There is a lot of talk today about making work more human. This is a simple statement and it has universal appeal. I mean, who is arguing to make work more robotic? It speaks to meaning in ones work, passion, connection, and collaboration. For organizations it’s about openness and transparency – a whole bunch of warm and fuzzy, right?
It’s a simple idea, “communicating”, but unfortunately in most organizations it’s not easy to put into action.
Maybe the suits in this cartoon already feel they communicate with the employees… through newsletters, broadcasts in internal blog posts or emails, annual meetings, or through the mid-level managers and expecting and assuming trickle down. But we all know this guy meant conversing when he said communicating.
Asking “what if?” like “why?” or “why not?” are simple questions and yet each has the ability to change the direction of an organization or shake its very foundation. Ask and act and you may soon find you’ll be fighting tradition, the status quo, hierarchy, and/or fear of change. If you decide to move simple forward, standing your ground and digging deeper to support these ideas and utterances will be hard work, it’s not going to be easy.
Simple and easy regularly and wrongly get paired together.
