Does work have to be miserable?
Recently, I was at a workout class a few minutes early. You know the awkward 3-5 minutes before it begins and you stand around the room waiting for the class to begin?
I was stretching and thinking about work, life, and my kids when I heard someone ask, “Hey so-and-so! How’s your new job?!”
So-and-so responded with, “Much better!! My old job was making me really miserable.” The person who originally asked the question followed that up with, “I am so happy for you!! I can relate… I’m miserable in my job right now.”
The loud music began and the two separated, but I was still thinking about that micro interaction.
Is their job miserable because of the team dynamics? Because of the leader? Because they are unfulfilled?
There may be a million reasons….but I have a theory.
I worked in a highly stressful, regulated industry that truly was focused on saving lives and my belief was that team culture is the root of it all (or at least 95.9999%).
My guess is that the leader, who probably grew up in that job and then was promoted, doesn’t know HOW to build culture.
Leaders want their teams to succeed (pretty much all the leaders in the world want to do good) and they know team culture is important, but there are certainly better ways to shape culture than others.
The first step is to develop a listening mouth (yes, you read that right, that’s not a typo). I call it the listening mouth, because asking questions that allow you to then listen, is the key.
Leaders lead by listening and responding, truly gathering support.
I have a million other nuggets on how to build culture, but if your team is struggling, I recommend you start here.
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