Slippery Slopes

Over the last few weeks and months we have had a huge turn over of expatriate staff in my programme. Not in the area that I oversee, but in our central office. As this is literally across the road from my office it has quite an impact on me too. Changing staff is a constant in our work - it's normal to only work a year or two before moving on. But we have had an exceptionally high number of people complete contracts within a short space of time, leading to lots of newbies.

One of the things this naturally leads to is many discussions where you explain how and why things have been done by the person before them; and of course people seeing things with new, fresh eyes often have ideas of how to improve things (as do internal auditors!). This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's made me very aware of the natural defensiveness that rises up when we feel we are being criticised for work we feel has been done to the best of our collective abilities.

It has got me thinking about the incredibly fine line between defending and becoming defensive. It is important as a manager that when necessary I step up and defend my team. If I know they have worked hard, have overcome challenges, have made decisions which at that moment in time were what was best; it is hard to hear that criticised and it is my job to defend them against that. I have to be the buffer so that they can feel empowered to do their jobs. I also have to protect them, particularly the long-suffering local staff, from needless process changes. However, what a slippery slope it is to becoming defensive. Which is an ugly place to end up. It's one thing to explain the rationale behind previous decisions, but it's another to shut yourself down to any possibility of improvement or constructive criticism. Defending people and decisions, when necessary, is a good and right thing to do, but becoming defensive is just simply bad attitude. And there have been days recently where I have got so worn down by the constant questioning that I have definitely slid in to being defensive and therefore also communicating poorly.

So this has led me to thinking about how I make sure I stay on the right side of that line as much as possible. I think it has to be a daily decision to think the best of everyone, to keep an open mind, to accept that questioning how things are done is a natural part of a large change in staffing, to grow a thicker skin so that I can hear the meaning and heart behind the words without being oversensitive to the way they are delivered. I still need to be the buffer, but that doesn't mean that I dig my heels in and insist that nothing changes. Easier said than done, but I hope I'm improving!