How to remain engaged amidst the disengaged- Try accepting others unconditionally

, September 22, 2015, 1 Comments

disengaged-accept-others-unconditionally-marketexpress-in-Are you losing it at your work? Do you see the workplace toxicity eating up your otherwise positive, passionate demeanor? Can you feel the slow poisonous movement from enthusiastic engagement to debilitating disengagement? If yes, you are not alone. The Gallup Study of 2014 has indicated that only 13 percent of all employees are “highly engaged”. The rest of the 87 % of the population is either disengaged or actively disengaged.

Disengagement refers to a condition where the employee lacks any enthusiasm or commitment to work. Disengaged colleagues may indulge in frequent absenteeism, may feel unrecognized and may barely try to complete work.

On the other hand, an actively disengaged employee would constantly crib about the employer, organization and the work conditions. Bill, for instancewould keep finding faults with the system and magnify the operational issues in work allocation and completion. He would take a lot of pride in discussing and gossiping about the issue with each person with renewed vigour. He would often ridicule and criticize those engaged colleagues who found meaning and purpose in what they did. Slowly the workplace became a dumping ground for negativity, cynicism, mistrust and frustration.

Research proves that almost 26 % of the workforce is like Bill and may play havoc with the morale and patience of the engaged lot. Engaged employees are passionate about what they do and are ready to go an extra mile. They attach a lot of meaning to their work and consider themselves connected to the organizational vision & mission.

Organizations strive hard to nurture and develop engaged employees and reduce the negative impact of the disengaged. However, the million dollar question is whether organizational intervention can help on an ongoing basis?.  As we would encounter  every day  with the disengaged and negative vibes created due to numerous interaction. While an organization is responsible in boosting the engaged employee and will strive to do so continuously, the ultimate onus of managing the workplace dynamics is the job of the employees themselves. Through this Disengaged series, we will look at what it takes for an engaged employee to stay on track.

Accept others unconditionally

All of us expect some hygiene factors to be in place to remain associated with the employer. One set of our expectations is to relate to “ideal co-worker” phenomena. Given an option, we would love to have colleagues who share our values, mindset and preferences. However ideal is not always real. Experience has taught us that we can encounter people ranging from the most sincere to some of the most unreasonable ones. Thus, the disengaged lot may be a difficult cult to deal with but definitely not the one that you may wish to vanish.

Unconditional acceptance is the key to all successful relationships. A core concept of the Rational Emotive Behavioural philosophy propounded by Dr. Albert Ellis, the concept urges all to accept self unconditionally to have a healthy self-esteem. This does not mean that one turns a blind eye to the weaknesses but develop a tolerance to these shortcomings till they are deleted, modified or reduced.

Extended to relationships, unconditional acceptance of others acknowledges the fact that we would always encounter imperfect people, us included. The reality of life is that all human beings have a right to choose their life perspective. Expecting that all others around us would share the same ideology or principles is not only unrealistic but also conceit.

The moment you accept that others have a right to their own life philosophy, you stop fighting them and start looking at improving your threshold of tolerance and patience. Besides you actually can look at the crisis as an opportunity to be groomed in managing human dynamics.

After all the great Greek Philosopher Epictetus advocates that “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them….”

We may only want to extend this principle as “…. And others”.