public policy | CorporateIntel

Sometimes I wonder if the advancing of age and a leaning toward old-fashioned values are a hindrance to relevancy in our contemporary workplace. Then I remember who taught me the most about workplace navigation in the early years of my professional career. It was bosses and colleagues advancing in age and leaning toward old-fashioned values.

I don’t think a bit of traditional thinking about the nature of workplace relationships is incompatible with rapid innovation, agile thinking, evolving workplace paradigms, and aspiring to more meaningful jobs. I think a bit of grounding is precisely what the doctor ordered. We all can learn from each other if we choose to listen.

One of the simplest and most striking plain language aphorisms I learned from a writing teacher many decades ago has never failed to inform my internal litmus test of change management. His name was J.D. McClatchy and he was a renowned poet. To my knowledge, he had no interest in business, but these words he taught me about writing have guided much of my business thinking:

”The root word of contemporary is temporary.”

Why is this gnawing away at me this particular moment? I am seeing a lot of individuals make terrible decisions in real-time that I am reasonably certain they will regret. They are trading the tangible present for a fragile future, often believing their choices are well-considered when they are unintentionally impulsive.

Much has been written of late about the Great Resignation. There is no doubt that Covid madness has wreaked havoc on our psyches. It is likely we will never see our lives the same way again after two rollercoaster years of public policy and uneven human isolation.

Ostensibly as a result, we see people quitting their jobs in record numbers to explore new paths. If handled elegantly, the liberation of a life change can be an enormous expression of creativity and empowerment. I’ve personally done it no fewer than four times in four decades with no regrets.

What’s my secret weapon for not burning bridges to embers? I’ve hung onto some of those old-fashioned values I learned early in my career.

Do what you want, when you want, where you want, and how you want at your own peril. Do it with a bit of finesse, and the mentors who helped get you this far may hang on with your journey quietly in the background for the rest of your ride.

It’s always perfectly fine to change jobs if you’re doing it for reasons that make sense to you, but you’re best served to do it admirably with serious planning, polite accommodation, and decent respect.

How egregious can we get in justifying some of our more lamentable choices? Here are some behaviors I’ve observed of late that I don’t think will serve people well.

A presumed job candidate schedules an interview with a potential employer and simply does not show up for the meeting—no email, no call, just a cold no-show.

A disgruntled employee walks off the job in the middle of a shift, unannounced, without explanation, and never shows up again; not coming back from lunch or break is a slightly less dramatic version of this bizarre concoction.

An even more disgruntled employee takes the extraordinary risk of in-person rage quitting, often accompanied by a cacophony of phrases best not repeated in a mainstream publication.

Someone with direct access to a company’s customers elects to ignore or dismiss the inquiry or encounter of an unsatisfied customer, perhaps with equal drama that leads to rage quitting while soiling a company’s brand.

An individual spontaneously rejects the well-intentioned constructive feedback from a manager’s review, and rather than discuss it with improvement in mind, ceremoniously destroys the relationship with someone who cares about them.

Once-attentive teammates emotionally check out, dial in the least possible effort for as long as they can hide it, and wait for someone in authority to notice.

That’s a quick collection of less than proud moments, don’t you think?

What’s the common lesson in talking yourself out of those behaviors and actions?

Don’t stop caring. Never stop caring.

To my good fortune, I’ve also been observing a steady base of colleagues, co-workers, and friends who aren’t drawn to the opportunism of fickle times. They cared about their jobs and the customers they have been honored to serve in the past. They care equally or more so now. Circumstances may be in flux, but their values are constant. They maintain a North Star of personal expectation. They make promises and keep them without excuse or compromise because that matters to them.

If you haven’t already lived through multiple recessions, it is a certainty that you will. Our economy is cyclical almost by design. Sometimes jobs are plentiful and you have your choice. Sometimes they are scarce and you take what you can get to provide for yourself and your family. Sometimes your skills are in high demand. Just when you think your expert knowledge is unequaled, it can become wildly obviated.

There are four very scary words that pop up every few years that I caution you to approach with skepticism:

“This time is different.”

Of course things are different. We live in a high-stakes world of volatile change. That is the blessing and curse of igniting technologies. It is the very stuff of innovation and unlimited opportunity.

Yet some things are not different.

Integrity. Honesty. Trust. Commitment. Dedication. Dependability. Sacrifice. Selflessness. Caring. Grit.

You can easily convince yourself these are simply old-fashioned words, empty crossword puzzle entries that no longer matter in a world assuring you that personalization and independent reward are all that should matter. If your long-term reputation comes second to your immediate needs, you have made a choice that carries untoward risk.

I’d caution you before that cement hardens to remember what my writing teacher taught me:

The root word of contemporary is temporary.

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Image: Pixabay

We are so bombarded by noise at times it’s hard to think. The raging debates around coronavirus public policy, racial injustice, and the presidential election form a perfect storm of noise. A cacophony of this magnitude only naturally sends us to seek shelter from the storm.

Don’t give in to the temptation of numbness. Where there is noise there is a signal. Sometimes you have to listen hard for it, but it’s worth the effort.

Where there is crisis there is learning.

During the entirety of the Covid-19 crisis, my own company has been digging deeper into data, questioning every one of our prior assumptions, revisiting foundational convictions that have proven to be upended by circumstances. It’s been meticulous work, exhausting in many ways, but every bit of analysis has been worth the long hours of difficult discussion. Through a highly Socratic process, we have reinvented our business model for the better.

All of that has me thinking: What else might these crises be telling us? What else can we learn from the turmoil all around us if we don’t allow ourselves to hide from the rhetorical barrage?

Here are a few ideas penetrating my consciousness in the realms of global warming, trusted communications, and government core competency.

Everyone Doesn’t Have to Drive Every Day

I live in Los Angeles. I look outside and the air is clear. The freeways are empty. Coincidence? An accidental moment without significance? Perhaps that’s the case, as some have argued the temporal reduction in emissions and anecdotal benefits of fewer cars on the road, but what if it were sustainable? Could one of the answers to climate change be so obviously right before our eyes? I’m not a scientist with the credentials to make such an assessment, but I certainly would like the problem studied objectively.

Until a few months ago, we woke up daily with the habit of getting in our cars and driving to work no more questioned than brushing our teeth. It was just something we did. In no previous discussion of environmental distress did I hear anyone credibly propose getting more than half our cars off the road, because the proposition would have been a non-starter. Then one day a bunch of us stopped getting in our cars. Poof, just like that, we were working from home. We also got the commute time back for more productive work, and while I’m at it, how about all of those car accidents that stopped because people behind the steering wheel weren’t texting. We will go back to the office regularly at some point, but does it have to be every day, for every person? Not in my world. The benefits are yet to be understood. Let’s understand them.

Media Desperately Needs Reinvention

We don’t understand fake news. We don’t even have a common definition of fake news. Some of us define fake news as the biased reporting of a media brand. Others identify it as the blatantly false information peddled to the public for effect without fact-checking. I remain a fan of journalism and consume branded media daily with my own filter for accuracy, but my litmus test for truth will never be yours. Until we can agree on some form of objectivity, we will continue to debate the source of our information rather than the implications of the information’s validity.

This is not healthy. If we can’t agree on what constitutes an empirical fact, the clear and present danger to our decision making is likely to have a catastrophic impact. No source, however reputable, is without fault. The New York Times isn’t sure what belongs on its op-ed page. Facebook as a public platform of democratic exchange has become an unmitigated disaster in its inability to parse purposely placed disinformation in unending disguises, free or paid. Elections are won cynically on ad volume, fueled by cash, fueled by special-interest investment in yet more noise. We know we need journalism, but given how few people want to pay for it and how compromising its ad base has become, its business model has failed. Whoever reinvents this business model is going to change the world. I believe this will happen, because accurate information is not a luxury but a necessity.

Readiness Is Pragmatic

Perhaps my most troubling observation is how flat-footed the United States has been caught with the ramifications of the pandemic. Of course no one knew any sooner than late 2019 that Covid-19 could interrupt every aspect of our lives, but we’ve been around long enough to know pandemics exist. How could we have so few of the necessary medical supplies or personal protective equipment in stockpiles for such a calamity? How could we not have a clear chain of command between federal, state, and local authority? How could we shut down the nation for three months and not make strides on healthy measures to address the next semester of student education?

We are a pragmatic nation known to focus our vast resources on innumerable global crises throughout our history, but have we become so focused on the here and now that we aren’t paying enough attention to scenario planning and game theory? If we don’t think carefully about reallocating resources to planning for the unknown, the chances we will be struck down even harder by the next surprise attack would seem to be 100%.

Do yourself a favor: Tune out the noise, but tune in the learning. Opportunity is always around us if we muster the discipline to trade demoralization for inspiration. That’s how we get better.

The alternative is to stick with what we’ve got. I hope we’ve learned that’s not much of an option.

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Image: Pixabay