WARNING: Your Employees’ Underwear May Be Hurting Your Business

June 14, 2016
Category: Be a Highly Effective Owner,Build an Accountable, Self-Sufficient Team,Eliminate Problems and Fires,General

You may not know this, but most of your employees are wearing Kevlar underwear to work. In case you’re not familiar with Kevlar, it’s the material that bulletproof vests are made of. Their Kevlar underwear is not boxer or brief style either, but the full body, union suit variety with the flap in the back.
How do I know they’re wearing Kevlar underwear? Because when I worked in the corporate world, I wore Kevlar underwear too and I can spot it from a mile away. In fact, we Kevlar wearers have a secret handshake!

Kevlar undies make us bulletproof

There were lots of reasons why I wore my Kevlar undies, but the biggest reason was that with my Kevlar on, I was bullet proof, or at least I wanted to appear that way. By the way, I had the deluxe full body suit and with the optional hood and face mask. I mean, why go part way, right? I wanted everyone at work to think that I had my act together 24/7, that I could achieve any goal and handle any problem. After all, isn’t that why they hired me?

I was afraid that if I told my boss about any of the struggles or problem situations that I was working through, he’d think less of me and may even try to find someone who could do my job better than I could. With a family and a mortgage, that was a risk I just wasn’t willing to take. It was much safer in my Kevlar.

Your employees don their Kevlar undies every day for the same reason. It keeps them safe from letting you know that they’re struggling and need help: that they’re drowning in work and can’t keep up, that they’re dealing with a problem customer or employee problem that they don’t know how to handle or that they just don’t feel well trained in some aspect of their job.

It’s all about self-protection. They’re afraid of what you might do if you think they’re as inadequate. And the problem often gets worse as you move up your org chart. I work with many of my clients’ management team members and I can tell you that Kevlar undies are definitely the daily uniform among many. They don’t leave home without it!

Kevlar undies are bad for business

In hindsight, I realize that my Kevlar was holding me back rather than keeping me safe. By not sharing my struggles and challenges, I was cutting myself off from getting the help, training and development that could have made me a much better employee and made my job much easier.

And, I was hurting my company too. By hiding the problems and fires that I was struggling with – hoping that I could solve them on my own so my boss would never know – I often made things worse and hurt my company’s results in the process.

Your employees’ Kevlar undies are likely having the same negative impact on your company too.

What you can do to get your employees to shed their Kevlar?

To get your employees to remove their Kevlar, it’s important that you create a culture where talking about problems and asking for help is not only safe, but also expected.

Discuss the Kevlar problem with your employees and help them see how hiding their problems and challenges from you, so they can appear bullet proof, hurts them and hurts the company.

Tell them that you know that nobody’s perfect and that problems happen and that work gets overwhelming at times. It happens to all of us. Let them know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness; it’s a smart business practice. It’s a myth that anyone makes it totally on their own. Everyone needs help from time to time.

I’m not advocating that you encourage your employees run for help every time that they have a problem. That would just make them more dependent on you and your management team.

It is still essential that your employees take personal responsibility for their work and that you hold them accountable for their results. And part of taking personal responsibility is sharing issues and problems and asking for help, before things get out of hand.

An important part of getting your employees to shed their Kevlar is to:

• Train them on how to resolve problems on their own
• Give them clear guidelines on when it is essential for them to inform you about issues that could mushroom into big challenges
• Encourage them to ask for help with problems that they can’t resolve on their own, but also encourage them to come to you with their own ideas too.
• Reward your employees for asking for and getting help and hold them accountable for hiding problems and issues that mushroom into big challenges.

Banning Kevlar undies from work will make your business better!

Creating a culture in your business where your employees feel comfortable working without their Kevlar undies, will reduce problems and fires and improve your businesses performance. It will also reduce the stress on you and your team and make your company a better place to work. Who knew that encouraging your employees to “go commando” (Google it!) could have such positive impact on your business!

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