Label-Label-Label

In the original version of Scrooge, at the end of the story, Scrooge searches frantically for something to label his gift with while mumbling label-label-label. Label in that context, has a wonderful meaning. In organizations it has come to mean something else.

Personal assessment tools were originally intended to provide insight into your character. The idea was that by knowing yourself, your preferences and those of others it would be easier to understand one another and so work in diverse teams with greater success.

In companies where the practise is NOT to run around with your hair on fire reacting to each and every emergency there is a real potential that the information can be used wisely. Unfortunately, the sky is falling-my hair is fire approach to day to day corporate survival creates a situation where cataloging human behaviour and intellectualizing emotions has clouded the purpose and negated the value that this kind of information could bring to understanding dynamics of teams or selt.

Emotional connections are critical to being human. They are also critical to any company culture which hopes to retain talent, particularly in workers born between 1975-1995. These workers have zero tolerance for the  notion to 'suck it up' or for any incongruence of emotion and reality.

In the haste to catalog humanity as a label, we miss out on what it means to be human and different. We also miss out on all the creativity and innovation that comes from recognizing the power of that difference to realizing achievements that know no boundaries.

I am not that sure that collectively we can afford to do that. Are you?