Your Self-Image in the Workplace

When communication breaks down in your office or factory and workers lack motivation, what are the roots of the problem?

On a study tour of a Fortune 500 food company, Peter Grazier, an international consultant specialializing in employee involvement, stopped to chat with an elderly machine operator.

Within minutes, the operator began discussing a solution for quickly clearing bulk food material from a clogged hopper - apparently a frequent problem. The visitor asked him if he had ever told this idea to his supervisor.

"Nobody ever asks for these kind of ideas around here," shrugged the worker, who would be retiring in another few months after 42 years of service.

Grazier writes that he felt the plant manager, who was standing behind him, wishing he could sink through the floor!

How many other ideas would this employee be leaving behind him? Why was the communication environment between management and worker in this food manufacturing plant apparently as sterile as the physical environment had to be?

Of course, we could talk at length about employers or managers who fail to encourage upward communication.

We could contrast these with others who go out of their way to not only to recognize the achievements of their employees or subordinates, but also to instill in them a real sense of importance and self-worth. (In another Grazier "story", he came across a janitor sweeping a hospital hallway and asked him what his job was. The instant response was "customer satisfaction.")

The influence that a positive, reassuring, work environment - one that cultivates self-dignity and encourages contribution - might have had on our food machine operator is obvious.

I would like to suggest, however, that there just might have been other factors contributing to his reticence - factors that have little to do with working conditions in the factory.

It may be a long shot, but it's at least remotely possible that in order to understand our operator's reluctance to share information, his unwillingness to involve himself more than he had to - we might have to look farther than at his work life alone.

We might have to look, in fact, at his earlier life, at what he was doing even before he began to work. We might even have to go back to an earlier stage, as far back as his youth, or even earlier.

Perhaps he might have acted rather differently had he been blessed with a self-confidence not dependant on external circumstances, with an unshakeable sense of self-esteem. And perhaps his self-esteem had been shattered many years before.

A friend who is an experienced educator once made an interesting confession to me.

I should emphasize that his many years of teaching experience is not in the type of school one reads about so often in the American media - places where chaos and violence reign supreme - but in institutions where the young students are refined and serious, and hail from the best homes.

"Usually, a small child arrives for his first day of school with an excellent self-image," he said.

"And very often, that's the end of the story!"

Azriel Winnett is creator of Hodu.com - Your Communication Skills Portal. This popular free website helps you improve your communication and relationship skills in your business or professional life, in the family unit and on the social scene. New articles added almost daily.

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Google News Updated : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:05:30 GMT Boeing Workers Are on the Brink - BusinessWeek Wall Street Journal Boeing Workers Are on the Brink BusinessWeek - 1 hour ago Despite being offered a relatively generous package by management, Boeing machinists are ready to go on strike. Here's why by Joseph Weber When a stunning 87% of Boeing machinists voted on Sept. Motown Blues for Boeing? Wall Street Journal Boeing, machinists union meet with mediator The Associated Press Seattle Times - Bloomberg - Reuters - Chicago Tribune all 1,406 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:54:59 GMT Rice set for historic Libya visit - BBC News RTE.ie Rice set for historic Libya visit BBC News - 3 hours ago US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to begin a historic visit to Libya as part of a North African tour. She is expected to meet Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the trip, which will also include visits to Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Rice set to begin historic Libya visit AFP Rice set to make history in Libya The Associated Press Aljazeera.net - International Herald Tribune - WZTV - Bloomberg all 425 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:41:55 GMT Schwarzenegger: Palin delivered 'fantastic' speech - San Jose Mercury News KGET 17 Schwarzenegger: Palin delivered 'fantastic' speech San Jose Mercury News - 1 hour ago AP SACRAMENTO—Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday said Sarah Palin hit a home run with her acceptance speech for the Republican vice presidential nomination. Video: Governor To Californians: Bug Lawmakers About Budget kcratv California nears record in spending plan stalemate Sacramento Bee San Gabriel Valley Tribune - Los Angeles Times - New York Times - City Watch all 302 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:14:17 GMT '1967 lines not up for discussion' - Jerusalem Post Sydney Morning Herald '1967 lines not up for discussion' Jerusalem Post - 32 minutes ago By JPOST.COM STAFF The July 4, 1967 lines are not up for discussion and are the very foundations from which direct talks between Israel and Syria will start, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Friday. Video: Sarkozy in Syria : the press is divided france24english Syrian sets terms of role on peace Philadelphia Inquirer New York Times - Boston Globe - International Herald Tribune - Voice of America all 1,039 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:32:39 GMT Wal-Mart acting on shifts in consumer spending - BusinessWeek Los Angeles Times Wal-Mart acting on shifts in consumer spending BusinessWeek - 3 hours ago By CHUCK BARTELS If the mood on Wall Street is grim, then consumers must be feeling even more bleak, right? Fuel prices remain high, inflation has hit food prices hard and consumer confidence is down. August another disappointing month for retailers Los Angeles Times Lower-cost stores gain from US shoppers' thriftiness Financial Times Forbes - The Associated Press - Wall Street Journal all 673 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:48:39 GMT McCain takes stage, turns down heat - Boston Globe The Gazette (Montreal) McCain takes stage, turns down heat Boston Globe - 1 hour ago By Joanna Weiss For a man at the top of a presidential ticket, John McCain had an unusual task last night: to remind the nation that he was the star of his own show. Palin Assails Critics and Electrifies Party New York Times GOP welcomes McCain with enthusiasm Milwaukee Journal Sentinel CBS News - Kansas City Star - ABC News - TIME all 1,387 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:20:31 GMT Data on defective genes make tailored remedies possible - Baltimore Sun Voice of America Data on defective genes make tailored remedies possible Baltimore Sun - 41 minutes ago By Frank D. Roylance Researchers cataloging the genetic codes of deadly human brain and pancreatic cancers say they have found several dozen defective genes that appear to work in concert to set off the tumor growth that eventually kills their victims. In Long-Awaited Maps of Cancer, The Breakthrough Is the Problem Wall Street Journal What You Need to Know About Mapping the Cancer Genome U.S. News & World Report Reuters - The Associated Press - Bloomberg - Science Daily (press release) all 209 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:24:12 GMT Merchant Datafeeds Amazon RSS Feed Generator

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