Читать книгу The Art of Waking People Up - Kenneth Cloke - Страница 34

Democratic organizations require employees who are not merely awake but willing to make their awareness and authenticity congruent with their values and take responsibility for improving their work lives. Awareness and authenticity allow us to translate our intentions into congruent behaviors and committed action. Until awareness translates into commitment and commitment into action, we can delude ourselves into thinking we are aware and authentic when we are actually only playing it safe. But in our willingness to risk change, it immediately becomes apparent how far we have traveled and how far we still have to go.

Congruence is a quality of connectedness or unity between our thoughts, feelings, words, tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, and actions. When we are congruent, others see us as credible, trustworthy, and understandable. They feel respected and responded to, and we feel open and connected. Lack of congruence, on the other hand, consists of sending mixed, contradictory signals. When people are perceived as incongruent, their relationships become frustrating. Their negotiations turn into a series of “power plays” and win-lose propositions with little opportunity for mutually satisfying collaborations and partnerships. Congruence is “walking the talk.” When we are congruent, our behaviors match our values, we are honest with ourselves and others, we listen to feedback for indications that we are sending mixed signals, and we are willing to take committed action to avoid creating false impressions. We experience ourselves as integrated, whole, and deeply consistent.

When people lack congruence and failures occur at work, they resort to blame, lie about their roles, divert attention to other issues, silently remove themselves from the line of fire, accuse others of misunderstanding or miscommunication, go on the offensive, blame the system, deny involvement, belittle coworkers, subvert the process, and demean leaders as incompetents. On the other hand, when they are congruent there is no reason to dodge, deny, distance, or defend themselves against responsibility for what they did or failed to do, and no one left to blame.