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Beware of the Edged Weapons at Work
By Jana M. Kemp
At some point, on some workday, you've likely heard or even uttered "he stabbed me with a stare" or "she gave me a look that could kill." What are the behaviors, events and attitudes that you see killing workplace productivity?
The responses you list in effect become edged weapons in the workplace. Workplace edged weapons can go beyond killing productivity to also lower morale, stand in the way of innovation and even cause valuable employees to leave the organization. All of which ultimately hurt or even destroy the organization.
We can learn to recognize and prevent harm from the figurative edged weapons that appear at work. As a member of the Boise Citizen Police Academy, I learned these things about edged weapons and dealing with them.
1. Recognizing Edged Weapons: In police work, anything with a point or an edge that can break the skin is an "edged weapon." With this definition, edged weapon examples include glass, tin, stone, keys, razors, knives, pens and pencils.
In the workplace, we might identify the behaviors, events and attitudes that break the productivity of the organization as workplace edged weapons. To name a few: anger, frustration, boredom, gossip, removal of funding, loss of staff, and project collapse.
A memorable workplace movie example comes from the Jurassic Park sequence in which the Park programmer is disgruntled about not getting paid enough and the Park founder says in effect "you bid this project, so you're stuck with what you are getting paid." Recall that the disgruntled Park programmer is the employee who then decides to make money by selling dinosaur eggs, and in the act of stealing he sabotages the Park computer which controls the entire Park. Havoc breaks out and the Park is nearly destroyed. The Park programmer's attitude clearly became a workplace edged weapon. Film, as well as real life, examples of workplace edged weapons abound.
2. If we haven't been able to completely avoid an edged weapon, how can we protect ourselves against edged weapons that are presented? Learn to move out of the way. For instance, don't let yourself get pulled in to someone else's negative attitude. In extreme cases, consider whether leaving an environment is the best protection for you.
3. How can we prevent ourselves from being an edged weapon carrier? By keeping our own morale high, our own energies flowing in creative efforts and our own sense of safety and productivity in line with what we want to experience from work. When our morale and/or energy drops and our productivity is threatened we can in effect become carriers of workplace edged weapons. And, once we start carrying a workplace edged weapon, the temptation to use it grows.
Consider some of the ways you might keep yourself positively engaged at work so that you don't feel tempted to carry a workplace edged weapon. Consider: regular communication times to clarify the work that is expected to be done, frequent check-ins to learn which employees are struggling or need new skills to get work done, regularly scheduled breaks, time-off and vacation as protections against workplace edged weapons.
Focus on productive behaviors, events and attitudes so that productivity, morale and profit stay high for your organization. From the service providers that may display a cutting attitude to the peers that quit without notice, every day we deal with the appearance of workplace edged weapons. So, protect yourself and your organization.
Beware of the edged weapons at work.
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Jana M. Kemp, founder of Meeting & Management Essentials, facilitates meetings and speaks across the country on meeting management, time management and communication skills. Boise Police Detective Mike Barker contributed to this article. Detective Barker provides the Lessons from the Force segment on Jana's MomentumT weekly business-news-talk radio show, every Saturday at 9:00 a.m. on KBOI 670am. Reach Jana via her website www.janakemp.com.
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