I was playing around with some of my flower pics on Saturday, wishing for Spring after weeding, composting, and fertilizing the day lily garden. That got me to thinking that we need to do those same things in some workplaces (yeah, weeding, also). And then I thought to put up a flower post

Then, I got to thinking about that first word and if it might be better if I made it more general and changed it to people, since it also applies to children and it did not have to be a workplace poster. So, I put up a simple survey of what frame is better in my Facebook feed and the resounding response was to use PEOPLE.

People agree that PEOPLE can grow and that employees are people, too.

These days, with all the shifts driven by remote virtual working, I hope that more organizations will make that simple realization that we can manage people more positively and behave to better involve and engage them in alignment to goals and objectives and provide them with the feedback and support, and teamwork that would allow them to grow and perform at a higher level. The data suggest that 1 in 7 people are actively disengaged in their workplaces, and unmotivated to improve performance. Extrinsic rewards are not driving high levels of overall performance and “interdepartmental collaboration” remains an oxymoron.

Supervisors are the fulcrum for changing behavior. HR and T&D simply cannot impact people who are doing the jobs at hand. We must improve supervisory skills and facilitating involvement is straightforward – Ask and Receive. But few supervisors seem to be listening or even respecting their people based on many different surveys of attitudes and behaviors in the workplace.

Remember that the flower IS in the seed!
So, give them some sunlight and some good soil and watch what happens!

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools.
Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant who is trying to retire!! He now lives in Cuenca, Ecuador.

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.

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Here is a 2-minute overview of the new virtual team building game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE6gDtZymwk

You can discover a lot more about our collaboration-focused experiential exercise here:

https://performancemanagementcompany.com/the-search-for-the-lost-dutchman