Ducks in a Row: Rigidity — Sources And Cures
by Miki Saxon
Is your boss rigid? Or maybe it’s your colleagues — or even you?
Rigid in action, thought or imagination?
Rigidity is a mental habit and, although often grounded in ego, often has as much to do with the corporate culture as with the individuals involved.
Openness is based on trust and if the people or the culture don’t foster trust then you should expect them to be ultra turf conscious, not interested in sharing, and prone to spending large amounts of energy fighting every new thing that comes along.
Twenty-somethings often regard rigidity as synonymous with age, but that’s a wildly inaccurate assumption and not born out by the facts.
While the age thing may play on the surface, it should be recognized that rigidity is present in all ages.
There are a lot of pretty rigid twenty- and thirty-somethings and no one in their right mind ever called a teenager flexible
If you have any doubts about this, try getting your twenty-something co-workers to approach a subject from any position other than the one they advocate.
Rigidity is not so much about doing it differently as it is about doing it ‘my/our way’ and that attitude has substantially worsened.
It seems that everybody has a group and while their group is OK, other groups, i.e., any that don’t agree with theirs, are rigid, inflexible and standing in the way of progress.
In many ways rigidity is a form myopia.
The cure is simple to state, but difficult to implement, because it requires truly honest self-appraisal, which is not something with which most people are comfortable.
The thing to remember is that there’s value to be found in most approaches and when that value is tweaked and/or merged with other methods the result is usually worth far more than the original.
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For additional input and insights to being a boss, be sure to check out the March Leadership Development Carnival.
Flickr image credit: trombone65
