Don’t Give Up

The late and great country singer Johnny Cash once said that “You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” That’s because for most of us failure is just the beginning on the road to success.

Sometimes failing means that you have not succeeded in achieving something. At other times it may mean that you can’t move forward. But it doesn’t always mean defeat. When we try our very best and we don’t succeed at something on our first try. It is a setback, but it is only a failure if we do not learn our lessons, if we don’t grow from the experience, or if we make the same mistakes again.

Henry Ford said “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” As long as we learn from our mistakes and can begin again more intelligently in the light of our previous errors we are not failures.

If we can grow from the experience of our initial setbacks then our efforts may not always be successful but we are still not failures. The great jazz musician Miles Davis is quoted as saying “Do not fear mistakes, there are none.” What he meant was that we have experiences that we can grow from and if they don’t always go our way, that’s okay too.

The last piece of advice about failure comes from the late Robert Kennedy Junior who said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” If you make a mistake, don’t worry. It’s just a marker on your road to great success.

This is not just Pollyanna thinking or bromides to make you feel better when you screw up. Thomas Edison had thousands of unsuccessful experiments before the light bulb literally went on. And he is not alone. Think about something that you have tried over and over until you finally got it. For me it was Grade 10 math. I failed it the first and second term and thought I would have to stay in Grade 10 forever. At the time a fate worse than death.

I wish I could say that I conquered this demon and became a math brainiac but I just barely passed that subject at the end of the year. But I didn’t let my initial failure stop me from moving forward and while I may never be scientist I am doing just fine as a writer. Starving, sometimes, but if you are reading this then I am a success too.

Mike Martin is a freelance writer and workplace wellness consultant. He is the author of Change the Things You Can: Dealing With Difficult People.

Mistakes…. I’ve Made a Few

No matter what your field of endeavor or line of business you have made mistakes. Almost everyone in marketing has sent out a sales letter that has received little or no response and there is no one on the planet, not even Warren Buffet, who picks all the right stocks all of the time. The difference between a successful marketer or investment managers like Mr. Buffet and many of us mere mortals is that they learn from their mistakes.

They treat a mistake as an opportunity to learn, and begin again. They also don’t let fear of failure deter them from ultimately being successful. That fear of failure is what holds the rest of back. It paralyses us in a state of dread and inaction that will surely lead us to fail again. Even worse is that this fear can keep us stuck in this place, too afraid to even try again.

As millions of scientists, inventors, and successful people have found out, failure is actually a prerequisite to success. The more mistakes you make, the more you can learn. If that sounds dumb, then think about Thomas Edison. He undertook thousands of experiments that didn’t work out, but he learned from every one of them until, fortunately for us, he got it right. You too can learn from your mistakes and here’s how to do it.

Define the mistake. Take the time to go through all of the steps in the process. What worked and more importantly, what didn’t? The things that worked become part of the solution, the things that didn’t become part of the past.

Take Ownership. Know what part you played in the mistake and admit and acknowledge that to yourself, your team, and your superiors. It’s not just the right thing to do, it stops the blame game right in its tracks so that everyone can move more quickly towards a solution.

What caused the mistake? Was it a human error or a technological breakdown? Walk through the process step by step until you can pinpoint the cause of its demise.

What could fix this mistake in the future? Now you’re ready to start thinking about trying again. You know the cause and can work on fixing it. What will you do differently the next time in order to get a positive result?

It’s okay to make mistakes. Repeat that a few times until you get comfortable with it. But it’s never okay to make the same mistake again. Learn from your mistakes and you’ll never have to go through the pain of that mistake again.

Excerpted fro Change the Things You Can: Dealing With Difficult People by Mike Martin.

Dealing With Bullies

Workplace bullying is not new and most of us have experienced a boss or supervisor or another co-worker who has treated us with disdain, contempt or worse. Some of us have been verbally attacked and even threatened with physical violence at our place of work.

Few of us had the willingness to complain or report these activities and simply remained silent in the face of these attacks because we were afraid or just wanted to keep our job. So the bullies kept up their behavior until we quit or asked for another assignment.

What’s different about the situation today is that more employers are taking steps to eliminate workplace bullying and to sensitize all of the employees, especially supervisors and managers, about the impact of their actions on the morale and productivity of their staff.

A bully uses aggression and violent behavior to compensate for feelings of inadequacy. It seems that bullies just don’t like other people who are good at their job and have an ability to get along in a non-confrontational manner. They feel threatened by these people and need to diminish them in order to feel better about themselves.

Peer on peer bullying is often disguised as “healthy competition” between workers and will manifest itself by acts of sabotage, undercutting, and spreading gossips and rumors. There is nothing healthy about such a situation.

If the bully is a boss or superior they may try and set the employee up for failure by setting unrealistic deadlines, not providing the necessary information and resources; or either taking away work or just piling it on. In both situations this underhanded behavior is designed to embarrass and harass the employee and is almost always accompanied by verbal assaults and threats.

So what can be done about workplace bullying? Most experts say that it needs to be treated like any other disease. You need to treat its impact as soon as you become aware of it, identify the symptoms early, and eliminate or reduce the risk through prevention.

 

Define the behavior that you feel is bullying

You have to clearly define the actions, words, or gestures that you feel are bullying. If the person yelled at you or called you names then name those behaviors.

Tell the person that you think it is inappropriate behavior

After you define the behavior tell the person that you think that this is inappropriate behavior and that you consider it to be bullying. Do not engage in any discussion about the behavior, especially their excuses.

Tell them you don’t like it

You need to make a clear, strong statement that says, “I don’t like that behavior.” Resist the urge to water this statement down and it’s important that they hear it directly from you.

Ask them to stop

You also need to ask them to stop this behavior, firmly, but politely. They need to know what you expect from them and that is that they will stop this behavior.

It’s not easy to carry out this process with someone who is aggressive or intimidating, especially a difficult person, but you need to follow these steps in order to try and change the bullying behavior. But remember nobody has to put up with bullying behavior in the workplace.

Mike Martin is a frelance writer and workplace wellness consultant. He is the author of Change the Things You Can: Dealing With Difficult People.

Don’t Gamble With Your Sanity

In the Kenny Rogers song “The Gambler”, he sings “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run.” The rest of the chorus is not as helpful or optimistic and concludes with “the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.” That is not the best you can hope for in dealing with a difficult situation in your life, especially at work. If you know when to walk away.

Sometimes it just isn’t worth it. The job, the money, the prestige, whatever you are receiving from your employment just isn’t worth the aggravation that you are going through. If you have are still bothered by any situation to the point where you are ill, mentally, emotionally or spiritually, then take a long look at where you are. If it is unlikely to change then make a plan to transfer/leave at the end of the year and walk away.

You know surrender has a bad name these days. Once it meant a noble gesture that the losing side made to the conqueror in battle. It was a loss but not a disgrace if you had fought long and well. You surrended because you and your troops got to live another day. The ending of the war in Europe and Japan was brutal and devastating. But after the surrender things began to improve and today both Germany and Japan have societies to emulate.

Even in the American Civil War the Confederacy troops were allowed to keep their uniforms on and reatin their guns after the surrender, because they were only clothes they had and because they needed their guns to shoot food on the way home. So giving up, despite Winston Churchill’s admonitions, is not the end of the world. Especially if it means keeping your health and your sanity.

If you do decide to quit your job then don’t do it in anger or haste. Take some time, even up to a year if it’s been a long career or assignment. Spend that year trying to understand what exactly happened while you plan for the future. Learn the lessons about life and about yourself that have been presented to you because if you don’t you are likely to be back in a similar situation sooner than you think.

Walking away from a difficult situation is not quitting nor does it mean you are a failure. Those are old messages that serve no one except stupid jock radio announcers. This is real life, not some game. Walking away might save your life or at least let you live to fight another day.

This is an extract from Change the Things You Can: Dealing with Difficult People, available at Chapters.ca and from booklocker.com

Mike Martin is a freelance writer and workplace wellness consultant.

Please Don’t Bleed on me at Work

When is it okay to be emotional at work? The short answer is never but the slightly longer answer has a few maybes. It is always okay to be kind and courteous but even this can go too far if it encroaches on another person’s physical or emotional space at work. It is also okay to be empathetic, if someone else shares something with you, if you are aware of a personal or difficult situation, and if the person wants that empathy. Otherwise, keep your emotions in your pocket and don’t wear them on your sleeve at work.

You can call me a curmudgeon if you want and you may even be right, but I think that there is a great case to be made for leaving your emotions at home when you head off to work. Yes we will all have challenging times in our lives outside of work that we cannot help but bring with us in our lunch bag. And everyone understands when there is a death in a family or a serous illness, or even the changes that a positive event like a new baby can bring. But you still have an obligation to come to work, do a decent job, and not bleed over everybody else.

In addition to the emotional toil that our personal lives take on us there is also the stress, anxiety, and sometimes anger that arises as a direct result of our work or workplace. Even then you have to find a way to manage the stress in a non-toxic way and deal with your anxiety in a manner that doesn’t cause problems or more anxiety for the people around you. What about anger? Doesn’t everybody get angry at work sometimes?

Yes, we all may get angry at work. The question is how does that anger manifest itself and who is that anger directed against? Anger is one of the most powerful emotions known to man or woman and it has the power to really hurt or damage individuals and the people around them. A short angry outburst on an occasional basis isn’t too much cause for concern but temper tantrums, yelling obscenities, or any form of threatening behaviour has no place in the workplace, ever.  No can anger that is directed at co-workers, managers or clients be tolerated. Ever.

Anger is the dark side of emotions and it must be managed by individuals, and their supervisors if necessary. But the other emotions can be just as taxing in the long run. A workplace is an adult experience and all those who enter there should be prepared to act as adults, not just mentally and physically, but emotionally as well.

Mike Martin is a freelance writer and workplace wellness consultant. He is also the author of “Change the Things You Can” (Dealing with Difficult People)

Change the Things You Can

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Follow the Leader

There are many styles of leadership and many ways that people try to describe them. One of the least effective descriptions is the so-called three main leadership styles of autocratic, democratic or free reign leadership. When applied to the modern workplace about the only value these descriptors have is to show which style is currently in vogue in management today.

That’s easy because unless you are running a paramilitary organization or a kindergarten it would have be the democratic or participatory style of management. That’s mostly because of the disasters that companies and organizations have put themselves through when the managerial powers are given to dictatorial managers or to the children in the classic laissez faire model.

But there’s a better way to describe a leader and to me when it comes to the modern workplace I do want results but I also want someone who can get people to follow them. I want someone who is not just good at the x’s and o’s but who also has a vision of where they and the organization can be in the future. In other words I just don’t want a good manager. I want a leader. And there are a lot of differences between a manager and a leader.

One of the best lists that I’ve seen on the difference between a manager and a leader was prepared by Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal and a well-respected author on management issues. He said:

 

• The manager administers; the leader innovates.
• The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.
• The manager maintains; the leader develops.
• The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
• The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
• The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
• The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
• The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.
• The manager imitates; the leader originates.
• The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
• The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.
• The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Given those choices who would you rather follow? A manager or a leader?

Mike Martin is a freelance writer and workplace wellness consultant.