Do unto others as you would have done to you

About me

I don’t like to point the finger at myself, I don’t like to fail and I hate it when other people point the finger at me. I am ok with sharing success but I find praise uncomfortable. I believe in a fair days work for a fair days pay.

Why then have I worked for the past 30 years in Companies that promote firefighting, develop blame cultures and focus on individual failure whilst sharing success with the chosen few? I ask myself do I enjoy it.

• Does it make me happy?
• Does it get the best out of me?
• Do I spend too much time supporting other people?
• Do I think about my customer enough?
• Do I spend enough time being positive?

The answer to these is unfortunately no, but worryingly for me I have become good at these games and can survive quite well in most organisations.
How does it make me feel? – Frustrated, angry, worried- rarely happy – I may have become addicted though to something that causes me pain?

So I’d like to throw out the following 10ish questions to help us start thinking about ourselves

1. There is a great cartoon – “Change is great- you go first” –how often do we become involved in change programmes that are designed to make other people better and not ourselves?
2. Do we fix late delivery or do we improve delivery performance. Two statements describing the same problem- one phrased in the positive one in the negative- which one would stimulate people to contribute?
3. Do you use the language “us, we and our” or are you “them, they and their”? One is inclusive the other excludes- one promotes collaboration the other blame.
4. Do you talk about problems or opportunities?
5. Do you hear “they should”, “we are supposed to” or “he is meant to” when we investigate problems- if yes it suggest a lack of accountability, standards and a supportive culture.
6. Are you chucking problems over the wall? Do your measures support preventative cross functional thinking? Are your measures leading or lagging?
7. How long do you spend talking about people issues as opposed to how long you spend talking about how you make your people more successful?
8. Why do we spend so long dwelling on people’s failure? Is it because we are insecure about ourselves?
9. Does everybody in your organisation understand their role, does everybody understand they are responsible for improving their work? Can everybody improve their work?
10. Are we willing to work together? Can we enjoy other people’s success?

I suppose the above needs us all to take a look in the mirror and start with ourselves. As leaders we need to make the change firstly in ourselves, I am by no means an expert and find becoming self-aware continually shocks me