Snap out of it!

“Friends, I’m invoking the Moonstruck Method here…”

“You must continue to create a creative, innovative, high-trust, high-performance, and highly engaged team. So many companies begin one initiative before they’ve even given the current one time to prove itself . . .”

These days, if I’m going to be honest, people are restless. We’re still trying to figure out what and who we are in the next normal of a post-pandemic world. There’s no new normal, some things are normal, and some things will never be the same. We sense that we want some sort of normalcy, but we’re just not sure what that is. 

For some leaders, it’s as if they are doing the equivalent to standing in front of the fridge when you think you’re hungry, but you’re not really hungry. Or you want something but don’t know what it is, and nothing sounds good, so you circle back to the pantry, then to the fridge, peek in the freezer, and then wander out to the garage. Then you start over again. Finally, you can’t stand it, and you order pizza. 

It’s as if a leader’s internal dialogue sounds like this: let’s try this! No, never mind, let’s do this! Wait . . . maybe we want this instead! Let’s be DARING. No, that’s not what we want. Let’s be GREAT! Let’s take a sharp right turn and throw it all out the window! Let’s get a Black Belt! No, let’s RESTRUCTURE! Let’s make it LEAN! Wait . . . let’s just go back to what we know. 

Ad infinitum. Insert “shiny, pretty, thing” into every place it says “this.” 

Friends, I’m invoking the Moonstruck Method here: SNAP OUT OF IT! 

You must continue to create a creative, innovative, high-trust, high-performance, and highly engaged team. So many companies begin one initiative before they’ve even given the current one time to prove itself. They get impatient with the long list of things they cannot control, so they change directions (or people, or focus, or markets, or . . . ) because they think they can control that. 

Recently, I met with a group of manufacturing leaders who, under less-than-ideal circumstances, have persevered. They returned to work during the pandemic much earlier than most because their supply chain participation was meaningful. Their administrative counterparts worked from home dealing with video conferencing, homeschooling, and pets with separation anxiety, yet these people wore their masks every day and went to work. They’ve been short-staffed for months, and making good hires is hard. Their people are tired. 

Luckily, their leaders are bright and thoughtful enough to realize that they need to take their employee engagement data seriously and try to learn to make changes. They recognize that the VUCA workplace is not going away anytime soon and want to do the right thing. 

And yet, it’s so tempting to veer off course, to try to look for a quicker, shinier way to make things happen, and to make things different. Their impatience gives their teams a sense of vertigo and whiplash—they can’t keep up, no matter how hard they try, and some, eventually, don’t. 

Stay the course. It’s simple but not necessarily easy. It’s hard to predict the timing for actual culture change, but it’s not quick. You need to select some metrics to let you know you’re on course and making progress because sometimes it feels like a long time before you can say, “Wow, it’s really different around here.” Measure progress, not perfection. 

In my work, we begin with trust because everything emanates from that foundation: high trust is the foundation for everything you want. These were the highlights when I asked a recent group to identify differences between how they felt working in a high-trust environment versus a low-trust environment. 

Low-Trust Environment

Frustrated

Stressed

Tired/exhausted

Angry

Wary

Stupid

Devalued

Protect myself

Unwilling to do anything extra

Disappointed

Discouraged

Untrusting

Looking for a new job

Unhappy 

Suspicious

High-Trust Environment

Valued

Encouraged

Happy 

Inspired

Competent

Confident

Safe

Supported

Loyal

Challenged—in a good way

Creative

Willing to take risks

Fair

Dependable

Respected

Willing to go above and beyond

Where do you want to work? Where do you think you’ll get high productivity levels, trust, morale, profitability, or meeting your mission? Retention of customers or clients or patients?

Snap out of it. Do the work. Ask for help.