I Think Our Big Picture Needs Restoration

One of the hardest things for me to do when I am in a funk is to motivate myself to do things I am not inspired to do even on my best day. This week I am in a funk for a number of reasons. I am feeling the need for some space and time away from the push and pull of the daily grind to process some of what's happening inside me, but my sense of responsibility keeps me rooted to my chair, feeling anxious, irritable and resistant.


Then I read articles like this one about disgruntled employees. And I start to judge myself, holding up all the ways in which I am failing, disappointing people, setting a poor example or not being responsible. My hamster-wheel mind goes into a frenzy of frustration, self-doubt, judgement, helplessness, anger and blame. I see myself in these words:


"Though the work itself can be rewarding, the employees’ managers might be causing dissatisfaction. Be certain that the managers themselves are motivated to keep employees informed, recognize their contributions, reward outstanding performance, deal with problems constructively, and model the behaviors they expect of others."


I read that and feel like there's a bulls eye on my forehead. But how can I motivate the people who work for me when things continually change, often in ways that I don't even support??!! Or worse, when my boss and her boss have no idea how to motivate me to then motivate my staff?


The paradox here is that what I really want to do is work on issues just like the one we are facing at my organization today...I just don't want to be working in the organization while working on the issue. It's hard to be a part of something that is a problem without being able to also be apart from it in a way that is critical (to me) to find resolution. I need to step back and not be so entrenched. I am too close to this. I really do care about supporting my people. I find myself looking for gimmicks, techniques, tools something to grasp at and implement to help me feel like I am helping my team, to show them I am engaged, despite my desire to disengage altogether.


I notice that what I want to disengage from, however, is not my team or supporting them in doing the good detailed doing they do. I want to disengage from doing the detailed doing that I am supposed to do on top of the big-picture managing. I have been told that it is impossible to think big and think small at the same time. That seems true to me. The more in the weeds I get, the more I lose sight of the field, the horizon. And also, I realize that the organization's big-picture is getting muddied with too many fingerprints, which makes it harder and harder to reference as a point of inspiration...

We need to either start with a clean canvas or have some serious restoration work done to strip away all of the extraneous markings and heal the scratches so that we can see the big picture again more clearly...