Health and Psychology

I received an email from a psychological assistant of mine forwarded from an insurance company.  It talked about dual relationships being created by allowing clients to run up enormous debt and then having to collect that debt.  It's the wrong focus.

The focus should be on understanding your purpose and what you value.  If the purpose in providing mental health care is to help clients get better then allowing them to amass enormous debt doesn't serve that purpose.  All too often insurance companies and risk management assessments focus on avoiding harm and not what's in the best interest of the client.  Those things are often different.  But the risk avoidance method misplaces the focus on what may be safest for the therapist and not what is in the best interest of a client.

The same should be true at an organizational level.  This is the idea behind mission statements, Total Quality Management, and 360 degree evaluations and feedback.  But for some organizations these tools are just new gizmos that are expected to be used by an organization, but don't really get used to produce value, quality and customer focus.  The organization really doesn't trust their workers.  The organization ends up moving into micromanaging, withholding information and limiting feedback.  While the organization may make a profit, the costs to creativity, innovation, and employee morale is staggering.

As I get ready to teach students about job crafting, the exercise in which you redesign your job to better fit what's important, what is valued, and what's essential, and to take ownership, I'm struck by how often companies and organizations whittle away at what brought their employees to the job in the first place, making them easily frustrated and readily willing to adopt the same self-serving attitude.  In short, as one employee of a large firm recently said, "Why do I need to work there?  I can get treated like crap anywhere." And it's true you can.  But why should you?  Why in the world would a company want to treat employees badly?

I've run several companies and have had multiple employees and supervisees over the years.  If I, as owner or supervisor, don't help my employees or supervisees feel better about themselves, have ownership over their work, and feel like they contribute to the organization, then I don't feel like I'm doing my job.  I've worked for several companies where that position takes a back seat to the day-to-day operations and work production.  But for some organizations, the idea of employees having ownership is frightening.  

I can teach the process of job ownership to students and provide for the experience in small group format--create something, own it, evaluate it, test it, work with a team, have it reflect positively on you, your group and your organization, have it inspire you and give back to the community as a whole, present it and your information back to the class.  It works.  It's a great format.  It works in job settings.  It works in my company.  It works in lots of companies and there''s a ton of research to show that the process not only works, but beats any other model of management.  I've been doing this for years.

As I listen to employees tell me about wanting to leave their jobs, go out on stress leave, or just feel they are unappreciated, I wonder about what the companies that have these employees are thinking.  What a waste of human capital, of training, and of value to the organization.