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Behaving properly in the Work Place
The day after New Years, I sat there pondering that there has to be some cognitive measure of the behavioural culture within companies. The answer needed a much broader perspective of the origin of default, and that answer lay in the instrument of change.
Dominica suffers a cancer of lateness: we are late to meetings, late for inaugural events, late for patriotic duties, late switching to BBC morning News, Late to parties & jump-up, and my favourite “Late to Work”. I am a late employee (my big mouth), and so are you. The culture of being late is created by the individual, and punctuality is an etiquette very much like politeness, and it has to be cultured and not forced (Ok, we disagree).
Mahatma Ghandi, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and President Nelson Mandela! What do these contemporary change agents have in common? JAIL and assassination (wrong young man!). But on a serious note, these were individuals who existed as part of the default option, and not only did they create their own options, but they rewrote the rules of the default system. Ordinary men, and I bet you can’t find one extraordinary thing about them before they became “Extraordinary”.
Prudential Financial (US mutual fund & securities company) came out with this slogan some years ago; “Be Your Own Rock”. In companies where change is supposed to be credited to only management, you need to create your own menu options within that company, and extend them outside the company’s reach where possible. I am not saying to exploit the company, in fact I am really saying; sacrifice personally, welcome the criticism, go beyond your job description and best of all, work your behind off for that company. But do it by creating your own options.
January 2005, I bought two Bello Syrups to serve anyone who visits my cubicle at my place of employment. Persons walk all day in Roseau, and to arrive thirsty and tired, and talk business is an inconsideration on my part. For me its more than customer appreciation, it’s more like forging steel. I am 9 points down at the bottom of the third, and its 3 pointers nothing but net with every client. $20 (is that enough) from my salary means it’s more probable that customers will: lower their voices when angry, seek out other employees to release their coagulated frustrations, will hype me up – they will remember and say “Ibrahim did so and so.” Making a statement, “oh no no no”, selfish, “impossible”, but corporate survival, “oh yeah”. GMC still has this slogan; “Solid as a Rock”, well that’s not me, well at least not yet.
Everyone in the company is a change agent, and most breakthroughs or corporate change (see our unions’ examples in Dominica) in companies are the result of lower management and employees. Managers, before they became the Guardians, held the seeds of change, Entrepreneurs before they became so successful were the personification of change, and Michael Jackson before he became the public’s grudging ridicule was the idol of change in an industry where he was KING. Way down there its just water, so, “Be your own Rock”.
The intoxicants of comfort and fear will take over. From the years of employment adolescence to management maturity, your perceptions of leadership, the future and corporate ideals will become stagnant. Your company’s profile says that employees and their executives are not mere team members but a family bundle of joy. In Caribbean non-decentralised companies we know they exist in two different dimensions (your experience will give you clarity). You have concerns about it? Then, “Be your own Rock”
Most of our executives are ever closer to the golden years of half a century (past that), and they will push till retirement. One of the good things about corporate default is the characteristics of its management; experience, years, relevant qualifications and company commitment. Only solid rocks here, our companies will dodge all loose and falling rocks.
