Posted on November 30, 2011

Most workplace risks are related to how to interact with men and women within organizations . At all levels of human systems, whether family or enterprise, the higher the level of personal demands and the wider the rule of the individual, the more the system is deprived of opportunities (Economic, social, influential, etc.). Is not that the major risk?

What makes the coherence and influence of an economic system is the solidity of the bond that unites the people who compose it. The great and powerful families Rothschild, Schlumberger, Schneider, & c. Are there to testify.

So if one accepts the idea that the link and the union between the employees of the companies are factors determining their success, then all the phenomena that could compromise these two criteria must be classified in the category of the risks at work.

Let us stop at the most obvious of them and consider some simple actions to conjure them.

Risks linked directly to the management mode

• Authoritarian, or deficient management,
• Low latitude over personal organization,
• Imprecision of the objectives and / or antagonistic objectives,
• Little recognition
• Strong workload requirements
• Strong demands on the quality of results,
• Monotony, uninteresting work

When the management style is not determined by the corporate culture , these risks are quite easy to manage. Many techniques for developing managerial skills are available for this. They include: training of managers, individual coaching and / or team coaching , corporate theater, mentoring, etc.

On the other hand, these same risks are akin to self-mutilation when they are the consequence – conscious or unconscious – of beliefs or standards of behavior specific to the uses in the company that generate them and undergo them at the same time. This may seem absurd, but many organizations, for example, are encouraging strong power relations by agreeing to sit at the negotiating table with the social partners only under the threat of a strike.

Another example ? A boss or an authoritarian head of service diffuses around him, through his behavior, the idea that in order to succeed in this undertaking one must exercise a certain intransigence, maintain rather hard relations with others and preferably choose strong means of deterrence Blackmail, pressure, threat, intimidation …) to achieve its ends.

A last example: a “blessed-yes-yes” management, that is to say, excessively centered on the individual and insufficiently mobilized on the task to be accomplished, encourages employees to mobilize their rights and prerogatives as a priority, Or privileges, at work.

Encouraging, voluntarily or unintentionally, all employees to be quarrelsome can be a pernicious form of economic and social self-mutilation of companies.

Admittedly management styles mentioned in the above examples are not conducive to the development of the relationship between members of an organization, nor adapted to the consolidation of their union. Rest assured, there are robust tools and methods of organizational development to highlight these self-mutilating practices. To get out of these irrational situations companies have no alternative but to turn to external help .

But beware, the self-inflicted company can only access this help by making a preliminary observation of “what is”. In other words, the company must accept to recognize that it alone is not able to achieve lasting change. It takes a certain amount of courage for the leaders of these companies to accept this. Therefore, the process of external accompaniment pays far more than it costs … We must pay tribute to these same leaders when they are also able to accept to hand over their own management in question . They thus considerably reduce the risk of stagnation of organizational development projects and contribute actively to the positive evolution of managerial behavior and therefore to the reduction of associated risks.

Risks related to labor relations

• Little collaboration,
• Little help,
• Little empathy
• Little team spirit
• Not knowing how to manage conflicts
• Excess of internal competition,
• Defeatism,
• perfectionism,
• Reflecting on oneself, with refusal of reality and communication with others
• Excess of dependence …

It is unnecessary to insist on the nuisance power of these behaviors, which represent both a risk to human health, but also to the health, prosperity and thus the sustainability of the companies that employ them.

But the behaviors in organizations are such that their members do. For example, if everyone for himself seems to be the rule, it is because this rule is borne by all the members of the organization and, above all, that management has not eradicated this practice. Are the reasons.

Here again, one sees the important role of management on the evolution of risks in the company. Let us recall that the main role of the manager is to ensure that the accomplishment of the projects entrusted to him is foreseeable; That is, the risks are controlled. The title of this section “New risks at work: health, stress, conflict, how to avoid dramas? “Here is his answer: it is structurally the responsibility of management – through the mastery of its art – to ensure that these risks are under control by promoting at all times the link and the union between all the employees.

Finally, there are other risks, more difficult to control by internal management, on the health of individuals and organizations. These are risks related to the nature of the environment: increasing competition, uncertainty about the future, various crises … A good cohabitation with this category of risks depends mainly on the leadership of the leaders, Their ability to pave the way for “extraordinary accomplishments with ordinary people” (Peter Drucker).

Whatever the nature of the risks at work, it is the quality of the men and women who manage and direct the company that avoid … or invite dramas.