“Are you losing your marbles?”

This is something I ask businesses all the time – and the response I get is:-

“what do you mean by marbles?”.

It’s really easy – marbles are your people – the people you work with and who work for you every day.  They are also your customers, and your friends and family.

Marbles come in different sizes, different colours – but they are all marbles.  Each one is unique, inexpensive, durable and quite beautiful.  Each individual marble plays the game in a slightly different fashion, has a different approach and delivers what you need, but in its own way.  Now, if you understand your marbles and how each one works, and you understand how they will work better together – then collectively you can win the game.

“If only it were that simple” – is the response.  But it is!  It is not hard to find out what makes your people ‘tick’, what they enjoy, why they come to work. The key word is ‘understand’ your marbles, your people.  It just requires a little profiling or communication style testing on your staff to find out their personality and communication preferences. I use the TetraMap® tool – and then relate it to marbles – blue, green, red and yellow.

The first time I experienced TetraMap®, I was amazed and intrigued how such a simple assessment made all the difference.  Really quickly, I could identify communication problems that I had witnessed between staff,  in some of the places I had managed – and this seemed to be the basis of ongoing workplace conflict.

I realised though,  the importance of having all 4 communication styles in your team – if you want a winning team. Each individual has a combination of all 4 communication styles – but you have particular preferences  and strengths which determine what color marble you are. Then you will understand more about your team and how to work better together.

I guarantee that if you implement this within your workplace, morale will increase, productivity will increase, absenteeism will decrease.  If it is going to save you thousands of dollars per year, why wouldn’t you do it?

So, how many people do you know of, that have left a workplace because of conflict, poor communication, or because they didn’t feel valued?

In recent international research, the main reasons staff leave their workplace are:

• Availability of higher paying jobs
• Organisational Performance
• Organisational culture – reward system, strength of leadership,  level of work stress, conflict, low employee morale
• Unrealistic expectations
• Demographics
• The Person – family situation, unsolicited job offer

If you look at that list above, the easiest ones we can change or have influence over are – ‘Organisational culture’ and ‘Unrealistic Expectations’. We can start by valuing and understanding our people – and the rest will follow.

It’s almost always a surprise when employees hand in their notice.  They keep their plans secret because of the lack of trust for their manager and/or management team. They feel that their work will be made difficult or miserable if their manager knows. How many times have your staff felt like they will be labelled a traitor and made to feel guilty for leaving.

It is for good reason that the number one cause of employee dissatisfaction is their relationship with their manager(s).  Managers need to be skilled at creating an atmosphere of trust and respect – which helps employees to open up more.  Try asking questions like “what do you like most about your job” or “what makes you get up in the morning and come to work”.  The secret to employee retention is not being a ‘nice’ or ‘liked’ manager or good role model – it is more about deep and meaningful communication and trust.  It is so very important to understand your employee’s concerns and their dreams or hopes, to help solve or achieve them.

Low employee morale is also a leading cause of staff turnover – often caused by conflict, poor workplace culture, lack of open and honest processes.  Managers should always remember –  ‘treat your staff as you would like to be treated’, then we will see a difference.  Know what colour marbles work for you!!!

When we don’t understand how others communicate and how they like to be communicated to – we lose staff.  We lose our marbles! When we do understand our staff and their communication styles, the results can be amazing.

Linda Guirey “The Marbles Expert”

www.lindaguirey.co.nz

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It is widely accepted that these generational differences are evident, and alive and well in the workplace. But perhaps we give too much support to the notion that we should be making allowances. In my view what we should be doing is recognising and accepting that there are generational differences, but continuing to demonstrate good, effective communication, expectations and opportunities for growth. What strengths do each of these generations bring to your workplace – that is the question that should be being asked, and then how do you harness that strength?

Gen Y enter the workforce with an expectation of trust and respect, but unfortunately Baby Boomers are of the notion that any trust and respect has to be earned – it isn’t a given. The ‘Millennials’ have grown up with unconditional support from their parents, teachers, coaches etc, and expect this to be the same when they enter the workforce. The reality is, that any trust and respect does in fact have to be earned. Millennials have also grown up receiving lots of feedback, encouragement and praise and they expect lots of feedback in the workplace.

What about the generational divide that technology creates? Millennials have grown up with technology, they are connected to their cell phones by an invisible thread at the hip and find it alien to think that they have to leave their personal lives at home, when they come to work. They are so used to being connected 24/7 to their social network. So there needs to be a lot of clarification around expectations of social media at work.

What is most important is effective communication and understanding. You will find that employees of any generation, will be loyal and hard working, if they feel valued, listened to and trusted. Employers need to understand where this new technology is taking business today, and instead of making rules prohibiting access to the internet, Facebook, or personal emails / texts etc, they should be working alongside their ‘Millennials’ in the organisation to see how they can make technology improve business.

So, our workplaces are full of Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and some new Gen Z. What are we calling the next generation? Or is the creator of these ‘generational terms’ also of the opinion that after 2012, it doesn’t matter?

I personally will still be around after 2012 and although labelling of different population groups, personality and behavioural styles will still continue – I will adhere to what I believe is most important – good, honest, effective communication, along with trust and respect, will take us where we want to go.

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3,347 Finnish employees were surveyed, aged between 30 and 64. Each employee was asked how they felt about their working environment, including quality of communication, team spirit, and their degree of job control/demands.

They then rated their work environment according to four descriptions of the atmosphere in the workplace:

• encouraging and supportive of new ideas
• prejudiced and conservative
• nice and easy
• or quarrelsome and disagreeable.

Each person was also asked about their personal lives, living arrangements, and access to health services.

They were then assessed on their diagnoses of depression, anxiety, and alcohol misuse and information was collected from a national register on what anti depressant prescriptions they had, over the following three years.

What is significant is that poor team spirit resulted in more employees reporting symptoms of depression, in fact over 60% were more likely to report depressive symptoms and they were over 50% more likely to be taking antidepressants.

Depression and anxiety is not new in the workplace and accounts for a considerable amount of sick leave and low productivity.

That is why I am passionate about helping workplaces improve communication within their teams, which in turn will reduce conflict, increase productivity, increase morale and stop you losing your marbles (your staff)!

I offer workshops on communication, reducing conflict, responding to the abusive ‘ego in the workplace’ or bullying behaviours and building better teams.

If you are serious about having a fun place to work, an increase in productivity and better teams – then contact me now!

Find out what colour marble you are!!

*”The association between team climate at work and mental health in the Finnish Health 2000 Study.”

Online First Occup Environ Med 2009; doi 10.1136/oem.2008.043299

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But how does this affect our colleagues at work? Are they listening intently or are they politely nodding but really wishing that you would just ‘shut up!’.

According to a global poll by recruitment specialists Robert Walters – the most common distraction for office workers is talkative co-workers. In fact 48% of those polled said ‘talkative colleagues’ was their most time consuming distraction, followed by personal e-mail and internet browsing, social networking sites and smoking breaks.

NZ ranked higher than Hong Kong and Ireland for talkative colleagues being the most distracting.

I think we do this out of politeness. We don’t know how to tell someone that we are busy because we are afraid we are going to offend them. I mean, you have to work with these people – we don’t want to upset the apple cart!

But by ignoring this distraction and not dealing with it, we are getting more frustrated, achieving less and ultimately some people can end up feeling reluctant to go to work.

What can make things worse is the ‘open plan’ office – because it’s easier for the talkative colleague to get your attention and it is also easier to be distracted by overhearing other conversations.

What’s the answer? I have heard several ideas suggested – such as a red / green sign on your desk. Red means your working, do not approach, do not start talking. Go means you are open to discussions.

Personally, I would prefer either a ‘mute’ button or off channel – but then that suggests we could be remotely controlled …. now that’s an idea!

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Well think about the pebble as being a ‘marble’ or person, being thrown into the pond or workplace. If you throw a ‘marble’ (person) into a new workplace, chances are the ripples will be large and may continue rippling out for some time, depending on the size of the workplace (pond).

But if you gently ease that marble into the the workplace, and slowly let it go, the ripple effect is minimal.

If you have already taken the time to find out communication styles of your teams, find out what communication style your new marble has before you ‘let them go’ and ease them into your workplace slowly.

This will improve workplace productivity, workplace communication and overall morale.

Reduce the ‘ripple effect’ of marbles in a pond.

Don’t forget, the bigger the marble (dominant marble) the bigger the ripple effect can be!

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