Workplace Karma and the 8th Habit

According to Steven Covey (The 8th Habit), the reason there is such a significant gap between employee potential and actual employee performance is that managers often treat employees as objects or things, rather than as multidimensional people. 

Depending on how they are treated, employees choose varying levels of workplace engagement:

1. Creative Excitement

2. Heartfelt Commitment

3. Cheerful Cooperation

4. Willing Compliance

5. Malicious Obedience

6. Rebel or Quit

I never felt any “creative excitement” at my first jobs as a teenager.  When I took my first job, I think minimum wage was something like $3.85/hour.  That’s pretty much what I made at my first few jobs.  I definitely fell somewhere in the range of “cheerful cooperation” and/or “heartfelt commitment” for these employers.  Whether the store was owned by a family as a means to support the family or the manager didn’t own the store, but was working really hard to make a living, I respected that and contributed accordingly.  I wasn’t personally gaining much from the experience, but I felt good being a part of something that other people valued. 

Fast forward 10 years and two college degrees later and I was working at a non-profit advocacy organization.  I passionately supported the mission of the organization but the founder/president was completely insane.  She had a great reputation in the public world, but she was a tyrant to her employees.  I was making at least 5 times the amount of money I had 10 years earlier, but I was “willingly compliant” at best.  We were all so freaked out by the apparently random firings that we were all too shell shocked to be fully productive employees.

Fast forward another 5 years further along, and I found myself at RITG with the worst manager I have ever had the displeasure of working anywhere near (Colleen).  Although I often felt like being “maliciously obedient” or “rebelling or quitting,” I stuck to my principles and maintained a “heartfelt commitment,” if not “creative excitement.”  I was treated as if I had no prior work experience or education.  I was treated as though I was not capable and not trustworthy.  I held my head high and didn’t give in to the power and control games Colleen was playing.  It ultimately irked her that I was not only not phased by her behavior, I had no intention of quitting.

There was a 2-3 week window of opportunity where my current employer was hiring two people.  He was restructuring the organization and had created two new positions that he wanted to fill at the same time.  Had Colleen not fired me at the exact time she did, I would have missed this incredible opportunity to work for a worthwhile cause with kind and generous people…and I am making more money than I have ever made.  Thanks, Colleen!