Next month I will be doing a panel discussion at the Governor's Council on Women and the topic is the art of negotiation. I started my career as a social worker and negotiation is at the core of what we often do with and for the people that we serve. Trying to negotiate services, trying to negotiate with clients to identify their needs and create plans that they will actually follow to improve their lives. Most people think about negotiations like a lawyer around one specific issue. I would argue that we all should think about negotiations in terms of our daily life - work and personal.
Some of you may have heard me say, in a tongue and cheek way, that I think life is all about the accumulation of points. There are some days that you are doing good deeds or favors for others and you are ringing up "good will points” - not that you need something right now, but you know there will be a time when you need something and you can pull on those points, or favors, to be able to get you through a tough time. See, most of us do really well in times of crisis. We can rally and step up and show our best. Sometimes we don't always do well on the day to day.
This week a long time employee was telling me she finds herself on the receiving end of what can only be described as verbal abuse from her colleagues about how they have had enough of "her" demands and they aren't going to do it anymore. When I push to identify who these people are so we can give coaching about our values and culture of caring, she says she isn't comfortable because she has to work with them every day and doesn't want to be seen as "ratting" them out.
This conversation made me so sad at so many levels. Sad that she did not feel like she could tell her colleague to stop yelling. Sad that her colleague was so frustrated that her only tool to manage the stress was to yell. Sad that even after all the discussions about creating a non punitive workplace where we hold each other accountable, we still are uncomfortable doing it, And last but not least, most sad that the child who needed our care was being delayed by our internal issues.
So I will continue to "negotiate" with each of you about creating an environment that allows you to hold each other accountable for the behaviors that we all signed up to uphold when we joined Children's and we will live to fight another day.
Our kids need us.
We must.
