What's Between Your Ears?

By Pamela A. Scott

Do you think this management team served its employees well?

Our son does what I call in-house customer service for a telecommunications company. Last week the powers that be called the staff together to tell them what was coming up this week. (We like it when people set clear expectations.)

Due to several factors, management portrayed this week as Hell Week (my words).They let staff know that this week was going to be extremely busy and that people would feel the pressure.

They set an expectation that this week was going to be totally miserable. Our son bought into the expectation. He even advised us that he would be under extreme pressure and might not be his usual jolly self.

I give management good marks for letting people know that it would be rough this week. However, couldn’t they have tempered that warning somewhat, so it wouldn’t be so dire? Or maybe they tried and our son didn’t hear it.

We get what we look for in this world. If we expect stress and problems, that’s what we find. If we expect good things, we manage to find those, too.

Our thoughts and expectations—what’s between our ears—are the only things we can control. What thoughts are you programming yourself with today?

P.S.: I just asked him how Monday went. “It wasn’t bad. Much better than what I expected.”