Respecting an Individual's Investment

How many times have you gotten truly invested in a project, either at work or at home, only to have it given to someone else. At that moment you wonder why you invested your time and effort and become less likely to do so in the future. Sometimes, the way our organizations operate, one person can have their investment "stolen" more than once. While reorganizations, realignments, and job descriptions make sense, we need to also make sure we are respecting the investment that our workers have put into something. Keeping them involved after the realignment is one way to work towards efficiencies and individual respect at the same time. It is a little fix but requires the acknowledgement that people are investing in their work and that should be respected.

Have you had your mental investment "stolen"? Have you been in a situation where it could have been but for a good leader who recognized your input? How do you routinely recognize the investment of those you work with?

Comments

What an Extraverted Intuitive Needs to be Productive

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based on the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. Jung observed that people have inborn preferences for gathering information and making decisions and that these preferences guide an individual’s behavior. The mother/daughter team of Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers expanded on Jung’s theories and created an assessment to make the combined work accessible to all individuals. Today, the assessment is used by most Fortune 100 companies and over two million people worldwide, annually. The assessment identifies an individual’s inborn preferences on four dichotomous scales: where you focus your energy, how you prefer to take in information, how you make decisions, and how you deal with the outer world. Type is best used to understand other people, improve communication, and develop individual skills. The first dichotomy is Extraversion (gets energy from other people) and Introversion (gets energy from reflection). The second...

What will you teach me?

In so many of the development programs I work with, people come in with an attitude of what will you teach me? Or worse yet, what is the minimum I have to do to get credit? If there isn't a change after the program, the assumption is that the program failed the person. If you're trying to learn how to work a computer program, like Microsoft Excel, then yes, if you can't work Excel after the program, the program failed you. If you're trying to develop yourself as a leader, however, you have to commit to the homework and reflection. If there isn't a change after the program, I suggest you failed the program. Keeping that in mind, here are my recommendations for anyone considering entering a professional development program (works for a coaching relationship, too). 1. Be willing to commit to honest self-reflection. 2. Know how you will define success after the end of the program or relationship. 3. Do the homework! (If you don't, the on...

Warning - Processing Times May Vary

My 18-month old son is learning tons of words a day and we are constantly talking when we are waiting for a bus, shopping in a store, etc. I name things and sometimes he'll repeat what I say. With the things he knows (like train, bus, and puppy) I will often ask him what is that? What I have noticed is that if someone else is around and my son doesn't answer right away, the adult will answer for him. Now sometimes he is playing shy and sometimes I am pretty sure he is thinking "I am not a performing monkey mom!" but either way, jumping in and giving him the answer before he has even had a chance to process is not the way to teach him. And just because he doesn't answer right away, does not mean he is stupid or incompetent. He knows how, in his own little way, to ask for help if he needs it and I have learned to wait for that indication before jumping in and taking over. Sounds relatively simple and like the rambling of a mother who hasn't gotten...

Strategic Serendipity

Search This Blog