Since my schooldays I've been fascinated by the question of how an organisation can draw the best out of people. How can we foster high standards, commitment, loyalty, honesty, creativity, imagination, a culture of learning, high standards and mutual respect?
Later I came across the 'Green' slogan:
How you do it, is what you get. Which pretty much sums-up what happened – for good or otherwise - in various places I'd worked.
In other words, if your workplace culture embodies and models positive values, you stand a good chance of getting the behaviour and standards above.
By contrast, organisations characterised by fear, blame, bullying, finger-wagging and box-ticking are probably heading full speed in the wrong direction.
This intuitive view is supported by a
research study published last year by the University of Florida.
It suggests rude bosses defeat their purpose by browbeating employees into poor job performance. Verbal abuse means staff lose much of their problem-solving and creative talents. “When someone is screaming at you, you’re too busy thinking about the incident and how to deal with it to think about much else,”
The study was endorsed by a Stanford professor, Robert Sutton, author of the book:
"The No Asshole Rule”. (A title I wish I'd thought-up.) He says: "this well-crafted research shows that when organizations allow rude employees to run roughshod over others, it not only creates uncivilized workplaces, it is just plain bad business.”
I'm wondering about the experience of
Hol members.