Overcoming Team Resistance

At PeopleNotTech we make no secret of the fact that we accuse organisations of having amassed a lot of HumanDebt and part of it is the resistance and lack of support for the human work and their reluctance is the primary culprit as to why employees do not have happier lives and can not perform to the best of their abilities. That said, as we pointed out before, the blame can’t rest solely with the company and we must do our part and examine our own stance towards doing the hard people work before we can see meaningful change.

So, as promised yesterday, in this video we’re coming back with some direct pieces of advice of where to start tackling the resistance teams and individuals may experience around doing the people work.

First off ensure you have enough awareness of the importance of the human work to have a level of agreement in the team regarding how needed it is. Set up a challenge where everyone brings one article to discuss in a team meeting where you assess if working on your own emotions and the team dynamic by trying to actively change behaviours for the better seems to be directly useful to your work performance. Studies about productivity, articles or even just an outline of the Aristotle project, any of these would help better the team’s understanding.

The immediate and crucial next step is to check yourself. Have a conversation in which you honestly answer this question:

Am I distrustful of the organisation and can’t believe this is for our own good or mandated? Am I really overworked maybe verging on burnout? Do I feel too disengaged to care? Do I feel unequipped to do this work? - No need to communicate your findings, just know where you’re coming from then bring them to the team so you learn/process together.