What the world needs right now is people:
a) Telling other people the “good stuff” that they see in others and the good/ constructive/ positive acts which they see others doing.
b) Enabling others to be the best that they’re capable of being.
c) Embracing the differences – both strengths and weaknesses – in others; in the pursuit of collaboration.
d) …learning how to diminish their own fear in order to bring their self-confidence to the fore.
Let me tell you a true story in order to illustrate the damaging effects of “fear”…
During the past few years I was performing a senior advisor role – and the feedback coming from clients mostly ranged from being “very good” to “great”. Unfortunately a colleague decided that the positive effect that my efforts were having on the business community that I was providing commercial guidance to was become “threatening” for them; and rather than support the positive outcomes that were being achieved that person decided to go on the offensive – out of fear.
In my experience, no good ever comes from allowing “fear” to rule/ influence decision-making. In fact I see fear as being one of the greatest inhibitors of human development. And this is why I see unwarranted legislation/ regulation being so damaging, and why I have made calls in the public domain over the past few years for legislators to think long and hard before they next dip their quills in the pot of ink that is used to scribe rules of the land.
I strongly believe that New Zealand would be a better country all-around to live in if instead of using legislation/ regulation as the primary tool to curtail potentially undesirable behaviours/ outcomes; show people “what” the right thing to do is…and “how” to do the right thing. In the various positions of senior management responsibility that I have fulfilled over the years the more that I have “shared” and “shown” my knowledge to benefit others the more that the people who I have led have trusted in my ability to lead, and have consequently relaxed their own fear/ anxiety about opportunities that I have advocated to them and led them into.
I have not yet met a person during my lifetime who deliberately sets-out to do a bad job of something. Rather, what has been the case is that the people who are responsible for managing/ guiding their activities simply haven’t done a good enough job of being a leader – they haven’t set clear enough expectations for the people that they lead. Those people who need to manage the activities/ behaviours of others through enforcing legal agreements generally are not good managers (they’re more about wanting to “control” other people) – and many such people lack even basic effective people relationship skills.
My plea to rule makers everywhere is rather than dis-empower people through the rules that you intend to write; why not try harder instead to “enable” and “empower” the people whose activities you are responsible for managing/ leading; by doing a better job of communicating your expectations in a constructive way that doesn’t rely on hard-coded legislation/ regulation/ rules…which will then build rapport and positive relationships, versus fear and resentment in the case of a person who is deemed to be a “rule breaker”.
Fear never serves as an effective emotion for influencing people to do the right thing and where driving productivity is concerned. It actually achieves the opposite – it serves to dampen the mood, efforts and outputs of those who have fear instilled in them.