Francis Wade | Leveraging sour work attitudes

You are a leader who can clearly see a brighter future for your enterprise. But paradoxically, the more excited you become, the greater the resistance. How do you lead when people around you refuse to be led?

You observe the negativity. Cynicism. Resignation. Despair. These bad attitudes proliferate at lower levels of the organisation. But executives are not immune. Even C-suiters are sometimes avoided by others due to their negativity.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. There are times when the outcomes of a project would benefit everyone, but there is still opposition.

A striking example comes from Dr Dana Meadows who shared her experience of leading a 1993 workshop on ending global hunger. While all who attended believed in the idea, the expert participants resisted.

This was personal.

Some argued that talking about visions doesn’t change anything. Others said visions are dangerous. A few went so far as to say that people don’t want to confront their wildest dreams about the planet because it’s too painful to compare them with reality.

She was astonished. Something very deep was at play.

As children, she concluded, we have no problem dreaming up happy pictures of the future. But this natural ability gets beaten out of us by cynical adults. Some have learned to surrender in the face of repeated disappointments.

Consequently, we enter adulthood, only to repeat the habit of withholding our hopes, dreams, and secret longings.

As this practice plays out in organisations large and small, a feedback loop occurs in which a culture of cynicism is reinforced. Eventually, it gets to the point where visionary thinking is stifled.

Your reaction as a leader? It may be: ‘Get on with it’ or ‘Don’t overthink this’. You remind staff of the priority of a regular pay cheque.

To most, this could sound reasonable. Bearable. But it’s not. Ultimately, this frame of mind undermines anything of a game-changing nature.

Perhaps the most popular way to confront this mind-set is to become a cheerleader-in-chief. You may loathe the idea of being the happiest person in the office, but behind this idea, there is a bit of wisdom. Here’s a method to achieve a positive result without going over the top with cringe-worthy shows of enthusiasm.

Reality-based company vision

Recently, I was challenged by two separate clients to make a shift in the way I help companies develop detailed long-term vision and strategy.

Ahead of their vision/strategy exercises, they both wanted a means to tap into the experience of 40+ top managers.

To design the activity, I recalled doing this type of work as a McKinsey external on client-facing consulting project. The big difference? Our team of outsiders to the industry was very expensive, highly schooled, and young.

To justify the investment, colleagues often worked past midnight, and acted as first-responders – available upon demand to access hard-to-find knowledge from any corner of the firm – or the world.

Today, the information gap has narrowed. Many clients also have MBAs on staff from the same schools as my teammates.

With this memory in mind, I created a workshop tackling the most difficult issues the company faced. These were uncovered via surveys, interviews, and focus groups.

These issues were converted into ‘challenges’, to be undertaken by teams of participants. Using data from within the organisation, The Gleaner, ChatGPT and elsewhere, we asked folks to use frameworks similar to the ones used by McKinsey and others. Their output? A report with their insights, produced in real-time.

How did they do?

Having seen both sides of the table, I can say the advantage lies with the insiders. They better their outside counterparts, even though their reports weren’t as glossy. Why?

Their reasoning was superior because they accounted for the most resistant staff members.

After all, as insiders, they deal with them every day. Therefore, their plans are more realistic and more likely to be implemented. But this is just one way to handle cynicism.

Few organisations embrace the need to build internal resilience skills.

As such, workers are left on their own to battle with private demons such as depression and bitterness. This haphazard approach to mental health training leaves most employees lacking.

Even those who believe in their company vision can become jaded, unable to pull themselves out of a dark hole of gloomy thoughts.

Yet, systematic solutions exist in realms such as therapy, personal development via a coach, training in groups, self-help, and more. In other words, these are solvable problems which need not be left to chance.

In today’s world, leaders don’t have to surrender to cynicism. With the right strategies, resistance can transform into commitment.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com