Being a squeaky wheel

No one likes the squeaky wheel right? I mean come on, just roll with it and do not rock the boat. My point is how do you complain without being labeled the Squeaky wheel, I mean, I do not want to complain, but if there is something that does not work to the point where you are willing to become labeled ad a complainer or God forbid "negative" then it must be important enough to the person to mention.

My experience with organizations is from the perspective of the peon. I am not a manager or leader in any way but peons can see when the direction of an organization is heading in the wrong direction and my point is, how is a peon supposed to have a voice in this? How does that person give input?

One thing to point out is that even if you do not like the delivery, the squeaky wheel might not present their contention in the proper way, but there is almost always some truth to what they are saying. Delivery often shuts the complainer down and deafens everyone because you can't just SAY it, you have to come up with some supper nice way of presenting your issue to ensure it is heard.

If the complaint is not heard then what happens is it becomes a sarcastic topic. Every conversation that comes close to a touchy subject becomes a joke. This inserts a gap between leadership and peon. Leaders to not like sects of peons that are not "onboard" anymore.

Leaders then either ignore it or bet touchy about it, but what really needs to happen it to acknowledge the squeaker and put them in leaderships shoes and ask them what they think they should do. This empathizes with the peon and empowers them, and gives their concerns value. Even if the problem is not a simple and is not completely solved, just acknowledgment goes a long way. It can even fix the issue without making a change!

This brings up another point I have. People vote with attendance. If your organization has no way to adapt to its people’s needs, then people have no choice to leave. I will go into this more in a minute about Leaders vision and how you have to agree with that to even be at the organization, but agreeing with the vision but disagreeing with the details of how we get there are 2 different things.

Are you the organization that everyone used to belong to? I have worked at a couple of these places. It is the place that sucks, but not so sucky that everyone leaves. The people that are not passive leave. If you are the place that everyone used to work for, then you usually have a bunch of easy going agreeable people that do not care to go out and find something better.

These types of organizations often struggle with what I call conversion. They rarely grow talent within, but have to get it only from new sources. How does an organization grow within when all the non passive future leaders have left? If there are not examples of people that have "moved up" in responsibility in your organization and you are constantly forced to import it, you might have a problem. High turnover shows low conversion. The headstrong people have left.

Every organization needs shake up. If a person has been doing this job for a million years, most likely they are just maintaining the status quo. They have not done anything spectacular to merit moving up, and have not screwed up anything to get yanked. How can you build a 5 star organization when you have a bunch of 2.5 star people that have been in their position foreverrrrrrrrrrrr? A 2.5 star person applied in one area might be a 5 star person placed in another roll. If life is a progression, then so should organizational life.

This led me to another point I had which has probably been said millions of times. An organization is only as successful as an inspirational leader. This leader has to be able to passionately express their heart and where it is and rally people around them to accomplish it. If this person is passive, unorganized, unmotivated, and lazy or whatever their weakness is, it can hurt the whole unit. Some weaknesses can be accounted for with pacing people under them, but in the category of passion and motivation, I think it is almost impossible to sail this ship we call and organization.

I think the leader that struggles with these things are the high turnover leaders, the ones that do not convert and promote within. They are the ones that to constantly find new passive followers that will obey or leave.

I think crap rolls up hill not down hill. If you have an excellent leader, they can inspire most to succeed, but one that is a do nothing is the one who should be fired not the peons!

I also think that a leader needs to recognize the power of incentive. Whether it is work or church, people operate off of incentive. If their incentive is that they are to lazy to find something else, or they do not want o move, or they need to be close to family then you lost the incentive battle. Never underestimate the incentive of the greater good. Many people want to do better and contribute without getting anything in return, but they do get a great feeling in return for this. A feeling they were involved in something bigger than themselves and recognizing your peons goes a long way in this. Incentive creates motivation. It is this passion, that leads to incentive, that leads to motivation; either grows your organization, or if it is missing, they leave.

This brings me to the final point of my rant and that is that a great, passionate leader that puts the cause above all and will listen to their squeaky wheel even if they disagree and they do this for the greater good. The leader does not need to be right 100 percent of the time, they just need to have the ability to make changes when they are called for even if they may disagree.

No one organization, job, church, club, or team for that matter is the reason why I write this. I was just thinking about it on the way home the other day.