Goats, Fish, and Slopes
Scapegoats, red herrings, and slippery slopes, workplaces everywhere are filled with these social and sometimes cultural complications. Most employees come to work expecting to succeed, not fail, and while it often takes team effort to succeed, individual choices and mind-sets have a lot to do with the outcomes.
Your workplace life is what you make of it, and your focus, a diversion, or even ignorance of what surrounds you may make the difference for your future. People come out for the drama. They show up for the “we are doomed party” and not because they want to fail but because it is sometimes easier to claim your fate is not in your own hands. The unspoken and underestimated belief may be; follow, it makes you less responsible.
Although some do, not everyone wants to lead. Many desire to earn a reasonable living with a reasonable job. We’re all lucky, because individually we measure our success. The problem is that everyone’s chance for their own style of success is conditioned by their individual spirit, added together and multiplied by the spirit of those around them. Negativity and blame subtract from spirit, and build momentum for a loss.
Sometimes it isn’t who you are, but where you hang out. When you celebrate doom, you get gloom. Look for wins, not losses, find solutions instead of chronically highlighting problems. Most important of all, celebrate by doing more of what you do great.
Get out of the barn, away from the stream, and get traction for the climb—your climb, to your style of success.
– DEG
Photo Credit: Tom Roeleveld
