How To Improve Your Workplace Environment

In my book, The Success Paradox, I quoted Dennis Bakke who said: “Why do so many people work so hard so they can escape to Disneyland? Why are video games more popular than work? Why do many workers spend years dreaming about and planning for retirement? The reason is simple and dispiriting. We have made the workplace a frustrating and joyless place where people do what they’re told and have few ways to participate in decisions or fully use their talents.”

The latest statistics about workplace engagement are bleak. Depending on which current study you reference, only 15 to 30% percent of employees report that they are enthusiastically engaged at work. They confess to having virtually no emotional investment in their careers and do the bare minimum, day-to-day.

This sounds like an emergency to me! One that requires some serious course correction. So, how open are we to confronting this issue, in ourselves and in our companies? This statistic means that eight of every 10 people reading this are unhappy at work. Will this be the same next year for you, or are you open to big change? Here are eight questions help improve your workplace environment.

1. Do you easily make small course corrections day-to-day? It’s easy to get locked into workplace routines. The same meetings with the same people, the same deadlines. Try changing things up. Find something you can do differently, just to break the gravity of a routine.
2. Does your working environment encourage openness to change? This is a tough one to ask and answer because the answer is often, “Hell no!” So, why not? Look in the mirror. What are you doing that contributes to this problem?
3. Do you treat colleagues, employees, and customers fairly or does favoritism influence your behavior? Examine your biases and challenge your communication prejudices.
4. Would you describe the mood at work one of gratitude? Don’t worry about others, ask about yourself. Experiment with being grateful for no reason, just to be grateful. See what happens.
5. Do you typically require extreme pain or failure to motivate you to make a significant change? How about some pre-emptive activism?
6. Are you willing to actually consider making big changes? This is the Big Question we’ve been ambling towards. How about it? You’re probably aware of at least one big change you know you should make at work. Would now be a good time to entertain the possibility of actually doing it? What if?
7. Can you identify that big change? Are you willing to begin making it now? This is where the rubber hits the road. If you are willing, make a commitment to big change right now.
8. Will you choose one action step and take it? If you only make a theoretical commitment, but then refuse to act on it, it’s worse than never even having this conversation with yourself, because now you’re living with the memory of failure.

You can do it. I did it, over and over again. Look, you don’t need a terminal diagnosis to motivate you like I did. But, rest assured, if you don’t make the big changes you know you need to make, things will go south. It’s just a matter of time.

Ever had a leak in your roof? Here are two potential scenarios:

1. Twenty minutes attention, with almost zero cost on the Tuesday afternoon you first discover the problem.
2. Ignoring the leak for two months and inhaling mold, then having to move out for another two months while contractors repair the roof, rip out sheet rock and repaint.

Take your pick.

Big change is scary. But so are the consequences when we procrastinate. When is the best time to shift? Back when you first realized you should. When’s the second best time? Right now.