Helping the company develop new healthy norms

Why do we think we have to pressure ourselves like this?

Why do we think more is always better?

Because we have been brainwashed by a consumer culture that sold us wrong values, that’s why.

Governments, religions, businesses, media companies, corporate behemoths, they all have a hidden agenda to keep humanity small, scared, stupid and dreamless. It’s simply not in their best interest.

A population capable of critical thinking? A society where ignorance is unforgivable offense? Not in this century.

No wonder our culture completely lacks any honest messages about what it really means to be a healthy human being.

Look around. Anyone who meets proper guidelines for activities like screen time, sleep and exercise is practically viewed as a psychopath.

What do you mean you don’t watch television? The hell is wrong with you?

My startup’s performance review template has a category for team dynamics. And in the column to the far right, meaning, the most senior level, one of the traits reads as follows:

Helps the company develop new healthy norms.

This is critical in any organization. For example, think about a team member who never takes breaks all day, consistently eats lunch at their desk while answering emails between bites and stays in the office way past closing time every night of the week.

Their behavior might help the client improve five percent, and it might help increase their salary ten percent, but their overall wellbeing will go down fifty percent.

The economics doesn’t back out. It’s simply not good for individual or the organization.

Hence, the leadership skill of developing new healthy norms. And not necessarily starting a corporate fitness regimen or cooking office snacks with organic foods.

But healthy meaning, doing business in a way that’s not driven by anything unwholesome.

*Setting boundaries for ourselves and also respecting the limits of others.

*Accepting our differences and forgiving each other for being human.

*Bringing quality energy to the workplace and positively infecting the people around us.

*Giving people emotional nourishment through acknowledgement and compassion.

All of these are healthy norms, and anyone can be proactive in modeling them. The only problem is, schools aren’t exactly incentivized to teach these skills in their curriculum.

Colleges are very large, highly funded institutions whose sole purpose is to teach children how to sit in straight rows and obey instructions.

Carlin famously called schools the indoctrination centers where children are sent to be stripped of their individuality and turned into obedient, soul dead conformist members of the consumer culture.

And so, if we have any intention of elevated the collective wellbeing of our organizations, we have to be willing to initiative, and we have to be willing to take shit for taking initiative.

Remember, being a healthy person is valuable, but helping other people in the organization develop new healthy norms is priceless.

Do both and everybody wins. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do accept your need to take special measures to protect your health?