Is Your Office More Hazy than the Outside?

In another 2 months, the haze or smog will stay with Singapore and its neighbours for several months until the rain comes. We are told to stay indoors most of the time. Unknown to many people, your indoor 'haze' is actually more than the outdoor haze.  You see, a haze is defined as an unclear atmosphere suspended by fine particles.  In a non-weather sense, a haze is a state of mental confusion.  

Many people are hazy about their future.  They are affected by the environment, what people say about them and about what they read about everyday in the social and print media.  People are even more hazy when it comes to work.  How many people can tell you straight in the face where their company is heading?  What's the company's vision, mission and goals?  When it comes for financial matters, hardly 1% of the population has retirement plans other than some insurance policies. 

We at AsiaTrainers.com believe that our job as trainers is to help people to become more clearer in their life. With clarity comes decisiveness, and you'll get absoluteness and action to achieve your dreams in life. Here are 5 ways that you can clear the haze in your office:

1. Find out from your boss, customers or the public where your company is supposed to be heading.  If the answer is 'no idea', then your company is heading towards the most common direction of all companies: doing what it knows best for as long as possible. Next, you need to find out what is this 'best' that your company is good at: is it its services, its products or simply its people attitude?
2. When in Doubt, Ask, don't let unclear unclear instructions pass through the night for it will accumulate into more doubts in future
3. Don't add on to Confusion by being unclear in your communication. Be specific and not general, like don't tell people you need it 'as soon as possible', say, a definite date
4. Everyday either add some 'rain' or 'blow some wind' into the office, as rain and wind are the fastest ways to clear haze.  The 'rain' here refers to positive words that cleanse the workplace negativeness, while the 'wind' here must refers to wins.  Yes, add some wins into the office everyday.  Your win can be little, like getting a prospect appointment, clearing some backlog or even becoming more healthy.
5. Finally, and most importantly, haze is caused by small particles in the air.  Clear the 'small particles' in your office, and they are the small negativeness in the office.  If left unchecked, such small negativeness will soon cause some chockage in the communication.  A common example is 'next time' and never mind' kind of negativeness in quality control.  They are negative because they do not improve your quality, how can you say 'never mind' to poor quality and use 'next time we'll do better' as an excuse for doing shoddy work?  

By Andy Ng, whose courses on management and sales have now reached 13 countries, the latest being Vietnam and soon, Myanmar. For details of courses, click here. Related articles on the office:

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