Failure to Thrive

12 July 2017

Most babies learn the basics that set them up for long-term learning and development. They learn to move, speak, sleep well, control emotions, engage with others, eat, play, control body waste and learn.  Parents work hard to ensure their little ones hit all these basic milestones knowing that failure at mastering any will lead to longer term problems.  For example, without good sleep habits tired little bodies and brains struggle to keep up at school.

The same is true of the workplace.  There are core skills and attributes every worker needs to master.  Without the basics success will be undermined, regardless of how skilled or brilliant you may be in other areas.

Look at almost any group of employees and you will find people who struggle with basic modern workplace skills.  There is the brilliant individual who could make strategic connections across many disciplines bringing new insights and value, but no one listens to them because their interpersonal skills are appalling.  Then there is the creative wizard who has innovations spilling from them who can’t type above 5 words per minute so is dismissed by everyone as incompetent.

Now there are libraries of research that support the fact that people will experience considerably greater success in life and work when they operate from, and predominantly grow and develop, their strengths.  Getting to use your strengths daily in your work leads you to be happier, more engaged, have stronger relationships, earn more and engender greater levels of trust.   I am a very strong advocate for people working from their strengths.  But those benefits become seriously undermined if a lack of the basics keeps tripping you up.

When even one of the basics is shaky people experience frustration, they know they are not being recognised for what they can offer, their level of achievement is lower than it could be and they are not given the level of responsibility they want.

While I know every industry has different needs, here is my list of core basic work skills and attributes that I often see hinder people: 

• IT skills, with the core basics being the ability to type, use Microsoft Word at an intermediate level, and utilise more than the compose and reply features of email.
• Replying, which includes keeping others up to date on the status of things you are doing, staying on top of email, and managing your diary.
• Civility – please, thank you, accepting a compliment, washing up your coffee cup, keeping the workplace tidy, knowing the names of people, turning up to meetings on time, not checking email while interacting with others, good hygiene, not playing your music too loudly in the office…
• Other orientation, with the core basics being the ability to keep a focus on the needs of others in a situation without unconsciously or consciously continually bringing the focus back to you, the ability to delay your own gratification for the good of the group, and the ability to recognise the emotions of others.
• Defensiveness in the face of feedback, or in other words, not being open to the grain of truth someone else may have for you, even if most of the feedback they give you is off the mark, not being able to admit you are (or could be) wrong or don’t understand.  Occasionally people even take pride in their ignorance of some skills, think for instance of the engineer fiercely holding the stereotype of not being good at people skills.

Sometimes you may not be aware basics are holding you back.  People are polite and don’t want to offend, they don’t know how to tell you, or even worse they assess you as not being able to master the basic skill.  I would encourage everyone, at least once a year, to ask their manager if there is anything core and basic they might not realise they are deficient in. 

Most often, though, you know when you don’t have a basic skill, you just hope no one is noticing, or that you can bluff your way through, or that it really isn’t that important.  It is time to stop fooling yourself.  Lack of a basic work skill is holding you back.  Put the effort in now and master it once and for all.  Dedicate just 5 minutes at the beginning of each workday to do something that strengthens your wobbly basic skill.

When basics are not mastered babies are often diagnosed as failing to thrive.  Too many people in our workplaces also fail to thrive because they don’t have the basics – make sure it is not you.

As always, wishing you a Flourishing Career.

Katherine