Nowhere is the impact of drama more dangerous than in public safety. Distractions often cause major concern when you get caught off guard and take the bait to gossip, blame, add negativity to an already stressful environment, or complain about someone or something that you want no part in trying to resolve.
The biggest roadblock to productivity in a communications environment is what I like to call “resistance.” Resistance is some form of negativity…a non acceptance of what is. Resistance shows up in various ways, but the easiest to spot in the world of public safety is complaining and judgment.
Complaining is a verbal resistance to a future event or a past occurrence. Judgment is the negative thought pattern about what should or should not be happening.
Complaining and judgment are obstacles to productivity because, instead of doing the one or two things you could actually do to solve a problem, serve the mission, or fix a mistake, time is wasted complaining about who is wrong, what someone should have done and what someone didn’t like about something or someone.
Judgment and complaining are time wasters that shift your focus in the wrong direction, and in our line of work, we can't afford to have too many bad days, or for that matter, too many distractions.
Why People Judge and Complain
So then, why do we judge and complain? We do it to lessen the pain and discomfort that taking responsibility requires of us. To be responsible means to look at the part you played, or currently playing. You didn’t explain your expectations thoroughly, you didn’t confront the problem when it was small, you didn’t speak your truth, you didn’t do a good job redirecting or leading.
It’s just easier to complain about how inefficient your coworker is, or to judge them for not having the skills you thought they had or should already know.
Complaining and judging does nothing to solve your problem but it does make you feel better about yourself. It’s the most acceptable way of going into denial. Here’s an easy visual to bring this issue to light: Your boat springs a leak, so you take a shot of whiskey and beat your rowing team with your oar. Then you go find someone who will agree with you that you did the right thing. (You vent to other coworkers or colleagues who have the same problems and you conclude that it’s just too dam hard to get good help.)
“They” should have checked out the boat maker, they should have avoided the rock. Now you have a reason why you didn’t get to your island, and that reason feels better than to say you didn’t delegate properly, you didn’t provide adequate training, or you didn’t do a good job in redirecting or leading.
Your anger and denial does nothing to actually help the situation. You still have a leak in the boat, and you still have incompetent rowers, and that is why complaining and judgment hampers productivity. Therefore, I ask... What are you willing to do to get back on track, plug the hole, get your teams rowing together, and get to your island?