You are a CEO – Chief Environment Officer

I don’t care how large or small your organization is; you are a CEO, a Chief Environmental Officer.

How you celebrate victories, deal with defeats, work through coaching moments, and set the tone when you interact with your colleagues will determine the tone they carry on when they work with each other and your clients.

I want to tell you a tale of two hospitals. The first hospital has an emergency room with very, very sparse facilities for its staff. While they expect their staff to treat patients with compassion, there is no compassion that is that’s being shown to them. They have one place near the ER where they can engage in a conversation for a coaching moment or maybe to be consoled when they just lost a patient. And that’s the bedpan room. Yes, picture this: the bedpan room.

In contrast to that, there’s a second hospital that has hired a counselor half-time. She works with the board of the hospital, and she has one mission. Her one mission is to break down the overly hierarchical culture between doctors and other hospital staff to try to make it more collaborative. How are they justifying this cost? They’re justifying it based on less attrition, lower hiring costs, and lower training costs for new people. And they aren’t even counting the productivity gain from people who are in a happier environment.

So, think about this in your work style. What kind of environment are you creating? Are people happy to come to work, comfortable coming to work, and being shown the kind of care that you hope they’re going to show for your clients? The Chief Environment Officer, that’s you, by the tone you set. A little bit of intelligent disobedience will do it. Make a change here, change the emphasis there. Just remember, the care and compassion you give to your colleagues is what they will give back to you.