fix it.

Scene 3 – It is lunch time and I am in the employee cafeteria.  Across the table from me is a woman who’s just sat down with her lunch.  “This is a hamburger without the bun!!!”  She was angry, you could tell she felt cheated.  “They call this a patty melt!  What the hell is that?!  It’s a hamburger without the bun.  By law this is a hamburger with no bun, everybody knows that!”  She slams her food around looking hateful and angry.

This is the GarbageFactor™ in toxic doses.  This whole building needs to be wrapped in a quarantine tent and a dose of attitude adjustment pumped in.  Seriously folks, I’m sure many of you have worked in an environment like this, but what makes me so passionate about this one is that it was an elementary school.  The “leader” was the school principal.  The other two scenes were with teachers.  This is crazy.  No one should have to work with people with attitudes this bad, never mind subject our kids to it.

I have an assignment today.  Look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are behaving like one of these people.  If you are, find out what the cause is.  This is beyond bad attitude, this is toxic behavior.  If you need to get out, find a new job as fast as you can.  If you need a break, take it.  If you need to learn how to deal with the problem, take a seminar.  If you need a shrink, find one.  Whatever you do, take some positive action because everyone around you is being infected and you won’t be able to break the cycle of negativity until you do something different.

If you’re working in this kind of environment, your solutions are the same.  If you need to get out, find a new job as fast as you can.  If you need a break, take it.  If you need to learn how to deal with the problem, take a seminar or read a book (mine is a great pick http://shop.marianmadonia.com).  If you need a shrink, find one.

Whatever you do, take some positive action because everyone around you is being infected and you won’t be able to break the cycle of negativity until you do something different.  If you are in a leadership position and this describes your environment, don’t go it alone if you’re not trained in turning this type of situation around.  Bring in a consultant who specializes in workplace relationships (I know a few, so let me know if you need a referral).  If you think a seminar or program would help, that’s my specialty (check out my video’s at http://youtube.com/marianmadonia).  And if you need it, contact an arbitrator to help resolve conflict in specific relationships.

We all want to work in a job that has as little garbage as possible.  What can you do today to reduce it?

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Keep ‘em in the dark & don’t give ‘em raises

Sep 18

Posted by Marian Madonia in Managers, Toxic Environments | Comments off

Not long ago, I met Charlie, an employee of a large manufacturing firm.  Let’s just say we all grew up with the food product his company makes.  I talked with Charlie about the company’s work environment, and he told me that the company was in bankruptcy, that he hadn’t gotten a raise in 3 years, and that the only information that he got on how the company was doing was what he was able to get on the news or over the internet.

This is nuts!  What is this management team thinking?  Do they ask themselves about the impact on staff or are they so overwhelmed by company problems that they can’t see past themselves?

I’m curious, does management understand and recognize that many (if not most) employee’s would have a hard time staying positive, committed, and hard working under these conditions?  Is this management so deluded as to think that people “ought to just be happy they have a job in this economy”?

Unless they are in the habit of hiring saintly types, it’s not likely that too many people are going to be able to remain positive, committed and hard-working for an extended period in those circumstances.  I’m not suggesting that employees don’t have the capacity to do it, what I am suggesting is that it is unrealistic to expect it from employees because “it’s what they are paid to do.”

Employees are paid to do the job, but there are expectations that are unwritten that go along with the agreement to provide work for pay.  Though it is not in the job description, employees expect to work in a positive environment, they expect to be kept informed, and they expect to at least be able to keep their financial footing which means they will get raises equal to the inflation rate.  If these circumstances are not being met, management should consider that they are fortunate if they have positive, committed, and hard-working employees.

Oh, and one question: How many executives got bonuses during this same time period?

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