Rain, Rain, Go Away!
“Rain, Rain, go away, come again another day!”
We’ve all heard the classic rain-day chant. As kids, we have participated in the song in hopes to deter Mother Nature from the continued rain, to allow us to play outside. As adults, we have taught and orchestrated children we know to do the same. And on every rainy day to follow, the tradition continues, wishing for our problems to go away, only to deal with them later.
The issue I have with this fun rain-day tradition, is that it encourages people to never fully deal with their problems. We are taught from a young age, that when presented with something we do not like, just wish for it to go away, and your future self will deal with it. Not something your future self will appreciate.
It is clear where this can become a bigger issue, as we never truly deal with the situation. And when it presents itself again, and we continue to push it off, instead of getting to the root cause, we begin to see what was once a small issue, turns into something very large. A snowball effect if you will.
imanitribe.com
As leaders, this is something we are faced with on a daily basis. And how we react to these little snowballs, makes or breaks our success on both an individual, and team level.
Let’s evaluate CEO X and Y in the below situation.
2 top employees do not see eye to eye. They approach work very differently, and diminish each other at any chance they get.
CEO X decides to meet with them individually, explains ways to push through the petty drama, as they are a valuable member to the team, and keep doing what they are doing. Both employees leave the meeting content, knowing that they are a valuable piece to the organization. But then a few days, or weeks later, another situation like this arises. And the petty drama continues, until both employees decide to leave the organization to pursue other opportunities with “better workplaces”.
CEO Y on the other hand, realizes that the situation presented to them is one that is relatively small, and can be dealt with early, before it becomes something bigger. CEO Y sits down with both employees together, to discuss the issues, and for each to express their sides of the situation. They begin to hash out their opinions in an open-forum, level-headed conversation. Once everything is laid out on the table, CEO Y begins to discuss ideas on how to prevent this situation from happening again. The end result is one where they share a common respect for each other, understand each other’s perspectives, and one where workplace boundaries are established, to keep everyone happy.
The issue with CEO X is that they never dealt with the problem at the roots. They had some level of adversity presented to them, and instead of standing up to that adversity, they had conversations that masked the issues. They wished for their problems to go away by not having deep conversations, and as a result, the issue snowballed to a point that CEO X could not handle.
CEO Y on the other hand, did not push the adversity off to their future self, but faced it right then and there. By getting to the root of the problem, they were able to solve the real cause of the petty drama, followed by establishing ways to prevent that from happening in the future. The result is an environment everyone can flourish in, and where individuals are happy.
As leaders, we have the opportunity to dictate how big the snowball can get. We can stop the momentum before it gets started, or allow it to ruin our organization. We need to confront adversity, and deal with problems, instead of wishing for them to go away to give ourselves the best chance of Gettin’ Over the Hump.
Think you know someone who wants to Get Over the Hump?
Want to join the climb?