Another year comes to end, we start
planning for next year. Leadership and HR in organizations will be burning mid
night oil getting their talent strategy right to attract and retain talent.
Great many presentations and surveys will be conducted. Countless hours will be
spent discussing budgets and proposal for wage hikes, bonuses, retention
pays and innovative HR policies to improve employee engagement and retention. Paradoxically
CEOs, Business Leaders and CHROs will continue saying or implying– “I don’t care; we need to be best in class employers”. Same as when they say – We don’t care,
we need this much revenue, this customer or account etc.
Couple of years back my
Facebook status update read – “When
I don't care, I don't care ... But when
I care, I don't care ....”. How many times we all feel or share this feeling?
How many times we end up sharing similar feelings and thoughts in moments of
joy, despair, frustration and anger? Even when we care about someone or
something deeply more often we end up saying “I don’t care”.
No
wonder these words come back to hurt us when a loved one says –
no one cares, a customer complains - no one cares or an employee says (mostly in
exit interview) – no one cares. At that point explaining all the
benefits, help extended and marketing is worthless because bond of trust is
broken. A Story of 3 best friends --- 1) Knowledge, 2) Wealth and 3) Trust They
made great friends but, one day had to separate. They asked each other where
they could be found if searched. Knowledge said: You`ll always find me in
temple, church, mosque or a school. Wealth said: I`ll be found in palaces or
with rich people. Trust was quiet. When asked again, he said: You`ll never
find me once am gone!!
We
create wonderful benefits, compensation plans and events launching them with
much fan fare. Once dust settles after meetings, employee events and town halls
all people hear is – “I/We don’t care”. Whereas first and foremost everyone wants
to hear and feel is “We care”.
Let’s look at the meaning of word “Care”. As a noun Care has two meanings
1) “the provision of what is necessary for the
health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.” Synonyms
- safekeeping, supervision, custody, charge, protection, guidance, responsibility etc.
2) “serious attention or consideration applied to
doing something correctly or to avoid damage or risk. Synonyms - caution, carefulness, awareness, heed, attention, attentiveness, alertness, watchfulness, vigilance, circumspection, prudence, etc.
As verb Care means - feel
concern or interest; attach importance to something and look after and provide
for the needs of.
Imagine impact of people hearing someone say – “I/we don’t care”. It’s not about semantics; it’s about impact of repeated use of words and processes that communicate “we don’t care”.
Allocating
huge resources, fancy ad campaigns etc will have no impact unless underlying
attitudes and processes don’t change. (Transformation
Challenges ......India way)
I am adapting from something we used
during earlier part of my career, to train on listening skills, to help define
how to CARE.
Concentrate –
“I see managers who look like 12-year-olds with attention deficit disorder,
running around from one thing to the next, constantly barraged with
information, constantly chasing the next shiny thing.”1 Nothing says
“I don’t care” more than lack of attention. It’s simply disrespectful. Yet
almost all of us are guilty of not paying attention to our colleague, customer
and loved ones on daily basis. Care means paying attention, being attentive
and alert.
Accept – Accepting people as adults means
paying attention to their ideas, thoughts and inputs. It means trusting them to
be able handle good with bad, success with failure and so on (HOW:
Retaining Leadership). Avoid perception to color your judgement, instead
look for facts. Don’t mix up acceptance with agreement, more often people just
want a fair and patient hearing. One can only protect and take care of
something or someone they accept not something they are judgemental about.
Reflect
– We talked about
avoiding perception to color one’s judgement. How to do that? Constantly
under pressure to juggle multiple priorities, we are mostly reacting to people
and events around us. Reflecting on the events, communication and discussions
allows us time and perspective to evaluate our actions. This may not be
possible during the course of a meeting or work day. “Maintain a Stop doing
list” but more importantly look at it every day and review your day against it.
(Tips
How to Focus and be Productive) Care means responsibility, watchfulness and
prudence. Taking a pause to think about your response or to reflect on your
actions and take appropriate follow up action demonstrates that you care.
Empathy - The
ability to understand and share feelings of another. “If you’re a leader, your whole reason for living is to
help human beings develop—to really develop people and make work a place that’s
energetic and exciting and a growth opportunity, whether you’re running a
Housekeeping Department or Google. I mean, this is not rocket science.”1
You
can’t care for someone without understanding how they
think and feel. You can’t understand people unless you Concentrate, Accept, Reflect and Empathise.
“We CARE”
You take CARE!!!
Warm Regards.
Pankaj
Related Posts
1Tom Peters
on leading the 21st-century organization, McKinsey Quarterly September 2014
