SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR |  RSS | | REPRINT
|
Culture Shift: Eliminating Employee Cynicism for Good
July 21, 2008
Understanding the real cause of employee cynicism is the all-important first step toward permanent eradication
By Paul Levesque
There are some "constant battles" that just inevitably come with the territory. The fight against germs, for example, affects every aspect of life in a hospital. Those who prefer outdoor recreation will have a mosquito problem to deal with anywhere there’s standing water. Similarly, employee cynicism is an existing or potential problem in virtually every business setting.
But solutions do exist to keep these constants at bay. As hospitals learn how germs spread, they can more effectively prevent infection. When we understand how mosquitoes breed, we're better equipped to bring their numbers under control.
But how well do business leaders understand where employee cynicism actually comes from, and how it spreads?
The Prosperity Paradox
The threat of employee cynicism is ever-present because most employees see daily reminders that their managers are obsessed with profit and self-interest. This creates the prefect breeding ground for cynicism—which the dictionary defines, after all, as the belief that self-interest is the sole motivation behind all human conduct.
Does this make prosperity a bad thing? Not at all—everyone understands that profitability will always be essential for any organization's survival. But take a moment to think of five successful corporations you personally admire. Do all five provide products and services that have made—and continue to make—our society and our world better in some way? The more unequivocally you can answer "yes," the more confidently I can predict that the companies you're thinking about do not have a problem with employee cynicism. More likely, theirs are cultures characterized by high levels of employee pride, right alongside the impressive profits.
The difference is that in these cultures, prosperity is perceived to be the means, rather than the end. It's the crucial and fundamental difference between "we exist to make a lot of money" and "we exist to do a lot of good in the world, and that requires a lot of money." It's eliminating cynicism for good, so to speak.
The great paradox is that businesses driven by self-interest cultivate employees who learn to similarly put their own self-interest first—to the ultimate detriment of the business. A management obsession with profit creates a workforce disinterested in profit, and obsessed instead with working conditions, wages, and other issues of interest to the workers themselves.
How can businesses break free of this trap? It may help to remember the secret of another trap, one many of us encountered as children.
The Lesson of the Chinese Finger Puzzle
The puzzle in question is a cylinder of loosely-woven material, typically straw. You insert your index fingers into each end, and immediately discover that you’re trapped. The harder you pull your fingers apart, the more tightly the cylinder compresses around the fingers, holding them securely captive. The only means of escape is to do what appears to be the opposite of what’s called for—you must push your fingertips toward each other—seemingly moving them even more deeply and dangerously into the trap—in order to allow the cylinder to widen and relax its grip. Only then can you easily slide your fingers free.
Consider that odd "moment of clarity" when you suddenly understand that to escape from this trap, you must actually do something that feels like it's going to entrap you even more severely. That's the same peculiar feeling business leaders in a "profit crunch" experience when they suddenly realize they must shift their organization's attention away from profits as the primary objective, precisely because it's the only way out of their particular trap.
The holiday movie classic "Miracle on 34th Street" includes a scene depicting a businessman experiencing just exactly this "eureka" moment. He's the department store owner who at first is aghast to learn his toy-department Santa is blithely directing customers to the competitor’s store—until he receives a flood of positive customer feedback about it. Suddenly he realizes what he must do, and declares to his team that the new strategy will be to always put customers' needs first and profits second, precisely because this is what will drive profits upward.
Granted, this movie character's sudden epiphany will almost certainly do nothing to reduce his staff's cynicism, because his motives remain so transparently self-serving. But in businesses that consistently invest in new ways of improving things for customers and the community—and new ways of recognizing and rewarding employee dedication to this cause—it becomes increasingly difficult for cynics to mumble about greed and self-interest dominating the culture.
This is the cure for employee cynicism in a nutshell. Management's day-to-day actions and priorities must make it difficult, if not impossible, for even the most cynical observers to argue it’s all being driven purely by self-interest. The more readily employees can point to benefits experienced by customers or by the community at large, the more the cultural scales are likely to tip toward the "employee pride" side of the balance, and away from the "cynicism" side.
And once the employees are allowed to become personally involved in designing and delivering those benefits to customers and the community, cynicism doesn't stand a chance.
 Editor's note: This week's "Culture Shift" video podcast describes a double-pronged pitchfork that jabs at the heart of many organizational cultures. Paul Levesque uses the pitchfork to illustrate two tragic forces that could be fueling and perpetuating employee cynicism in your workplace on a daily basis. Click here to find out how this crippling form of cultural damage takes place—and what you can immediately do to correct the situation.
INCENTIVE online "Culture Shift" columnist Paul Levesque is the author of five books, including "Customer Service Made Easy" and "Motivation," both from Entrepreneur Press. He's a seminar leader and public speaker with two decades' experience as an international business consultant specializing in the connection between employee motivation and customer satisfaction. Be sure to check out all of the podcasts from the Culture Shift series at www.incentivemag.com/cultureshift.
|
SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | RSS |
|
|
| Back to Marketing Index |
|
|
