Workplace Actions Matter

Today Nathalie White delivers the framework needed for personal and business success. After 30 years as a public servant she is now sharing her learnings and experiences. Her book “Workplace Actions Matter” shows how our actions speak louder than words and how the smallest action can reinforce trust or hinder it.  Welcome to this edition […]

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Today Nathalie White delivers the framework needed for personal and business success. After 30 years as a public servant she is now sharing her learnings and experiences. Her book “Workplace Actions Matter” shows how our actions speak louder than words and how the smallest action can reinforce trust or hinder it. 

Welcome to this edition of Newsgram. 

Are you familiar with Isaac Newton’s Third Law…Action & Reaction? For every action or force in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. Scientists will debate my use of the word “equal” because there are times when that may not be the case but since this is not a physics course and for the sake of this podcast let’s say that when object A exerts a force on object B, object B also exerts a force on object A. 

Forces are an interaction between two objects or people and when it comes to human interaction it’s safe to say that actions by the force it takes to create them, can and often do, deliver more force than words. — Holy smoke that’s up for debate as well! Are you having fun yet? I know I am…

Here’s Natalie White author of the book “Workplace Actions Matter” to sort this out for us. 

Nathalie White offers a call center Example.  

There are thirteen national standards that have been created to ensure a healthy workplace environment and I’m not going to get into all of them. I just wanted you to know that they exist. They are there for our personal growth as well as our physical and mental health. The workplace is an important environment. What we do and how we do it says a lot about who we are and cantankerous clients can easily lose sight of all that. Now, they are a client and businesses need them so what do you do when they become unbearable? You can’t fight with a client right? 

Nathalie White – As an employee we should never get abused by any clients but you can be respectful and say “sir, at this point in time the language you are using is offensive. I really want to support you and help you in resolving your issues but if it’s continuing in that direction I won’t be able to. You give them…I used to work in that environment and being firm and being polite protects you as well as an employee and some clients need to be reminded of that. 

That’s a great example and getting back to Newton for a minute, this is where good leadership comes in. Workplace culture is set and reinforced by its leaders. 

Nathalie White – It’s kind of like a dual relationship. The employees also need to trust that you as a leader will be able to support them if the client say…cause what’s the number of things that clients that are dissatisfied with you will say? I want to talk to your supervisor. The supervisor needs to trust that the employees did their job and if the client continues to be belligerent they are going to set their own boundaries because leaders are employees too at the end of the day. 

Everybody has a boss. Even if you work for yourself. When it comes to leadership I’ll bet you can think of some great leaders and some miserable ones. Good companies, trusted companies have good leaders and good leadership styles. It’s one of the things that makes those companies what they are. She says to be a great leader you need to be authentic in your relationship to the company, to your colleagues and to yourself. 

Nathalie White – Obviously there are key leadership competencies that help you to do that you know like, some people think that leadership is a charismatic leader that you see out there that is all that but no, leadership can be learned. You can have those key leadership competencies. You look at yourself, who you are, what you do and the impact it has on other people, on yourself and the organization. I’m a true believer that anybody can be a leader. You just need to make the choice to be a leader and it’s a conscious decision and you need to set that path forward. 

She knows about this first hand. Nathalie did not set out to be a leader. She was an employment counselor but one day she made a conscious decision to be a leader. Influenced mostly by Simon Sinek. According to his website Simon’s Ted talk on the concept of Why has been viewed over sixty million times. 

Nathalie White – Start with the why. Why is it that you want to be a leader? Once you understand that you can build around that, that gives you your energy and your force to move forward. 

Here we go with Newton again but when it comes to force a little goes a long way. Think about the power of an Atom. It’s a big thing in a little package and she says to make the biggest and most positive impact you and your company need to be in sync. 

Nathalie White – Then you spend forty hours a week at work, you have your colleagues there, you have your supervisor there, you need to gain energy from somewhere. You need to have that purpose. Your purpose needs to be aligned with the purpose of the organization. 

And it doesn’t matter if you are working in the public or private sector, her book invites you to reflect on your own experiences, your objectives and then build on your existing practices. A key takeaway for me was the importance of being mindful of others. Our actions impact others and we need to be conscious of the consequences of our behavior. 

Nathalie White – As leaders your relationship with your employees, your action with employees does have an impact on service delivery because if you don’t treat your employee well they won’t service the client well which affects your bottom line. That has been supported by over twenty years of research by the institute of citizen services and that is what I like about the book. I was able to bring all of those years of practice together. 

Yes it is quite a resource. We’ve only scratched the surface today. Here’s another example of trust from the restaurant business. It seems so simple but it’s interesting to think about both sides of a transaction.

 Nathalie White – If I go to a restaurant I trust I’m going to have the same quality. I’m trusting that I’m gonna have a good meal and good ambience. I can buy into the brand so I trust in the brand. It’s the actions of the waiters that’s going to create that memorable experience or it’s gonna set me back where I’ll never want to go there again. 

You rarely say, oh wow, she must have had a terrible argument with her boss because that was the worst service I’ve ever had. You just make a note to go somewhere else. Speaking of notes, all of this can be found on her website. 

Nathalie White – It’s Note to Self Learning Solutions.ca

There you can not only get a copy of her book “Workplace Actions Matter” but you can take advantage of some of the learning opportunities she offers that are based on the key concepts in her book. Why is it called “Note to Self”?

Nathalie White – The Note to Self is that we all have the experience we all know what we are achieving we all have the potential in our hearts in ourselves and our competencies. We just need to focus on what is it we want to achieve. The direction we want to go. 

One thing I’ve been taking for granted is that you enjoy what you do for a living because that is an important factor but even if you don’t love it you can still live aspects of it. Nathalie says. Each of us as employees have 100% control over our destiny at work. There is no magic solution to all this and you don’t have to wait until everything is perfect to start to begin the journey of self-improvement. Read for some more math? Actions = Energy in motion = trust

Nathalie White – And I’d like to continue the conversations with the readers. because I do have a blog there and I would love to talk about wellness and service excellence and leadership and so forth. 

If any of this sparks your interest you can find her book Workplace Actions Matter at all the usual places online or on her website and if you’ve already forgotten Note to Self Learning Solutions.ca there is a link in the shows description for you and that will do it for this edition of Newsgram from Webtalkradio.com.

Listen to the full length interview with Nathalie White on the Books on Air podcast with Suzanne Harris at Webtalkradio.com

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