Workspace Speech Speech Version Bank Workspace Self-Interest

Workspace Speech

speech version Bank Workspace

SELF-INTEREST

Greetings, Thanks! I'm NAME, I used to be in banking, until the S&L crisis.

in fact my first job was as a teller; I moved up the normal channels, our branch became so successful I was promoted into regional management. We did so well our bank was taken over, and I was downsized, along with all the rest of middle management, and so I started this consulting firm.

So now I just use banks. Why? Well I have to, to some degree, but because I want to make money, and that's what banks do.

Why do you go to work every day? Well, to make money! Why does the bank open its doors every day? To make money. Anyone here want to make more money? Who wants to make more? I'm here to tell you today how you can do that, and also have a better time at work.

Who am I? I'm a consultant for high-powered training firm.

So why would management hire us to come speak to you here today?

Well, if their job is to improve the bank's performance,

They wouldn't do this if it was a waste of money. They think this is an investment.

So if they think the bank will make more money by you having a better day at work, and you will also make more, then it's in your interest to have a better day at work, every day.

Does that sound like a win?

As a high powered training consultant

I deal every day w / firms using boilerplate team building exercises. You know the type: Someone jumps off a chair; we catch them with our pinkie fingers, we all put our hands together in a circle and high-five like back in soccer camp.

These trainings are useful in some situations but in most corporate cultures these days, workers have already seen all that.

The fact is team identification comes down to shared risk and trust in many ways (Al-Swidi and Mahmood, 2011, p. 30), so firms do the falling exercise; speed dating and all that but after they've tried those one-size-fits-all team building exercises, they call us [pointing at self]. Why? Those exercises are fun but only partially effective. Again, why? After too many of these trainings people see through the hype. It's called diminishing marginal returns. The point is people are too smart for that anymore. Anyone seen "Office Space"? Yeah right. [laughs.]

Problem is the trainers don't give the deeper content, explain why this useful to participants. It ends up as cheerleading without addressing deeper structural problems. [This all complimenting their intelligence, experience.]

I'm speaking candidly to you like this because I'm trying to convince you of your own self-interest in buying into what I tell you here today. Why? So you can have better day at work, every day. Why is that? It will make more money for the bank. Why do that? To make more money for yourself. And, ultimately job security. [Pause: pacing.]

Now that I've shown you my cards, I'm going to let you off the hook. Ultimately it's all your boss's fault. [Laughter.] You know your boss, right, he's sitting right over there: Let's hear it for the boss: Hey? [clapping.] Yeah you better applaud [laughing]. But again, why did your boss pay good money to bring me here today? [He] wants you to have a better time at work.

See [he's] not such a bad [guy], why does [he] want this? [Change gender depending on situation.]

Because he wants the firm to grow. And so do you, I argue.

So now in every speech comes the "this is what I'm going to tell you" part.

I'm going to tell you about the latest research on interpersonal communication, that comes from linguistics; semiotics; programming, psychothereapy and of course organizational development. This is what I do in my office much of the time, stay up-to-date on scientific, peer-reviewed studies just like back in college.

Well what the corporate sector at large including banking already knows is that recruitment and training is one of the largest internal costs faced by any firm, particularly as they get larger. Make sense? Hiring new workers is a huge cost to corporate America every day. Well why do people change jobs? Very often they find a better offer, and that's good, for them, and good for us all if they spend more buying goods and services.

But many people often just quit, and if we can reduce quitting, we can cut this internal cost and outperform our competition. So why do people quit? The research finds most people quit because they don't like their jobs [audience chuckles hopefully]. Well, obvious enough.

Why don't they like their jobs? Usually its because they don't get along the people they work with. People quit because they don't get along with each other. If they got paid more, maybe people might put up with each other longer [audience chuckles], but corporate management all over the world is finding it costs less if workers get along better, with each other, because they don't quit, and HR doesn't have to hire and train people all the time. Pretty intuitive, yes? I'm going to summarize this research.

But don't worry, we're not getting out the beanbags yet, this isn't Macintosh, no pajamas at the teller window please, no bathrobes are not in the dress code I'm sorry. Hm! [laughter]. The research tells us HOW we can get along better, to the best of our knowledge. After we see what the experts say we'll see how we can apply that on our work floor here at the bank. And then I'll jump off a chair, you can all catch me, you know the drill [laughing].

So far I've convinced you why this is in your own interest; I've convinced you the bank wants you to like your job, we're going to figure out how we can all have a better day at work, make more money and keep our jobs, and we'll all be better off.

Supporting Research

I want us to have what Dr. Maureen Eckloff calls a "semantic jump" (Eckloff 2004), or a permanent change in the way we see things, the 'ah-ha' moment when we respond more successfully than we did before, to forces in the world around us. I want you to believe me, and remember our talk today when you feel frustrated at work. So I'll give you some of the theory underlying my argument today.

Dr. Gloria Galanes tells us how "[d]ialectical theory describes all human relationships as grounded in contradictions" (Galanes, 2009, p. 409), because have opposing drives and want to satisfy both at once. She points to simultaneous desires for autonomy and connectedness; stability and adaptation; task-oriented vs. socio-emotional orientation; and a list of examples which you could probably add to yourselves. These drives create ambiguous demands between individuals in probably every conceivable relationship, many of which have been studied explicitly. Dialectical theory is particularly useful for explaining small group relationships, which become "inherently paradoxical" because "members encounter a variety of feelings and actions they experience as contradictory but that exist simultaneously within the group (Smith & Berg, 1987b, qtd. In Galanes 2009).