Should you ban the ‘R’ word from your business?
I read an interesting article in the ATC newsletter today from Larry Gould at TheBigWord who has banned using the word recession in the business, along with no newspapers or outside media. Now I am a very big believer in positivity in a business, negativity is contagious and has no benefit to anyone and I’m sure we’ve all had it where one person being negative can bring a whole team down. When you get that, it’s not a pleasant place to work and I therefore do not look kindly on anyone at Applied Language Solutions that is negative, gets involved with or creates politics.
Having said that I think positivity has to be balanced with realism and unfortunately we have/are going through one of the worst ever recessions. I think it is important to recognise that, adapt strategies to suit the market conditions and also have some empathy for what your customers are going through. This isn’t possible if you try to ignore, or ask your staff to ignore the fact it is happening. And let’s face it, they’re going to talk about it whether you like it or not. I think healthy debate and honesty with your staff dispels their worries and allows them to get on with their jobs in a “positive” manner.
We have taken on an additional 15 staff in the past couple of months and one of them commented that if the job was voluntary they would still come to work, as it was such a positive place to work, it is something I am very proud of that we have such a great place to work. We also had our IIP assesment recently and the assesor commented that he had arrived in a bad mood due to personal circumstances and by the time he left that day he felt uplifted and couldn’t believe what a great atmosphere we had.
So in short I don’t think you should ban the ‘R’ word, do you?
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Comments
It’s all relative, I guess. Most layoffs that occur in companies are due to upper management blunders, not recession. R word is just a convenient excuse to cover up incompetence and lack of oversight. Good companies never downsize. They are always of right size. That’s what you are, Gavin, doing. Good job. Keep it positive.
I agree. People wanting to be positive is understandable, but banning discussion of the recession stops the workforce from protecting the business. It’s not like the recession will go away if we just ignore it!