3 Ways Leaders Can Transform Frustrating Corporate Life into a Thriving Environment

What would you say if you had to name the emotion you feel most strongly or most often while at work in a corporate job? For me, while angry and bored would be string contenders, frustrated would be the overwhelming winner. As I write this on a Saturday morning, the frustration with things that happened yesterday is still burning away inside me. I hate feeling like this, but it happens all the time.

There are plenty of things at work that are outside everybody’s control. We all accept these, however irritating they may be, like worldwide IT outages, demanding customers, or foul weather. But the frustration comes from problems that feel entirely avoidable or even when corporations seem to actively make things more difficult for their staff than they need to be.

I am so fed up with dealing with absolute nonsense that is entirely avoidable with a bit of thought or a slight change in process or behaviour. Work-life really does not have to be this way, but if anything, it is getting worse. It drives good people to seek changes in their roles or to leave the organisation altogether. That surely is something that any leader wants to avoid, as without good employees, there is no business.

What, then, can be done to relieve some of the daily frustrations that those doing the work experience daily in large organisations?

Listen to Those Who Know

It sounds so easy, yet many leaders consistently fail to listen to the experts on the problems in their business – the people who have to deal with them every day. Any staff member in a big organisation can probably tell you at least three things that make their life difficult and could be?easily changed without even having to think about it. Yet most leaders consistently fail to listen.

This means more than sending out a staff survey every so often. People either believe what they say will be held against them despite promises of anonymity, that nothing they say will make a difference, or both. If your survey response rate is less than at least 75% without using incentives and inducements to complete the survey, you have a problem in at least one of these areas. If survey responses clearly make a difference in how things are done and are not used to the detriment of staff by spinning them to support management nonsense, then people will fall over themselves to contribute.

But even if your survey is working well, managers need to meet their staff face-to-face and without filters, like supervisors noting every word of dissent or carefully selecting questions to avoid anything difficult. If you are a leader or manager, why would you not want to hear about what is really going on? Similarly, middle managers do nobody any favours by toning down complaints as they progress up the management chain. What leaders hear may be extremely uncomfortable at times, but it is a crucial part of their job to listen and take action.

Less Talk, More Action

Taking action is where so many leaders seem to fail. Anyone can say nice things and publish pretty strategy documents. Saying that bullying will not be tolerated does not change anything. Slogans about how you value your staff are empty platitudes on their own and may even seem ironic to those struggling.

?But so many senior people genuinely appear to believe that their pronouncements will magically change things without any actual action. We are fed up with all these words. You can say how committed you are to diversity and inclusion all you like, but when your buildings are totally unsuitable for some of your staff, that is clearly not the case, and you look ridiculous. How can anyone respect a leader who seems so detached from the reality in their organisation?

Most employees have had more than their fill of empty words from managers. Either take real action or leave us to get on with making the best of a bad situation as we always have.

Maintain Focus

Finally, many organisations have?lost sight of what they are there to do and what they are good at. Endless reorganisations create new teams and divisions with increasingly meaningless names but staffed by the same people struggling to do their actual work in the face of a barrage of management nonsense.

I am not talking about what some disparagingly describe as “woke” here. Teams that ensure everyone is treated properly and prevent discrimination, for example, are hugely important. I mean all those teams that seem to exist only to monitor other teams who do the real work?or to create more unnecessary nonsense that stops others from?focusing on their core functions. Teams that could disappear tomorrow without anyone noticing the impact.

I pity those forced to work in these areas. They are only trying to do their jobs like the rest of us. But I do think that there is waste of this type in many organisations, and yet when there are cutbacks to be made, it always seems to be frontline areas rather than these fluffy, nebulous areas that take the hit.

Leaders Need to Lead from Within

So many modern business leaders seem very keen on the pyramid model, where they sit high above the masses and have a nice layer of protection between them and?dissenting voices. Having failed to listen for a few years, they fall upwards into another plum role, leaving those beneath them to cope with the latest pointless reorganisation and strategy?they have introduced purely to justify their existence.

In most organisations of any size, there are people frustrated with things that impact them every day that can and should be addressed. IT that is not fit for purpose, systems that create extra work for no apparent benefit, and failures of management to support them in dealing with difficult situations. The list is endless?and is very easily accessed by properly listening to those who do the work and who your organisation relies on for its very existence.

Modern working life in a big organisation should not be a tale of one frustration after another, but that is what it has become for many of us. Where are the leaders who are prepared to do their jobs and change things?