Slowly but surely we are all rising to the realization that when you manage people through fear, you kill everything good that could otherwise happen in your workplace.
When you lead through trust you get commitment, creative ideas and teamwork — all the things organizational leaders say they want.
Watch on Forbes:
Too often leaders say they want innovation and collaboration, but set up their workplaces to squash innovation and collaboration!
When you pit employees against one another, you make it impossible for them to collaborate. Why would anyone share a good idea with a co-worker if the co-worker has an incentive to steal the idea in order to make themselves look better?
How could anyone come up with a breakthrough solution to an expensive problem if they are likely to get punished for trying something new that doesn't work out the first time?
Companies broadcast their trust and fear levels in many ways. One of the loudest messages any company sends its employees comes in the form of the employee handbook.
Every employee handbook is a window into the corporate soul. When you read any company's handbook you instantly know where the leaders of the company are coming from.
If the handbook is friendly and warm, you know that the company's leaders are more concerned with running their business and supporting their team than with administering picky rules and policies.
When you're racing forward toward your goals, no one has the time or interest to track minuscule rule violations.
If an employee handbook is 100 pages long, full of warnings and admonitions to employees and focused on preventing staff members from stepping out of line, then we know one thing: this company is run by fearful weenies!
You cannot afford to dim your flame working for people who are too afraid to tap the human power available to them — and use it for the good of their shareholders, customers and employees.
Human power is the greatest power on earth, but it only works when it is given freely.
You can't force people to care about their jobs. You can't force them to be creative or come up with crazy, world-changing ideas. You can't force them to collaborate or build community at work.
The only thing you can force people to do is comply with rules — and you can only force them to do that until they find a better opportunity!
Here are five awful, cruel and unnecessary company rules to ditch before the new year rolls around:
1. Get rid of the policy that requires employees to bring in a doctor's note when they are sick. The world has changed. Many doctors tell people not to come in for a doctor's visit when they have the flu, but to treat their symptoms at home. If you trust your employees, you'll let them decide when they are sick and when they're not. Forcing them to bring in a doctor's note to get paid only pressures them to come back to work before they're healthy — thereby infecting everyone else.
2. Lose the policy that requires employees to give up the airline miles they earned by waiting in airports and sitting on flights on their own time and for your company's benefit. If your company is so cheap that you can't afford to give your road-warrior employees the frequent-flier miles they earned with their bodies, you are too cheap to send employees on the road. Switch to Skype and let your employees sleep in their own beds in that case.
3. Get rid of any dress code policy that spells out exactly which garments employees can wear and not wear to work. It is insulting to insert yourself into an employee's closet. One truth that many fearful managers cannot acknowledge is that leadership requires conversation. You cannot "policy your way" out of those critical conversations, including conversations about the best choice of workplace apparel. I have counseled many employees about workplace dress, and I did it with love and respect. Clothing should not be a disciplinary issue.
Sign up here to get top career advice delivered straight to your inbox every week.
4. Ditch the policy that requires employees to bring in a funeral notice when a family member dies, in order to be eligible for a few days' bereavement leave. If you manage your employees as though you believe they all want to rip you off and your job is to prevent that from happening, then you have already failed as a leader.
5. Abolish the policy that allows salaried employees (who don't get paid for overtime) to work until all hours of the night or work all weekend for free, but penalizes them for walking into work ten minutes late.
Work is best when it is human. When work is a lively, warm and supportive place, amazing things happen. I ran HR for two companies like that.
The first one grew from $1 million to $180 million in annual sales by treating employees like valued team members and friends. The second company grew from $15 million to $3 billion in sales the same way — by making the workplace as fun and human as it could be.
It's easy to do. All you have to do is begin to re-evaluate your rules, messages and leadership practices to make sure they give your employees the respect, latitude and reinforcement they deserve.
It's not hard to switch from a fear-based culture to a culture based on trust.
All it takes is a change of mindset. You can start making that shift today!
