As I told you at the end of the first chapter of my diary as Chief Happiness Officer, it’s true that seven years after that first email, where it was proposed to change the way we worked with the people and the talent of the organization, things changed radically. However, seven years is a long time to let them pass without explaining anything, especially if during those years one is dedicated, as in my case, to develop and work with teams of companies, people and managers who wanted to develop their personal and professional skills… so, I had a learning path ahead of me.

Throughout that time period I had the opportunity to be hired to develop many workshops, conferences and group processes with different companies. It’s clear that, when a company calls you for its development, it intends to improve the performance of its team, and that should be valued, however, in many cases I realized that those teams with which I worked were quite unhappy and the and companies used to have viewpoints that were purely results-oriented and blamed their members (sometimes without even noticing) for their inability to improve. Therefore, I was expected to do «the magic» of turning these dissatisfied teams into high performance teams, which does not always lead to a deep and realistic improvement, especially if the company doesn’t go through a transformation process as well.

I have worked with managers and CEO’s with a strong desire to improve their teams, but without the capacity or willingness to do the self-criticism necessary to understand that they are managing the company inefficiently.

Another thing that I’ve been able to see over and over is that these interventions, which can be specific or take months to complete, most of the time they have a great impact on the team; however, it’s also true that these interventions usually start with great resistance from the members of these companies, because we start from an initial state where people find themselves unhappy about their jobs and aren’t able to have their best disposition… And it is difficult to find out if that is the cause or the consequence of that real situation.
As I said before, what must be clear is that, if the companies don’t transform and evolve at the same time, these teams end up returning to their initial state. In addition, in these cases, the people who have been empowered and have improved their profiles, together with their personal and professional skills, usually end up leaving the organization.

That is, there is something very important to keep in mind: When you want to do a project that aims to improve the performance of the employees in the company, it must be raised in a global manner, where the company also makes a process of reflection, self-criticism and development, which allows it to understand what has led up to that moment, in which its members found themselves unhappy, and which allows it to see how the work should be done in the future, so that those problems don’t happen again.

And, many times, companies aren’t able to achieve that. Moreover, I have worked with management people with great will to improve their teams, but without the ability or willingness to make the necessary self-criticisms to understand that they are managing the company inefficiently. This happens because they treat people inadequately or need to acquire new tools to achieve their objectives more effectively and harmoniously.

Thanks to this work of development with teams, to participate in the process of taking them from unhappiness to a greater growth and well-being, and to live the experience of all the times where the efforts end up being unsuccessful because the companies didn’t recognize that everything happens because of the faults of the people in their teams, I have realized that, in order for teams to be happy and companies manage to revert those situations and achieve the high performance they desire, it’s necessary that everyone is involved in making profound changes, from responsibility, to the commitment to make joint and continuous efforts.

And it’s here, where that mail that I received seven years ago, once again takes on all the importance, but we will see that in the next chapter of my diary (to be continued).

Luis Gil– Inspira y Avanza. You can have the life you want. We know how to guide you: www.luisgilconsultoria.com