Although it’s been a while now, I find it interesting that I still spend a decent amount of time talking through issues around the balance of office working and working from home (I also find it interesting that this is rarely a conversation topic with one of my clients who said from an early stage that they wanted everyone back in the office full time… with a little flexibility around the edges).
This made me think about interactions where there is a lack of agreement and you know one course of action (yours!) won’t be well received. I’m sure most of us now (hopefully!) operate in more democratic rather than autocratic environments and rightly so – this definitely links to the research on motivation and performance. But is there still a place for decisions where not everyone gets their own way?
I’m sure we would all say there is but I think our ability and willingness to do this is really being tested in the modern workplace as we are now much more likely to consider the whole person in terms of performance (family commitments, their mental health, personal interests etc.) and not just their day-to-day work output. Making unpopular decisions in a whole person environment can be harder (and easy to avoid) because they can feel very personal with potential knock-on effect of having to deal with strong reactions and lingering resentment.
So the key question is – do you need to be better at making unpopular decisions that won’t adversely affect performance in whole person environments? And if so, how?
Good questions I think and I’ll leave them with you – enjoy!!
If you’re interested in receiving our monthly Insights sign up here
Please enter your email address below to receive our newsletter.
