Better or Worse
Imagine being required to complete the following email questionnaire before leaving work each day. It lists each of your coworkers and requires you to make a simple judgment about each. The question reads, “For each of your co-workers, rate whether their behavior on this day made the workplace better or worse. If they were gone or you didn’t see them, please mark NA.”
| Better | Worse | NA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bob |
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| Mary |
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| Jean |
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| Sue |
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| Ted |
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| Jeff |
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| Lyle |
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Yes it would be painful, but it’s anonymous, so just do it and take off for the day.
Chances are we’d all have the occasional bad day. Those are to be expected. For most of us there would also likely be a pattern that quickly develops in the responses. So on most days how would your co-workers rate you?
If you don’t know, it might be time to find out. And if you’re pretty sure they think that you generally make it worse, then I would ask, “What are you doing about it?” In these cases it’s so easy to blame your bad behavior on someone else or the situation. You can do that, but it sure isn’t making things better. And so I ask again, “What are you doing about it?”
A healthy and respectful workplace results when everyone does his or her best to make it better. It only take a few people behaving badly to mess things up. You can either be making things better or you’re making them worse. Please make your choice and behave accordingly.
