I’ve never wanted to own a donkey. My wife pleaded for one.
To settle this argument, we reached a ‘compromised’ the way we typically do.
In other words, we now have one, … er’ …make that four adorable miniature donkeys: two males and two females.
Donkeys are the most misunderstood – and often the most abused — animals in the world, and it’s been this way for hundreds of years.
I don’t get it. Over the past four years I’ve found them to be extremely intelligent and super affectionate. And I’ve become fascinated with their behaviors.
Every morning and evening when Lori or I go out to scoop the barn (yeah, it’s pretty glorious, I know) and put hay in their trough, they assemble themselves in the exact same order you see pictured here. (From left – Elway and Opie; Fiona and her filly Dakota.). It’s as if they have assigned seating, or in this case, assigned standing.
We have no idea why they ALWAYS line up like this. And it’s also puzzling as to why they eat the same amount of the same food every single day. No matter what the weather, feeding our donkeys never changes. This makes no sense to me, but then again, I don’t speak donkey.
Most humans also resist change. In fact, I’ve heard it said that “no one likes change except a wet baby” but that’s not true when it involves how we approach work.
We all want some degree of change in our jobs and careers; we just want those changes to be positive ones. More of what we like, less of what we don’t.
We definitely want to learn something new, and we want to do something different today than we did yesterday. We want to grow and feel like we’re making a bigger impact.
Unlike our great grandparents, we are no longer content putting Part A into Part B and sending it down the assembly line. That’s why we created robots.
Desiring change when at work is especially true with the new emerging workforce. They’re not going to work at the same job, with the same title, and do the exact same thing for 40 years — and then retire with a gold watch ceremony in the company cafeteria. Heck, they won’t last 40 days in that type of environment.
Your employees are hungry for different – i.e. new, more, better, or faster. And they will hit the bricks or worse, practice quiet quitting if they feel like they’re swimming in a sea of sameness.
Savvy business leaders, owners, and managers in this new economy are perpetually teaching, training, and growing their people. The best keep a learning agenda for every person on their team and they make certain that each worker is consistently challenged with new tasks and responsibilities. This is the key to employee engagement.
The best way to curb costly turnover due to employee boredom and stagnation (a major contributing factor) is to make sure that every worker on your team learns something new today that will increase their value to you.
That means you risk losing them if they outgrow the opportunities you have available.
But it’s a risk you must take.
Unless, of course, you want to have a bunch of asses on your payroll.
