You have Changed!

doriangray1

Yes, my friends were right, it was just like “Dorian Gray”, I had changed. To confirm their thoughts, I decided to review images of myself over the past few months, just to see if there were any visual signs.

I perused Facebook and a multitude of iPhone images and aligned them in chronological date order hoping to find a clue. I quizzed my friends as to what differences they were observing in me, in particular, when they thought the change may have occurred? I needed to discover my behavioural tipping point and it’s potential origin.

I spend the whole night pondering my notes, looking at photographs and at 11:34 PM that evening, I noticed it.

The initial change was subtle, but the time comparison between then and now was momentous. Yes, I had changed, and in a big way.

I was now a much more confident, outgoing individual, with a continual smile on my face. My business attire of the traditional and conservative dark blue suit with white shirt, and boring striped tie, had been replaced with a stylish array of coloured shirts with cuff-linked sleeves, bow-ties, pocket hankies, and an impressive daily shaved smooth slick head.

The point zero appeared to coincide when I began working for a new company, one that had an amazingly vibrant work ethic and culture. As a pondered and thought about this further, the term “cultural chemicalization” came to mind. For those of who reading this blog post let me explain the concept further.

If I were to look up the term “cultural chemicalization” in a dictionary, it would say: “the subconscious absorption (or chemicalization) of an organization’s culture by an employee where a change in behavioural state occurs”.

Yes, I had subconsciously, and quite happily I must admit, absorbed the positive culture of my new place of work, and the more I thought about it, so had all my fellow colleagues. The result was an amazing environment where creativity and innovation excelled to the fullest.

The process of “cultural chemicalization” begins with the CEO and the Executive Team. It is their behaviour that sets the benchmark for all employees and those they meet externally. As that saying goes, “what you see is what you get”. As an employee, if you observe a positive, enthusiastic management team, you and your organization will respond accordingly. If you see “nothing”, then that’s exactly what you will receive and experience.

Yes, my friends were right, I had changed, and I was loving it!

The Office Tuning-Fork

Tuning fork

Many of us I’m sure have sat through a corporate meeting and have identified when someone is playing “politics”. This person’s behaviour is so obvious that it tends to stick out like a sore thumb to the detriment of that individual. The impact of this activity can also alienate them from the rest of the team and significantly lowers the output of the meeting.

To resolve and eliminate this sort of negative behaviour, this is where the application of a yet to be invented “politics” calibrated tuning-fork can be applied. Consider the following application in the corporate office.

Each meeting room will have a tuning-fork mounted in the centre of the table. The tuning-forks will all have the same business pitch aligned to the corporate values and will resonate in harmony throughout the entire office. When there is no “politics” being exhibited by those sitting around the table, all tuning forks will be in tune with each other and a constant tone will be achieved.

However, should the tuning-fork encounter someone playing the political agenda, the harmonic resonance will be broken and the culprit will be immediately identified by those in the room, and throughout the entire office.

Those repeatedly identified by the tuning fork as habitual office politics offenders will have a special entry made in their personnel file.

With time, those people who play politics will modify their behaviour as the power of the tuning-fork will ultimately prevail!

 

The Corporate Zoo

Zoo

If the corporate office was likened to a zoo, it would have a collection of many different animals all roaming freely throughout the building. Each animal would have its individual innate work style and unique personality traits. Inside the animal enclave, each animal would need to learn to adapt to the surrounding work environment or mayhem would prevail.

Some animals would want to maintain their own personal space, others may form packs to work more effectively together and for their longer term survival.

The question is…..which animal are you?

Are you…..

The Peacock:
Roams the office with a showy plumage to impress your fellow animals and be noticed?

The Mouse:
Doesn’t want to be seen so scurries quickly around the building trying to evade direct eye contact?

The Bear:
A loud and obnoxious animal who typically has minimal friends and which other animals try and avoid?

The Cat:
Likes to have a quiet unobserved snooze in a hidden and unused office?

The Turtle:
Thinks that everything is all too hard and would prefer to be somewhere else so is very distant and aloof?

The YOU:
Is highly liked and well respected and is prepared to take on a range of animal behaviours. Sometimes the YOU is required to be a leader, other times a follower. The greatest skill of the YOU is in being able to adapt to your ever changing zoo environment to drive progress and the welfare of the total animal community and YOUrself.

I’m sure you are the YOU. However, make sure that YOU have a loud roar now and then to ensure your standing and respect within the animal kingdom!

%d bloggers like this: