Cynical Casualties

The word “casualty” has been around since the medieval days, used to describe a “chance occurrence”. Then in 1844 the it began to be used as a military term to account for the number of troops available for a battle. So when the United State Army prepared to conquer Mexico City in 1845, General Scott might have asked one of his advisors, “out of our 50,000 troops, how many are ready for battle?” The advisor would reply, “sir, we have had 5,000 casualties, so we have 45,000 troops available, sir.” Now the advisor didn’t mean that all of those 5,000 men had been killed, some had, but some were only wounded and not available to fight.

“Casualty” means something different, depending on your position in the chain of command. To the commanding general, the “casualties” could effect your ability to win the war. As a colonel, the “casualties” could limit your role in the battle. As a private, the “casualty” could be a member of your platoon. As the soldier, you could either be a casualty or worse, a fatality and a casualty (For years, I had assumed that the terms were interchangeable. However, there is a huge difference, especially if the term is referring to you!!).

The marketplace is full of professional fatalities. Mergers that cause divisions to suddenly cease to exist. Board room power grabs that decimate projects or personnel. Bubbles. Busts. Incompetent leadership testing the limits of solvency. Poor job performance. Office fatalities are common place.

While the professional fatalities grab the headlines, the casualties are far more dangerous and demand our attention.

The most destructive causalities are cynicism and negativity. I don’t know what it is about living in the Pacific Northwest, maybe the rain, or the hipsters, or the long dark winters, but there is a pervasive bent toward cynicism. It is moss-like slippery to identify and smolders in the background of every interaction. It comes out as sarcasm. It masks itself as authenticity.

Cynicism and negativity have the ability to create fox hole experiences out of common workplace irritations. Let me explain what I mean by that. When a team goes through a high stress or difficult event, there is a bond that is developed between team members. The shared experience galvanizes the team around a central goal or focus. However, because cynicism and negativity feed off elevated emotional states, the feelings surrounding common workplace irritations are heightened and over dramatized. There is a multiplier effect when cynicism enters the equation that can lower productivity and crush morale. If left unchecked, cynicism and negativity can quickly spread through a department or division causing the organization to lose focus and begin to consume itself.

So what do we do?

Cynicism is a culture killer and needs to be removed. We have two options. Since cynicism is an attitude that habitually distrusts other’s motives, we have two options: 1) Elevate trust or 2) Remove the cynic.

As a part of our annual performance reviews, we provide each employee with a follow up sheet that includes exercises or strategies to increase certain facets of their performance. This year we have spent significant time evaluating the levels of trust within our organization and have recommended the following activities and strategies to grow levels of trust:

– Review a personality instrument with the team, highlighting the harmony that can be found when different personality types work together.

– Increase the amount of “personal” time the team spends together.

– Begin each meeting with a different person sharing a personal story or devotion or refection.

– Read Steven Covey’s article “How the Best Leaders Build Trust”

– Read David DeSteno article “The Simplest Way to Build Trust”

If trust is not elevated, you have no choice but to quickly move those employees out of the organization. Our mission and goals are too important to spend valuable time trying to change a cynical individual, no matter how talented they are. The longer they are in the organization, the more casualties are created.