Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: loyalty

  • Loving Monday: Who’s Got Your Back?

    loving_mondayWho’s got your back?

    It’s a challenge to stay fully engaged and keep working hard when we feel we’re on our own.

    We need friends. We need fans. We need allies. We need cohorts. We need cheerleaders. We need partners. We need loyalists.

    We need to know that someone is on our side.

    Who is that person for you?

    Who’s got your back when you’ve made a mistake and need an advocate?

    Who’s got your back when you need a leg up, an encouraging word, or some cover from criticism?

    Whose name comes to mind for you? Anyone?

    If no one comes to mind, then consider building a couple closer relationships. It doesn’t have to be anything major or intimate.

    What you want is to begin building rapport, comfort in conversation, and trust in communication.

    You will be surprised at how much trust expressing interest is what someone else is doing will earn you.

    Going it alone is going the hard way.

    Who can you show some support to today?

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • American Idol Savvy: Underwhelming Final Performance Means…

    Idol…we’re in for one serious popularity contest.

    While both Kris and Adam truly impressed with their initial performances of the night, they both underwhelmed with the subsequent two.

    And while there is always a significant popularity component in any contest, with singing removed as the primary distinguishing factor in this singing competition, all that remains to determine this year’s winner is fan loyalty.

    Who inspired their fans to get on the phone and stay on the phone?

    While their personal and professional styles couldn’t be more (more…)

  • The Gift of Work -> Chapter 3: Redefining Success

    thought-leadersMy head spins with all the different definitions of success out there. Even if I can think myself through their various fallacies, the measures of success in this culture still haunt and lure and accuse.

    gift-of-work1What I need, though, is not another critique of the culture’s twists and perversions of the truth. Nor, on the other hand, do I need another vague, conceptual affirmation of the eternal biblical principles by which my work should find its purpose, motivations and methods.

    So I especially enjoyed Heatley using four work-based categories, (success, competition, loyalty and service) to think through the shortcomings in most workplaces and the alternatives a faith-based perspective would contribute.

    While I agree that “love” holds the key to unlocking the creative juices that will eventually result in a plethora of practical alternatives emerging in workplaces around the world, I’m anxious to get on to brainstorming what these practical alternatives might be.

    For example, let’s take a variety of workplace processes: hiring, training, firing, planning, meetings, compensation, performance reviews, approval processes, budgeting, adopting new technologies, etc., and having teams work through what those need to look like if we’re to achieve, “market strength, employee focus and customer value.” In other words, put some feet on love in the context of work.

    How do you find ways to give practical form to your faith-based values at work, in the context of work’s issues, processes and structures, and within a culture where work is a daily reality on which our survival depends?

    Each Friday I post my reflections from one chapter of The Gift of Work by Bill Heatley. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • When Loyalty Turns Naive

    We’re discussing The Silent Achiever this week. We’re looking at the person who trusts the system to reward his or her performance according to company policy.

    I regularly emphasize self-awareness, because, more often than not, when we feel betrayed by the system it is our own naivety and/or blindness that got us into the position where others can exploit or harm us.

    Let me clarify that I am not blaming the victim here. I am trying to empower those for whom their heightened sense of loyalty and cooperation leads them to trust where trust is not due and who then find themselves overlooked or taken advantage of yet again.

    While systems are designed to be fair in principle, in practice there are a host of complications. Busy supervisors often aren’t aware of your efforts. Ambitious co-workers talk themselves up every chance they get. In these situations, your quiet loyalty has the opposite effect that you intend.

    What you need are ways to keep yourself in your supervisor’s range of vision. Stop by her or his office occasionally to share a bit of news about something you’re working on. Pass along interesting news clips related to your company. Have a weekly, “Thought you’d like to know…” that you use to keep him or her informed. Speak up in meetings, even if just to make a passing comment like, “Good point,” or ask a question.

    Instead of silently cursing the unfair system while congratulating ourselves for our quiet cooperativeness, let’s work on finding more visible expressions of our commitment and loyalty.

    What’s one new way you might show up more visibly? (Without, of course, morphing into the obnoxious co-worker whose form of self-promotion offends you so.)

    On your side,

    – Karl