ref Daniel Goleman on "civility at work"

Daniel Goleman is fantastic again with civility at work.


IMHO :-)

0. 'non-civility' is a transitive operation - transfers easly occurs and propagate - I think. one cannot describe relations in a company only by peer-2-peer interactions. there are groups, teams, etc. frustration can propagate, take new forms, etc.

1. 'non-civility' has capacitors properties. one accumulates bad experiences and at some point need to un-charge on others who eventually don't fail with something - but the opportunity shouldn't be lost.

2. unfortunately the guys with problems usually don't read something like this. it's like the ads for "don't drink or smoke". those who drink rarely look to them end-2-end.

3. unless there's a corporate culture on civility - enforced or supported by investors, CEO, CTO, etc -- one cannot create civility from low or middle positions. at most he can influence the very close proximity. but due to the above points - even this can be damaged.

4. civility may affect negatively low term productivity and results. in a market where competition is becoming smarter and harder - the question is 'does influential investors care about civility' - or they prefer the risk to change the staff very often but maintain maximum pressure on immediate results - including 'do that with any collateral damages' ?

5. hearing what low-position employees have to say through reviews or open-free-talk sessions with key managers is something not usually done. or done right. this is a big source of frustrations that can aggregate locally and without proper information propagation the upper management don't even have a clue.

6. there's also 'team burnout' - not just personal burnout. how often an incompetent team/intermediate manager is not evaluated right by the upper management (or early enough) - in the end making all the employees 'leave' one by one ?

7. communication even with 21 century tools is still a big problem. we have so many tools available but we don't really use them. i'm completely amazed by looking at examples througout the industry speaking with friends on how often people FORGET to send an email, an information, a detail. they simply don't imagine somebody else NEED it.

8. information hidding. recently I spoke with a 50 year old strong professional who told me 'hei dude - do you think I'm stupid to pass this information on - then how do I get my money' ? i'm sure this hidding is creating many frustrations and negative reactions.

9. status aggregation and propagation upward: too often 'the leaf' employees are in a world that is never understood nor described to high level management. the intermediate managers simply don't know how to summarize things, understand - or are afraid to do that.