A Christmas Novella: The Ghost Of Working & Systems Past...

I will not say…, “as things turn back to normal”…, no, because that is not a realistic result or assessment of life or work post the most disruptive occurrence in human history! The Global Pandemic. It changed things forever. And while some of what we used to do, systems etc. might still be, and feel, very much as they did before the pandemic happened, we are all learning that a return to these things is not as simple as even some very influential people in this world believe, and want it to be. And they reveal that even they, mini-‘gods’ that we make and think them to be, are fundamentally human at their core and that they are people, just like us, who sometimes cannot, and refuse to be turned from the life and processes they were once comfortable in pre-the pandemic. You’ll agree, perhaps, that it is… even when expected…, it is quite a scary thing to try and do something new. Because when you are winning and comfortable where you are in life or your career it is natural not to want to place yourself in an arena you have not ‘conquered’ in your mind and therefore experience a ‘perceived pain’. You are shaken by the force of something to change you, but you fight back to return to that place you were comfortable in… that you were the leader in… that you were happiest in…

But for people who think like this I often wonder whether they realise that, that place, it may truly have been a happy place for them, but their happy ‘world’ could have been someone else’s long nightmare that they were living through and felt they were never going to escape. The change, forced by something like the pandemic, may have alarmed them for a second, but that feeling of freedom from a life that made only a fraction of people happy, is the strongest and most piercing weapon against the return to ‘normal’. And where the return to ‘normal’ is being ‘enforced’ by the economic need, the economy itself is the evidence that the return to ‘normal’ or the way we used to achieve is redundant. For despite a ‘return to ‘normal’ economies everywhere are struggling through a phenomenon that is difficult to diagnose because it is not yet done ‘turbulating’ and shaking things up, and so by this understanding, how can it make sense to return to something or ways and systems already altered by its strength? But we would not be human if we could not apportion blame to a cause for this phenomenon. We are, very sadly, human after all. A blaming generation. It must be somebody’s fault we’ll say…. And blame always falls to the newest thing or person etc. Because people will say, “everything was fine until… this new thing or that new person came into the picture!” And therein lies the problem.

While even still today, the pandemic has become the most used, again ‘convenient’, excuse for almost everything, (sometimes legitimately and sometimes not), it is a bizarre occurrence that when it comes to matters like the change in systems etc. none of the blame is apportioned to the pandemic the real cause for the need to change), this the most disruptive thig to happen in the modern world is not apparently responsible for the need for change is not cited as the leading issue strangely. Have you not read or heard that instead, our esteemed ones say that it is the ‘lazy’ people who are to blame. Because apparently they do not want to come to work.  I’m not sure myself why it is we are unable to make the distinction here.  Because to me it is quite clear that the difference from how things were before the pandemic and now isn’t that people will not work. It seems to be people will happily do so. Isn’t the issue more that the do not want to come to your chosen environment to do it?! And in reflecting, I think to myself, wait.. what?! That’s what we’re mad about?! What am I missing here? We refuse to accept that nothing can be as it was before it came into our lives? To understand that if we are somehow to ‘ride’ the unpredictable and uncertain train of waves of existing post the pandemic? That it will require strength, courage, bravery and vision to move through it in a new and most definitely innovative way so we can see ahead as much as possible? Surely, it is not to turn our heads backwards to what is already in the past? We cannot be prepare for a future this way surely? If the insistence is that the people are labelled ‘lazy’, with even this small reflection I have just written, what then must their leaders label themselves in this situation? ‘Obstinate’, ‘blind’… I don’t know what should apply there… It simply beggars belief. And yet here we are at the end of the year 2022, operating in a world that is AI and other innovative technologies comfortable, resorting to the archaic and refusing to embrace change? Somebody write the fictional sci-fi novella please! About the doom of mankind due to the obstinate powerful… wait I think someone already has! And still…

We cannot look at a photograph of wonderful successful times in our past and return there. The past if frozen and forever gone. We cannot continue to peddle a bicycle when the chain has snapped. It will give the illusion it is moving for some time, sure, until that motion is no more and you are peddling hard but going nowhere! It has felt like post the pandemic this is what some keep trying to do. And it is my fear that those who have this mind set, with their ‘cleverly’ articulated and somewhat convincing arguments for a return to ‘normal’, will move people and systems away from the truer change that is urgently needed to situate ourselves more ‘comfortably’ in that future that the pandemic precipitated. Not a return to normal… But the move towards the new normal. For a short time as the pandemic eased its grip on us, I thought it was universally understood. But again, have we not seen and heard the battles between employers and their employees that have raged throughout this year? These people who make the case for a return to ‘normal’ and force people to return, is it possible all they want is reconstruction of the ‘palaces’ and ‘sanctuaries’ of old, of which they were the ‘kings and queens’ and made them feel powerful? Okay, I think I got too far… This cannot be driven by their personal need for their own sense of security about how to proceed… No…. Perhaps I should chastise myself. I must believe better of people…  The thing is, no amount of rebuilding and re-cloning of the past’s systems and ways of operation, no matter how impressive the first results may first look and feel, will result in a positive trend. Because things and the conditions were different then. It may look the same but the environment is different today. And changing still. And therefore may not be an environment which will grow and stabilise a future economy. 

If anything, is showing that these ‘battles’ about remote working aren’t helpful and that a return to normal ways of doing things it isn’t working either. Many are back to the way things were. Working From Home finding itself ‘cancelled’ and losing its popularity along the way for those who lead in the economies. An interesting phenomenon which continues to reveal itself, even if not explicitly spoken, is the true and strong attachment some people have to these older ways, and so much so that they willingly take their approaches to ‘encouraging’ (some may call it forcing, coercing etc.) people back to where they are in their minds and to where they feel better to manage them, all to another kind of level! I hasten to say, it’s not about them. It’s not about how much more secure they feel about managing people… We are in the battle of our generation with the effects of the most deadly terrible phenomenon we have ever faced. We must forge ahead engaging in change with creative and innovative solutions, with courage and bravery forge into the unknown and conquer. Not run in the opposite direction, back to our forts to hide it out! I won’t go on… My humble thing is, how strong were we really in those principles we made and established pre-pandemic when people and their wellbeing were thought important and necessary to the smoother running of business and economies? With all this ‘forcing and coercing’ of people to ways and systems that made them unhappy, now that they can choose to still work but not come to work, is this not an exposure of the sham all of it may really have been? Does this not show that in fact there had never been a change of attitude towards the leading and managing of people, but rather they were merely platitudes. Because when tested through the pandemic what are we now finding out was underlying those promises of change?

Did companies simply use those promises and pledges to placate and shut the true and real change that could have come from it? Or were they really genuine? I am certain some were. But those who were not perhaps… well, all I can say is how easily and readily they have changed their opinions and behaviours about it! Much too quick! When companies and businesses had been encouraged to value their people more. Some would even show an upward and positive trend in their profits after investing in people, including their wellbeing.  So there are still a lot of people who want to do right by other people in the exchange for work and productivity. Much work had been done to ensure the wellbeing of people and in some cases these ‘protections’ became encased in law. What then is this feeling I get? Here in this yuletide period before the close of the year, as I make my personal reflections.... Why does it feel like the world has become or is becoming overrun with ‘Scrooge’ – like leaders who seem to speak of workers as though they were inanimate objects whose wills, thoughts, beliefs, wants and needs need not be factored or considered in the way, the how and the where they produce that work? Surely, in this world in which technology has advanced and enabled so much, there is a way to accommodate and manage all? Why must we act as though workers are people who cannot accurately think what is best for them and our businesses too? Why do not leaders understand that workers are not there to bring down their organizations, but that they are just as invested in its success? Because the companies’ success is the employees also. We all want to be employed. It makes no sense to destroy the hands that feed us. Not generalizing of course.

But the balance in wants and needs is much more of equal value in the balance of power between the employer and the employer post the pandemic. Need we always work in offices and buildings and environments that can contribute to the levels of toxicity in our already stressful lives in these turbulent economies, when we can just do the work required in environments more conducive to wellbeing, productivity and efficiency through the technology we have now long had? And yet… it is the proprietors and creators of some of the best technological companies and inventors of amazing technology, who when it comes to workers, adopt the most old fashioned of approaches. I’m sure they have their reasons. Mine are just observations. But observations I cannot understand… Why do their approaches strongly resemble a Victorian and Dickensian feel, when we are 100 or so years since that time? Must workers have to be like the clerk Scrooge employed in the popular Dickens tale A Christmas Carol? Allowed one little candle to warm himself at his desk, watched constantly be a mean spirited boss, whose negativity escaped past the office doors and even into the community?!  Had the clerk a computer and could produce his work for Scrooge in the comfort of his home, warmed by his own fire from the wood he collected, wouldn’t that have been preferable to him perhaps? 

And yes, there are some for whom working in the office is preferable, that is true, but then it must all be true that for others the opposite is so as well. No? Do we appease one half of our workforce and use them as the statistic sword and evidence in support of our stance? And then completely ignore another half the staff, whose views you many not appreciate as they oppose yours, but even so are talented and will produce good work for you? Can we really in the year 2022 and beyond not find ways to appease, compromise and balance a way forward for all? But even they who vote against working from home (because it truly isn’t for everyone), even they, will try to remote work from some other place, like perhaps a really warm, lovely and inviting coffee shop pace somewhere, much rather than an office filled to the brim, even if it has all the things the coffee shop has, of out of control middle and senior manager ego-driven levels of toxicity! Something organizations have appeared challenged to address pre, during and post the pandemic! Because the one thing those two opposing sets of workers ay have in common is that they are not wanting to experience that environment. Yes, you could have all the bells and wheels to decorate and entice people back to the office but if you will not address the toxic culture which existed as ‘normal’ you will struggle to make your argument for that reuurn.

I know that it has not been a smooth road when it comes to working from home/remote working systems and that in part, this frustration is what is driving the call to a return to ‘normal’. This is a justification I grant you. But that intervention, that return to ‘normal’ intervention, is not the answer either. It is not strong enough a justification in my opinion. And accusing workers of being ‘lazy’, not being productive, working for more than just one company etc.’ is definitely not the answer! You see the future of work is here. People, including your employees are fuling engaging in it even if your head is stuck in the past! You have to acknowledge and accept it if you want to move forward in these strange times. The locus of power has changed. Your workers now have as much right to communicate and put a true value on what they believe their work is worth, not based just what you are willing to pay demanding of them exclusivity of their time and effort. You may not value their efforts and continue to attempt to manoeuvre them like marionettes but those chords and strings are snapped or are snapping. You cannot complain of a worker using technology to build capital enough to survive the growing cost to life by taking on other work if they are producing for you what you are paying for. Long have companies accessed the shops of ‘goodwill’ of their employees and yet offered very little in return of the goodwill in the company in return. Perks and benefits are often token. Some argue but we pay them well. Of course you should! You don’t pay them for nothing. They have paid you in work. You should not want beyond what you are paying for either, even if you know that person has the acumen and skill to do more for you. You do not have exclusivity rights to the person’s entire range of skills when you are only paying them for some. And then get in your feelings about them selling those skills to someone else! Pay exclusively and you will get exclusively! I think that’s clear enough. Let’s leave that practice in the past for sure.

But as usual I digress. My point is in my observations during this interesting and challenging year is that this raging debate about returning to ‘normal’ and cancelling remote working etc. for the reasons I stated above, and more, are surely not wholly justifiable. The problems exist I do grant you. And they are a headache for leaders in industry. Understood. That is correct. So let’s force workers to go in our directions and do what we want and how we want it regardless of their needs? That is incorrect. That is like solving a problem with a similar but unrelated solution. Like using a key of one door to open another door simply because the tool is a key and keys open doors, and also because they are both doors. Why won’t it open then? Because the locks are different. And a new key will have to be created for the new door! That’s why we cannot return to ‘normal’.  Do you see? The locks here in my analogy refer to the environments. The environments pre the pandemic and now post it are different. And what we used to use and do to operate pre the pandemic now must require the creating of new ways and systems to unlock and enter the future. Perhaps in real terms the real solution surely would be to do the work required to understand your unique identity as a business and then that of your employees and together learn and adopt approaches that are mutually beneficial going forward. Change the way you manage to incorporate these needs, increase the levels of systems innovations so that you can much more easily identify issues in employee management and performance going forward. I know I’m saying what many already know, have done and are doing. But allow me just to say it again asa gentle reminder if in that position of power and as you envision your strategies in the new coming, I don’t think much-less but more turbulent, coming year.

Avoiding remote working because it’s hard to manage people this way, I’m sorry but what?! Why use old management performance systems for a new way of working? Why not just learn about what is going wrong, innovate your systems to accommodate and better track? There’ll be bumps along the way but in the long run it can help to establish you better in the industry and attract talent to your organization so you achieve that industry leadership. Every business will approach things different because every business is different. But those who can offer best a situation in which their employees can feel good about themselves, their work and the way they produce it will ultimately feel good about the business and so will work hard to make It do well! And it’s a vicious circle. ‘Scrooge’- like bosses will only attract obedient and unhappy ‘clerks’ who on the whole are not as effective and the wins of that company will be meagre. Maybe, as an organization, you are only as successful as your best talent is. If your talent is obedient and puts up with your obstinate requests you cannot expect for that to impact your results positively or to remain top in your industry. Perhaps you will lose your competitive advantage.  However, all is not lost, for even Scrooge was able to see through his Christmas Past and Christmas Present that it was necessary for him to change his way, embrace a new way of interacting more warmly with his family, friends and community for a better Christmas future.

Then let me encourage those, if any, who may stumble upon my humble musings, and for whom this approach may speak to, in consideration on how to lead and manage people and systems in the new year. It is my hope that you will reflect on your economic and leadership journey Pandemic Past and consider where we are with the innovations and things that have occurred in our Pandemic Present so that we can embrace a new more positive state of being at life and work post the pandemic in the Future.

It was a long one. I remain true to my style of writing. I will work on writing shorter articles and posts but I cannot promise…  But every word I intended to communicate was too precious to cut. I hope it can contribute in some small way to evoke your thought process in these matters going forward. I don’t write to provoke on unpopular things but to evoke and encourage in the direction of positive change. I was never one for sweeping things under the professional carpet and am well aware this sometimes lands me in the unpopular corner of those who operate in the realms of ‘normal’ and ‘let’s not talk about that’. Disappointed as I am equally of those who remain wedded to systems that appear to oppose the growth and development of people of many, simply to sustain the secure systems of the few, I humbly will continue to work with and for those who are seeking genuine changes in their personal, professional/career and organizational development. I used to say that it was my passion. But I can clearly tell you it has become my mission! So as 2022 approaches it let us reflect and all work hard to think on how we might adopt the new and create new ways to manage a live while respecting and caring for each other’s intellect, health and wellbeing just a little other more. I look forward to a fully active 2023! May your new year be filled with such also. May it be filled with a realisation and fulfilment of your goals and dreams.

Merry Christmas and Thank You for remaining an ever valued member of my LinkedIn Network.

Riah Creisson.

People Development Consultant

Empower Thru Consulting, London, United Kingdom