Teryl @ Work

Feeding the Right Wolf This Cherokee story resonated with me (see below).     Like many business people, I get caught up in managing details, instead of focusing on strategy and growth.   Measuring myself against the Good Wolf concept has become a way of thinking for me. Feeding the good wolf - focusing on the right stuff! In a previous article on this topic, I commented that the message is simple, the wolf you feed is the one that grows. The good wolf attributes in a business are where we ideally should spend our time, that good old 80 – 20 rule focusing on our   engaged employees, improving client experience and quality of product,   to name a few. Creating a Good Wolf Environment While we have many different tools – appraisals, customer and employee surveys – to try and understand the temperature and levels of entropy in our businesses – the truth is that it is really difficult to explain to people that they are not seen as feeding the good wo...

It’s Not Your Fault, But… Its’s not mine, either. When something goes wrong, whether at work or home, most people immediately start casting around for somebody to blame. Over the weekend, I was reading and drinking a cup of coffee which was perched on the arm of the couch.  I do this daily, and have never spilled it.   My daughter came into the room, I put my reader down next to me and we started chatting.  A little later, I picked the reader up, turned to my coffee, and knocked it over.  Something in my expression caused her to ask whether it was her fault.  Of course, it wasn’t, but a mean, small part of me was thinking, well, no, but if you hadn’t come in the room…  And she was kind enough to help me clear it up! If that lamp post wasn’t there If that faster person wasn’t in the race If the traffic light hadn’t turned red at just that moment If we hadn’t hired Joe, I would have got the promotion If, if, if….. We are very qui...

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy – Unknown source We all want different things from work: The list is diverse and, if you do some research, there are significant differences in the combinations of goals that people have. And this impacts on the workplace they want. The most significant feedback I have received over the years is: I need to feel safe, but I need to be stretched . While I know lots of people, mainly entrepreneurs, who love to live on the edge, already considering the next high risk project while the current ones are starting to roll out, it seems to me that there is a general resistance to change and risk.   Of course, with high risk comes high reward, although simply staying in the same position can leave you in the right place at the right time, too. So #WhereIWork was a thought process that I had considered for many...

What is overwork?   When is it bullying?    When does the job requirement tip from high expectations to unreasonable requirements? Starting with overwork itself.    Is a 40 hour work week adequate in companies that are expanding or simply trying to keep their heads above water?   Should delivering great service mean that people have to work long hours? One definition of overwork is "to force to work too long or too hard".   So with that definition in mind, when does hard work become too hard?  Obviously, the word force has a lot to do with it.  Many people in business are so passionate about their work that it is both their career and their hobby, and they consider every moment spent on the job a pleasure.   However, once overtime is not voluntary and impacts on the desire to have a happy personal life, it will be seen as overwork.   There are also professions where, by their very nature, long hours are an expectation.  ...

Is fitting in with the corporate culture important?  Of course.  Do all effective and productive employees do so?   Of course not. A few years ago,  +Accsys (PTY) Ltd  celebrated 30 years in business.  In keeping with traditional thinking around anniversaries, we used the pearl as a symbol for the year. A key message for us was that the pearl is formed from a piece of grit that irritates the oyster, and the oyster slowly covers the grit with nacre, until a beautiful gem is formed. So, as an IT company, we accepted that high productivity, creative people are not always aligned with the culture, but can add enormously to the growth and success of the business.  But we found that the reverse was also true, if they are too high maintenance, they can drain the energy levels of both their management and their colleagues, to such a level, that their nett impact is negative. We have put a strong focus on a 3 month probation period, in assessing for att...