negativity

This is the advice I find I’m giving to my own children these days, as two young adults forging their way in a world where a lot of the rules have changed, or are still in flux. It’s advice I’m newly taking for myself too.

This is a day and time where the actions within free will, and the nimble mobility of easy movement, are abilities we must keep positioned to serve us, unrestricted and unburdened.

Be unencumbered

For to “be encumbered is to be restricted or burdened (by someone or something) in such a way that free action or movement is difficult.” (from my MacBook dictionary)

The root word itself is heavy, which is good, for it gets you to pause, and better understand.

Try saying it out loud; “Unencumbered.” It’s weighty too, as opposed to saying something like, “lighten up” which has other connotations anyway, or “protect your freedoms” which is presumptive and doesn’t capture everything which can be a possible culprit. For instance, on my current list of encumbrance culprits are:

Stuff — because I want lightness instead, both physical and mental. I don’t want to bother with maintaining stuff I don’t use often enough to really matter
Debt — because I want freedom from liability, and hate paying interest that just makes things cost more
Jobs — because I prefer to think about work and Ho‘ohana. Work is necessary, and where the rewards are to be found, whereas ‘job’ is too small a container, often with other restrictions
Dogma — because the only label I’m okay with is Thinker. I have gotten very wary about polarity, and how ideology and even branding can cause us to erect walls. I want to be more open-minded instead, and push myself to explore more in the learning I pursue
Should-ing — I tend to separate this from dogma, in that should-ing usually hits us closer to home, coming from people we know more intimately, spending personal time with them. And they are another variable, one we will not dismiss, for they are important to us, and we want them to be proud of us [I defined should-ing in this post: A Good Ruthlessness x3.]
Negativity — because Lord knows there is enough of it in the world, and I don’t want to be another contributor. From a practical standpoint, negativity is also highly ineffective
Bad habits — there can be several encumbrances here [the world of auto-pilot], and the caution I always start with is in regard to physical health. When you get sick, everything else gets to be a moot point
Sloth — because it’s such an energy killer. Look up sloth in a Thesaurus for the list of yuckiness it can include. No life can afford any of that stuff. Sloth kills creativity too
Envy — because it doesn’t make much sense (it’s about someone else’s choices, not yours), yet is easy to fall prey to. To me, the opposite of envy is the virtue of Ma‘alahi, that peaceful persuasion of calming contentment — so much better!

You get the idea. The list can go on and your list might be different. I usually stop with 9 of anything in working through my own listings of things (case in point: Our 9 key Concepts for MWA). 9 is quite enough, for each one of these can be expanded on, and the whole self-coaching of “Be unencumbered” is to keep each of them self-managed well enough so they aren’t unwieldy, and I can fold them into my trusted system with good results.

To be unencumbered, make it relevant to your life

Going back to my children, we mostly have these kinds of conversations these days: To set the stage a bit, they are done with college, and now support themselves. Yet they are still young, unmarried, and haven’t become parents. I want them to take full advantage of their youthful energies, for as the saying goes, the world is their oyster:

Be unencumbered of a mortgage, for owning a home isn’t what it used to be, and you have time; wait until the industry heals itself.

For that matter, be unencumbered by all ownership — question what maintenance every owned thing might come with, and see it as possible baggage. Better to use-with-immediacy, whether rented, borrowed, or bartered for, and then move on.

Be unencumbered of middlemen, and brokers of any kind. Do for yourself to start with, to learn completely and understand well: Define what “in your best interest” is for yourself, before you hire or otherwise allow anyone else to do something for you.

Be unencumbered of what anyone else believes, including me and your dad. Trust in your values, think for yourself, and make your own rules to live/work/play by. Then be prepared to eloquently explain the why of your choices (you know we’ll still be asking you about them, and won’t hold back our opinions, so be ready to take an educated stand).

Be unencumbered of convention, all of it, and especially in learning. The world around us is a little broken right now, but that’s opportunity for you in forging a better way. Learn from everything, and everyone around you, for the world itself must be your teacher right now if you’re to navigate it successfully.

We will be here to help, but not too much.

So “Be unencumbered” really helps as the catch-all of our Language of Intention as our family conversations continue. It becomes our insider-speak, and a shortcut about, then past why-we’re-talking-about-this, which helps us get into the meat of the matter quicker.

Then, make it relevant to your work

As you can imagine, “be unencumbered” is now part of my Managing with Aloha vocabulary too, in regard to the work of my businesses, for there are so many new conversations to be had, and had often. Vocabulary has always been tool-extraordinaire for us: The Best, Yet Most Underutilized Tool for Communication There Is.

This is a time to defy convention, and seize the opportunity to create better: Trump those Old Rules with Your Values.

As an Alaka‘i Manager, how can “Be unencumbered” help in your workplace huddles? What are the hot spots which come to mind for you, and can you discern what their encumbrances are?

Money, budgeting strategy, and financial literacy comes to mind relatively quickly (as with my last post, in regard to current affairs), but there are so many other encumbrances to consider.

What would be your first target?

Here is some help in the archives, one for each of the encumbrances on my list:

Stuff: Spring Cleaning at Work: Junk is not the Stuff of Legacy. How much junk is costing you money, and worse, cluttering up those spaces where good work, important and creative work, should be getting done instead?
Debt: What does ‘financial literacy’ mean to you? An oldie, from 2005: One of the first posts I published here on Talking Story, about The Managers’ Kuleana we revisited a few days ago.
Jobs: A Job of any Merit: Your 3 Options in Worthwhile Work. In case you missed it, this was the “we can do this!” post within a string of others this month.
Dogma: Imagine having a Thought Kit: The story behind Business Thinking with Aloha.
Should-ing: Have you caught the curve ball? A new initiative has come down from the top (corporate, your boss etc.): What do you do now?
Negativity: Staying Positive in a Negative Workplace: When the downer isn’t the job itself, but the workplace culture.
Bad habits: The 3 Sins of Management: About the bad habits of tacit approval, automatic pilot, and lies of omission.
Sloth: Distract, Interrupt, Intercept, Disrupt: A simple way to focus, and deal with distractions.
Envy: Downsizing gets cool: Today you have to pause a bit when you hear the word. Can we downsize to warm up to change?

A How-to Postscript: Are you using the tags here on Talking Story, listed at the bottom of each post? That’s how I came up with this list for you. For instance, try energy and/or creativity for sloth (the link I chose above was to help you with distraction.)

So much lies beyond that chain link fence… Be unencumbered so you can reach it.

2010 Update: I made the decision to bring Say “Alaka‘i” here to Talking Story in late May of 2010 when the Honolulu Advertiser, where the blog previously appeared, was merged with the Star Bulletin (Read more at Say “Alaka‘i” is Returning to the Mothership).

Therefore, the post appearing below is a copy of the one which had originally appeared there on December 21, 2008, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Staying Positive in a Negative Workplace

Preface:
Welcome to Sunday Koa Kākou. Sunday is the day I answer questions you send to me. If you have a question connected to management and leadership, leave a comment here, or email me.

From the Say “Alaka‘i” mailbox:

How do I stay positive working in a place where most of the employees are so deeply negative? All people seem to talk about here is how much they hate their jobs. I was excited about getting this job, and I like the work itself, but the crew here makes things miserable.

Ouch.

I suppose I could come up with some tips for you with staying positive, but I am not convinced that is enough: It will be tough if you are still surrounded by so much negativity, and the root causes of it have to be dealt with.

My recommendation is that you put your manager to work, asking them to do what they must in providing you with a better (more positive) working environment. I know that may take some bravery, but you’re worth taking the risk, and surely this cannot continue for you as is!

If you feel that working with your managers will be too difficult, or that others there will ostracize you for it versus getting on board, or that the management team will not be effective enough in making the changes needed, you should get out and work somewhere else. Life is too short, and if you are a good employee and a positive person you will find something else worthy of you, even in this tough market we are in (for the cream still rises to the top).

No one should have to work in an environment similar to the one you describe, and I have to wonder why your managers and leaders are not doing something about it, unless they can’t see it as clearly as you do. Help open their eyes to it. Negativity is a cancer in the workplace and for any business. It will eventually have a damaging effect on virtually everything, and both internally and externally; I am sure your customers already sense it.

How will you know if your managers are up to the challenge?

The managers you now have will be able to help you if the work they most often do concerns people, workplace, mission, and vision as opposed to work that is heavily task related to the industry you are in.

Let’s look at those separately: I believe that managers have four primary responsibilities (and providing employees with a positive, healthy working environment has to do with the second one):

1. People: Managers concentrate on strengths and make weaknesses irrelevant.
Managers discover what strengths each of the people they manage possess. They then place people where they are called on to employ those strengths and capitalize on them, giving them the authority to completely own their responsibilities and perform brilliantly.

2. Place: Managers create great workplaces where people thrive.
Managers focus on creating an environment where rewarding work happens. They continually work to remove obstacles (such as negativity), barriers, and excuses, while adding the needed support, tools and resources. Great managers are the stewards of healthy organizational cultures.

3. Mission: Managers get the work to make perfect sense.
Managers connect the work to be done with the meaning why. They plan to succeed with a viable business model, so people always see realistic possibility, and they encourage people to work on the enterprise with them, not just within it.

4. Vision: Managers expect and promote the exceptional.
Great managers never settle for mediocrity; they champion excellence so people rise to the occasion. Managers lead too; they mentor and coach, harnessing energy and driving action. They foster sequential and consequential learning so people continue to grow.

Judge objectively: They may want to help you, but can’t

These four pursuits concerning people, place, mission and vision take time and effort, and managers cannot concentrate on them if they are pushing paper, manning desks, or stuck in other immobile or task-related work. You may need to give your manager some task-relief, helping them in order for them to help you.

Step back, and try using my 4-part responsibility checklist for managers as objectively as you can with judging the flexibility of the workplace you are in: Can you realistically work with your manager and your co-workers to change things for the better?

If the answer is no, please don’t be a victim or martyr and sacrifice the quality of your working life for a workplace that has little prospect of changing. Get out and into a healthier environment.