Humanizing The Workplace

I have been reading the book,  “Seeing Good at Work,   52 Weekly Steps to Transform Your Workplace Experience”  co-authored  by  Rev. Joyce Duffala and  Rev. Edward Viljoen.  Since the beginning of this year I start my day by closing my office door and reading the related chapter for the week.  

On Monday of Week 23, I read the chapter entitled “Humanizing the Workplace. ”  This chapter discusses how to recognize that the people I work with are the most important part of my job, not the tasks I am doing.   After reading this chapter, I thought what a wonderful way to experience my workplace.

Later that Monday  I received an updated job status report.   I noticed that only one small project was completed for the prior two weeks by a particular staff person.  I reacted to this news with fear that this lack of productivity would result in lack revenue and that would be followed by a cash flow crisis and it was just  going to be a big disaster and it was all caused by this one person.  With this frame of mind, I stormed into her office and proceeded to be the ugly boss.  The only good thing about that interchange was that there was no blood.

I want back to my office and started typing up her performance evaluation.  I knew it was not a good time to give her, or anyone, a performance evaluation, but I had to get these crazy thoughts out  of my head and down on paper, where hopefully I could  see the truth in this situation.  In hindsight, I see it would have been better to have done this before I stormed into her office.

As I was typing the evaluation I realized two things.  First,  my reaction to this situation was  exactly the opposite  to the message in Week 23;  I put the task before the person.  Second, the performance evaluation I was typing up was really about my performance in this situation;  I needed to lighten up.
I thought this book was going to prevent events like this one from ever happening again in my workplace.  Instead, for me it brings up real life lessons from which to pull from in my workplace experience and the tools to deal with it differently.  Seeing Good at Work is a process, not a quick fix.

Thank you Rev Joyce and Rev Edward for writing this practical learning tool.

With love and gratitude,
KM