In a recent piece published by inspireyourpeople.com, company founder Sam Parker raised a good question about how leaders deal with issues in the workplace… especially those issues that bring about various forms of conflict or emotional reactions.
“Things happen. Good. Bad. In-between. Every day,” he wrote. “How we move forward with each is our choice.”
Parker goes on to suggest that there are two questions leaders can ask to help everyone minimize negativity or drama and stay focused on progress.
The first question is, “Now what?”
“When something bad happens, we need to ask ourselves what we will do with what we’ve learned from the experience?” he explains.
“How will we press on regardless of the past? We might need to stop what we’ve been doing, or we might need to do a little more. We may need to do something completely different. But we need to rise and keep moving forward. It’s how we get to the good things!”
Once people get past the issue and related fallout, and once they’ve move on to ‘the good things,’ Parker suggests the second question is, “What’s next?”
He asks, “What will we do with the progress we’ve made? We acknowledge it. We enjoy it. We celebrate it. But then we ask ourselves how we can reach for even better. What’s the next step?”
His points are well made and align nicely with the fundamentals of continuous improvement. After all, we don’t want a culture of complacency permeating throughout our business!
“We want to be responsible to better … to progress … to the future,” he adds. “We rise. We reach. Anything else … we’re just sleeping.”