Stepping Forward Together: Creating Trust and Commitment in the Workplace. Mac Ph.D. McIntire

Чтение книги онлайн.

      “The reactions people get when they open up determines whether they move up the Ladder. If people get a good reaction to their openness, they generally open more. But if they get a negative reaction, people tend to close down. The more negative the reaction, the deeper the closure. If someone over-reacts, like I did in my example, people usually close down big time.”

      I could sense the wheels turning in Paul’s head as he pondered this point. I paused to allow him to think about personal examples of where he, or others, may have reacted poorly and caused people to go to CLOSED. Then I continued.

      “By the way, Paul, going back to the role play, do you think you would be the only one in that meeting to close down?”

      “No. Everyone in the room would close down.”

      “That’s right. Have you ever been in a meeting where someone got shot down?” I asked.

      “You bet.”

      “How did the other people react to that reaction?”

      “Everyone in the room shut down. No one said a word,” Paul confirmed. “I’ve been in meetings where someone over-reacted and everyone in the room went to CLOSED.” He was starting to pick up on the language of the Ladder. It meant he was internalizing the concepts.

      “Actually,” Paul continued, “once someone reacts poorly in a meeting; you might as well end the meeting. No one is going to open up after that.”

      “That’s right. Sadly, negative reactions in one meeting can close people down for many subsequent meetings. I’ve been in some companies where managers in weekly department-head meetings remain CLOSED because of something that happened a long time ago. In some companies every meeting is a CLOSED meeting.”

      I went back to the role play to share some additional points about how reactions close people down.

      “Are the people who witnessed my bad reaction in the meeting the only ones who close down?”

      “No. Everyone closes down. When those people go back to their departments the other employees will probably be able to tell it was a bad meeting by how they are acting,” he suggested. “They may even say something about what happened in the meeting. Everyone who hears about the bad reaction will close down.”

      “You’re right,” I agreed. “You know the minute the meeting is over someone is going to go right out and tell others what happened. They’ll say something like: ‘Man, you should have seen what happened to Paul. The new president came in and said he wanted everyone to be open and honest, and Paul believed him. He asked one question and bam! – off with his head.’

      “What do you think it will sound like in the next meeting the new president schedules with his employees?” I asked.

      “Total silence.”

      “A bad reaction closes people down,” I stressed, “but, as my role play demonstrates, a bad reaction doesn’t just close down the one to whom the reaction was directed. Bad reactions can negatively impact everyone who hears about it. So let’s review what we just discovered about bad reactions,” I said, turning my notepad to a fresh page and writing down my points as we discussed them.

      “First, the bad reaction did not have to happen to you to close you down. Seeing someone else get shot down can send you into a nose dive to CLOSED.

      “Second, you did not have to witness the bad reaction to be negatively affected by it. Just hearing that someone has reacted poorly to a situation can cause people to avoid the situation themselves. Bad news travels fast. Even though someone was not there when it happened, once they hear about it, they tend to close down. No one wants to take the chance they might evoke the same reaction.

      “The third point is related to this: Did a negative reaction have to happen at your manufacturing plant in order to close your employees down?”

      Paul thought about the question for a second before responding.

      “I guess not. Something could have happened to an employee at a previous employer that might have closed him down.”

      “Exactly. If you listen carefully to your employees they’ll often send signals that something in their past is keeping them from opening up. For example, they may say: ‘At the company I came from, employees never talked to management’; or ‘I’d never do that. I know what happened at my last company when someone did that’; or ‘I learned a long time ago to just keep quiet’; or ‘Never volunteer for anything. That’s what I learned in the Army.’

      “You see, Paul, the bad reaction did not have to happen at your company to close you down. Negative experiences in the past can cause people to be less open now. Someone who has experienced a bad marriage or an adverse dating relationship may be very hesitant to open themselves up to another relationship. Likewise, someone who has been stymied at a previous place of employment may be less inclined to share their ideas at a new job.

      “Unfortunately, one of the challenges of getting people out of CLOSED and into the OPEN is convincing them to leave at the door the baggage they bring with them from their past. Negative experiences in the past often keep people from moving forward in the present.”

      Paul slowly shook his head from side to side. “This is interesting. I have a guy in my company I’ve tried to get to open up, but it’s like pulling teeth with him. No matter what I do I can’t seem to convince him that I’m really interested in what he has to say. Maybe something happened to him in the past that caused him to close down.”

      “Remember the attitude of ‘been there, done that’ that I mentioned earlier?” I reminded. “Human beings have a tendency to believe that one bad reaction to a situation foretells all future reactions to similar situations. People paint the reactions from their past onto the canvas of the present. It’s hard for some people to get over the horrible reactions they’ve experienced. They close down to current opportunities because of past obstructions.

      “I heard a line in a movie that СКАЧАТЬ