What you perceive as unproductive behavior is often the result of your interventions only addressing surface-level symptoms rather than the root causes. As soon as you tackle one popular complaint, another fresh grievance emerges to take its place, leaving you feeling like you’re trapped in a never-ending cycle.

To break free from this pattern, it’s essential to rethink your approach to addressing thin-skinned staff. Instead of merely treating the symptoms, consider these three strategies for fostering a more profound sense of purpose and inspiration among your employees.

Hurricane Heroics: Unleashing Extraordinary Potential

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, we often witness acts of everyday heroism. Neighbors who once refused to speak to one another put aside their differences and unite to overcome the shared challenge at hand. In the face of life-threatening disruptions, people tap into hidden reserves of resilience and compassion.

But what if this extraordinary energy and resolve could be harnessed within the workplace, without the need for a catastrophic event to occur?

The answer lies in understanding the powerful influence of the future on human behavior. When people have something significant to look forward to, they inherently act differently. The problem is that many employees have become jaded, expecting only disappointments and discomforts from the future. This negative mindset fuels their hypersensitivity, causing them to perceive every error as a personal slight.

However, what if this obsession with the future could be reframed as an opportunity rather than a hindrance? Perhaps their reactions stem from a genuine desire to care about the future, and there’s a way to channel this passion in a more constructive direction.

An Urgent, Inspiring Future: Harnessing the Power of Purpose

The ability to envision a return to normalcy is what empowers people to bounce back swiftly after a hurricane. This imagined future provides them with something to look forward to, uplifting and inspiring them even in the face of tremendous loss.

As they survey the wreckage, they help others find hope, moving themselves out of their comfort zones, taking risks, overcoming historical biases, forgiving debtors, sacrificing time, and donating money. In other words, they tap into their hidden reserves of discretionary resources to spend untapped treasure.

As an employer, witnessing this transformation in the same staff members who nearly went on strike over cafeteria lunches can be astonishing. However, instead of dismissing your people as unsolvable mysteries, it’s crucial to recognize their wider humanity. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

Offering your staff a compelling “why” can be achieved by crafting a joint future that deviates from the default trajectory.

Your Company’s Peculiar Destination: Embracing Discomfort for a Greater Purpose

Most employees go through the motions, primarily concerned with their creature comforts and conveniences rather than anything else. In response, many managers become afraid to ask too much, habitually lowering their expectations to avoid conflict.

However, the reality is that they simply aren’t asking for enough.

Imagine a manager who asks their staff, “Are you OK?” each day. Eventually, someone musters the courage to respond, “No, I’m not.” The manager inquires about the issue, resolves the problem, but continues to ask the same question the next day, perpetuating a cycle of addressing surface-level concerns.

Now, consider a dramatic alternative: A manager convenes their staff to create a vivid picture of the department’s future – an invented future that goes well beyond business-as-usual. This joint aspiration becomes a win-win for all involved, instantly repelling those who are the most resistant while attracting the best employees who crave a greater sense of purpose.

It’s as if a metaphorical hurricane has swept through, igniting a shared desire to take extraordinary actions, even if they cause personal “discomfort.” This phenomenon was observed by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who noted that those who found a “why” were more likely to survive the concentration camps. Additionally, Frankl stated:

“… mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish… Such a tension is inherent in the human being…”

“We should not, then, be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him to fulfill…What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

Unfortunately, prioritizing purpose over comfort is a concept rarely taught in classrooms. However, it offers managers a powerful tool to inspire and engage their employees. By crafting a shared vision of a future that transcends the mundane, you can tap into your staff’s innate desire for meaning, fostering a sense of urgency and determination that propels them beyond their perceived limitations.

In the face of adversity, people are capable of remarkable feats. As a leader, your role is to create an inspiring “why” that ignites the same level of passion and commitment, transforming insults and hypersensitivity into a relentless pursuit of a greater purpose.

   

You are a leader, and are well aware that both private and public sector organizations must prioritize long-term thinking. As a result, you can immediately enumerate some of the main reasons.

However, there are persistent corporate issues that appear unrelated to long-term planning. Therefore, their sudden presence catches leaders off-guard. Failing to complete a long-term strategic plan can lead to three anticipated but uncommon issues.

1. Commitments at Cross-Purposes

Consider an organization that has invested substantial time and effort into crafting a meticulous three-year strategic plan. The document lays out clear goals, milestones, and performance indicators to work towards over that relatively short timeframe. However, when gazing further into the future, a lack of cohesion emerges among the executive team and board members. Each leader has their own personal vision for where the company should be in four, ten, or thirty years. But there is no consensus or shared strategic roadmap beyond the three-year horizon.

This divergence in perspectives can undermine decision-making processes. Without alignment on long-term direction, executives rely on their own criteria when charting the future course. The cumulative impact of this disjointed approach to leadership can be highly detrimental. It leads to missed opportunities, strategic missteps, and organizational stagnation or decline. Unified commitment to a long-term vision enables more focused decision-making and progress.

In addition to this problem, there is also a detrimental effect on the top issue that organizations often report in their strategic planning – the lackluster execution. In the absence of a long-term vision, perceptive executives often find themselves involuntarily holding back their support. Why?

They can tell that the commitment is superficial. And likely to shift in a moment. Hence, it is unnecessary to invest precious social capital, budget, and time into a fleeting plan that may have a 50% likelihood of being discarded.

2. Missing Important Trends

I recently revisited Competing for the Future by Hamel and Prahalad, immersing myself once again in their groundbreaking insights. In this 1994 classic, they accurately foresaw the influence of emerging technologies.

It was quite interesting to note that they were mostly correct in their observations. Taking their predictions seriously would have allowed a company to establish a distinct competitive edge.

However, this is only one small section of the larger landscape. You may be familiar with the comprehensive PESTEL suite, which encompasses Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal/Regulatory factors. By only planning with a short-term horizon, companies fail to acknowledge the cumulative effects of gradual trends in all these areas simultaneously.

By doing so, they make themselves vulnerable to potential dangers. Additionally, they miss out on significant opportunities because they fail to consider the hidden possibilities.

For example, Apple had a visionary glimpse into the future, imagining a comprehensive ecosystem that revolved around their products, services, and the cloud. Most likely, they were in possession of the identical information as everyone else. What set it apart?

Around 2010, they devised a comprehensive plan that spanned a decade, gradually constructing a complete solution, piece by piece. From their near-collapse in 1997, they have risen to become one of the most valuable companies in the world today. In the face of an existential threat, they boldly seized an opportunity that came their way.

3. Not Doing Succession Planning

Most organizations find it challenging to create succession plans. Why? Letting incumbents go unchallenged and accepting their perpetual rule is the easier option.

It’s only when you consider the long-term consequences that you realize the folly of this approach.

For example, it becomes evident that the necessary skills to navigate the company through upcoming transitions are lacking. A person nearing retirement may not be the most suitable candidate for tackling a new learning curve.

But that’s just scratching the surface. As soon as talented middle managers sense the lack of long-term direction, the sights of them browsing job listings and attending networking events become more frequent.

Over time, companies find themselves staffed by an ineffective majority, trapped in a state of stagnation. However, the situation takes a turn for the worse. Eventually, as the “last men standing”, members of this cohort receive promotions, even to the highest executive positions.

To prevent these three slow-moving disasters, your team must engage in strategic planning that integrates short and long-term perspectives.

   

You are someone who is already a long-term thinker, working in a for-profit company. Unlike many, you don’t need to be convinced about the importance of long-term thinking. Somewhere early in the past – childhood, early career – you embedded the idea in your thinking. Now balancing short and long term thinking is a part of your character.

But this may be why you are confused. Others around you don’t share this trait. In fact, you feel like a fish out of water – always harping on the need for long-term thinking, sometimes asking inconvenient questions.

You can’t understand why others don’t share your concern. And it’s not that you are particularly ESG, sustainable or anything like. Nor do you come from an old-school. You sense that the company would make better decisions if it had more than the usual 3-5 year plan.

But how do you convince others in the C-Suite, and the board, to think with an additional lens? 

Tune into this episode as I tackle this wicked problem.