Picture this: It’s a hot summer day. You’re on the beach and it’s your turn to order ice cream. Finally. “Oh, yum, I’ll have the butter pecan. Two scoops. Wait, no, the moose tracks. Single. In a waffle cone. Say, is that strawberry cheesecake? Yeah, that sounds better. Hold on—you have gelato?! Lemon, please!”
There’s a fallacy floating around that humans don’t like change. Wrong. We LOVE change—especially, especially when it benefits us. What we don’t love is feeling like we’re getting scooped a different flavor each day. Yummy flavors like peachy new platform, transformational tiramisu or, everyone’s favorite, becausewesaidso berry.
Is there a strategic plan? What is it? How does today’s change (flavor) align to it? What’s the organizational vision? How can I help achieve our vision? What does success look like for me, my colleagues, our team, the organization? Is it safe to challenge the status quo? Was someone like me at the table when the plan was made?
If your workforce doesn’t have the answers to these questions, learned helplessness can set in. And, spoiler alert, that’s really bad for your organization.
Learned helplessness is, simply put, having given up. Change after seemingly random change is coming and they have A) no input B) no orienting vision C) no benchmarks and, obviously, D) no reason to invest in it. It’s just a different flavor.
Who cares, you ask? Who cares about this psychology and feelings stuff? Your bottom line cares. Apathy and frustration have direct costs in productivity loss, decreased customer satisfaction, employee turnover, nonexistent innovation, project failure and change resistance.
Your workers care, or at least they have the capacity to care, about the success of your business and your projects. Especially right now. Give them something to care about and it’ll be easier than selling ice cream to a beachgoer on a hot day.
Learned helplessness is a state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when opportunities for change become available.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325355#summary
Shannon Vasko is a natural-born planner with a passion for strategy and integrated communications. © MI Compass Services.
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