Resisting the Human Work - the Greatest Challenge in the Workplace Today

We have to enter a continuous development mindset. As Gustavo Razzetti of Fearless Culture puts it “When it comes to culture, strive for evolution not revolution”. We have to comprehend that the human work is eminently necessary and that it will never be done. Neither of these points is an easy pill to swallow and the resistance sees us at the forefront of the fight having to repeat the same things over and again like broken records.

Let me be clear: this resistance to the human work is the biggest problem the workplace has today. Almost every ailment ever contained in the HumanDebt™that we sadly all have, is directly attributable to how some work could have been done but it hasn’t. Whether it is an abandoned project or just too much superficiality to have gone deep enough to clear an issue and grow, whatever form the lack of human work has taken, it’s the direct cause of the increase in debt.

While it's universally clear that most of this is "the organisation's fault" it's important that we wonder how do we, as individuals, add to the HumanDebt by exhibiting high resistance to the human work. These are some of the times when we do it and chances are we neither of those instances is intentional or evident before we start becoming aware of our own behaviour:

Every time we thought “it’s not in the job description, I am not going to do any of this extra work”;

• Every time we thought “it’s not in the job description, I am not going to do any of this extra work”;
• Every time we thought “I’m not a psychologist, what do I know about emotions”;
• Every time we didn’t pay any attention to how we feel, and how our teammates feel;
• Every time we (as managers) were unable to escape the conditioning of command and control and we couldn’t be the servant leaders our people needed;
• Every time we elected to remain silent or when we impression managed and were fearful of being authentic;
• Every time we didn’t emotionally connect to the team and open up;
• Every time we allowed ourselves to disconnect from the purpose and the team and become “checked out” or “quietly quit”;
• Every time that we were overworked or overwhelmed and we just powered through it;
• Every time we didn’t honestly ask for what we needed;
• Every time we haven’t engaged with the few tools they gave us;
• Every time we haven’t invested thought and time into how we feel and how does around us do; when none of that curiosity existed so we were not empathic;
• Every time we didn’t feel empowered but didn’t clarify or demanded clarity on structure and purpose or when we didn't call for respect;
• Every time we sacrificed the time set aside for any of the human work in favour of a non-human-work related task;
• Last but not least - every instance of fear, self-sacrifice and lack of willingness to put in the work to understand emotions and dynamics.

Every time we thought “I’m not a psychologist, what do I know about emotions”;