Ultan Molloy reflects on the relationship between a pharmacy owner/manager and staff, and how he has grown into this role
I was just reminded of the importance of the relationship between an employee and their manager. It is important for motivation and in setting both the tone for the workplace, and mutual expectations. It had this person saying to me that they would rather work in one of their workplaces over another, primarily due to the behaviour of their manager towards them and other employees. It’s one to get right these days too at a time when we need to get the best out of our employees so as to best serve them, to serve ourselves, the customers and the business.
I haven’t covered myself in glory on many an occasion in the past with my own behaviour toward employees, but the worst of that is well behind me, thankfully. Being somewhat of a square peg in a round hole had me projecting my own frustrations onto the people around me. My role now is very different to back then. I’ve matured and mellowed somewhat with age and have worked on both my own self-awareness and self-management.
“I just walked away,” she said to me. “I told him, ‘I’m just not getting into this’.” “This” being their manager shouting at her about a fruit display in Tesco. What a mature and sensible reaction. He came back and apologised to her later that day, and rightly so.
‘I blame the parents’ might be said when it comes to poor behaviour from children. Just because children grow into adults does not mean we will always behave like adults. We are a product of our upbringing, and the impact that it has had on us. Those people involved in caring for us of course brought their own baggage to that party. Only awareness, and an appetite for doing things differently, can help one break the cycle through the generations, and bring a helpful level of emotional maturity and kindness to one’s workplace. Blame has an expiry date.
We teach in our coaching work that high-performance teams can hold each another accountable for one another’s behaviour, and are able to trust one another to tend to their shared relationship. Years on, and in spite of any amount of coaching and encouragement, I find myself involved as a third party, instead of what could be a mature conversation between two colleagues. I’m somewhat guilty of this as well, of course. I tend to avoid more than I would have in the past, just for somewhat of a ‘quiet life’, although we need to get that balance right of calling out what needs to be called out, while not sweating the small stuff.
The idea of colleagues honestly and authentically discussing issues that arise between them and another colleague, in a situation where ‘someone’ should call it out, often remains just that — an idea. Issues left to brew into frustration. Mediocrity is accepted as the norm. Honest feedback to improve is lacking. Resentments build. Relationships fray. It’s less than ideal, isn’t it.
‘Toxic positivity’ is something else to consider, and it can be equally unhelpful. Hopping about singing ‘everything is awesome’, like in the Lego movie. Issues get ignored, and people lack the appetite to address what is unwinding the fabric of the team and interpersonal relationships.
I Googled the word ‘Drama’ recently, as in ‘to create drama’, and it was defined as “exaggerating the importance of a minor problem or incident”. I am finding it progressively more tiring and disingenuous, although to be fair, many of the protagonists aren’t aware of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Another article I’ve read recently proposes some character traits of those who create drama, including craving attention, insecurity, fearing being forgotten, may be lonely, and have unresolved issues, to other perhaps less-easily forgivable traits like thriving on chaos, manipulating situations, and lacking empathy. We’re complicated creatures really, aren’t we!
While I wouldn’t see our role as colleagues to fix the behaviour of others, we can honestly reflect back our experience of being on the receiving end of this drama. We can remain in ‘adult’ mode, remain calm and just smile and nod through it. We can try and stay in the zone of our own work and keep our heads down, and not get drawn into what’s going on around us, albeit another thing to process and manage during our already busy day.
“It sounds like you two have a lot to talk about” I saw recommended recently in a YouTube clip when someone was complaining about another person, or trying to recruit you for opinion or involvement in their relationship with them. “It sounds like you two have a lot to talk about” could be interpreted in a number of different ways, but the essence of it is, ‘I’d prefer not to get involved in your relationship with this other person, and I think it’s something to be sorted out between yourselves’.
I do find these layers absorbing much of the time. I’m sensitive to what’s going on, and perhaps over-sensitive to it some of the time. My role in it of course is not to be disregarded, lest I fool myself. Much like the driver who’s laying on the horn and getting frustrated in a traffic jam, they’re failing to acknowledge to themselves that they are actually part of the traffic jam they’re getting frustrated about.
“You set the tone in the evenings”, my wife said to me yesterday. There’s a responsibility that comes with setting the tone, I have since thought to myself. I can say my family is the most important thing to me, and yet leave them getting the dregs and the worst of me, due to where I give my increasingly limited energy during the day. This can be as a result of what I say, or indeed as a result of what I do not say, and what I do not deal with.
I continue to be a work in progress. I hope that progress is being made in the right direction mind you, for my own sake and that of those around me. The helpful honesty that often remains elusive in the workplace is often delivered with gusto on the home front!
