Damned If You Do or Don’t – Battling Work Assignments
Sometimes, despite your best work intentions and efforts, you don’t get to do the work assignments you want to do, or if you do, obstacles seem to stand in the way at every turn, preventing you from doing it the way you feel it should be done. When not doing it at all is not an option, you feel you’re damned if you do or damned if you don’t.
As an Entrepreneur, despite your best work efforts, their will always be those few clients, associates, or even vendors who aren’t pleased with how it’s going between you. You might be wondering how they can feel that way, when they have changed their initial agreement with you more than once, and you’re patiently giving the situation your all.
If you’re a Manager, you may not always have the final say on your project plans, or your deadlines can get pushed up by others and now it seems as if you’re applying pressure in an already delicate situation. The Employee can be unhappy with you because they don’t feel you respect their time and how they want to get things done. They may even feel you have them working on assignments they think someone else should handle.
We all have felt bullied or disrespected by someone else when we were just trying to do our work. In some cases it can reach extremes and likely be a left over syndrome from our high school days where someone with a little power feels they have the right to flex their muscles (“Almost 30 percent of teens nationwide are either bullied at schools or are the perpetrators of the intimidation, according to the National Youth Violence Prevention Center,” (Paso Robles Press, 6-10)
In all cases you simply have to pick your battles, deciding when it’s most important to speak up to change how it’s going and iron out workplace assignments. It doesn’t mean the situation will go as you want it to, but you can use your best diplomatic style and present your main points, rather than have it be an exercise in your being right. In other cases you will have to get unattached to things not going your way and adjust to how they are going.
The truth is, you’re never “damned if you do or don’t” — that’s a victim stance that makes you feel boxed in and powerless. Regardless of your situation, you always have a choice on how you can handle it. These are lessons I learn continually by my interactions with the good, the bad and the ugly in life including discovering I am responsible for the outcome, even if it’s just how I choose to perceive and respond to it.
Are you battling a work assignment, finding a way to communicate a needed change, or accepting and adjusting to an outcome being different than you expected?
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Tags: affecting positive change, positive work environments, work intentions and effort, workplace communication
