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What About Slackers?

What about slackers?


It's a question so often asked: what do we do about people who just won't do their job?

What's happened to any sense of work-ethic?

It's not gone. There are still plenty of people who are dedicated and hard-working. Ambition is alive and well, and work-ethic thrives among many. Still, those who seem to just phone-it-in (often with their phones in their hands scrolling away) seem to have multiplied: they're everywhere. It is frustrating to work hard while standing next to someone who is hardly working.

But that's not the way it has to be. There is joy to be found in the work, even if some people are not trying very hard to find that joy.

People who won't do their jobs have not yet discovered the joy in their work.

If that makes you sad, imagine how hard it makes them.

Part of our job as leaders is to help ignite that spark of joy in people, to help them discover the joy of work -- any work. Some people do show up already motivated, and some people do not. Our task as leaders is to keep the fires of motivation burning for everyone.

How can we get started if we already feel behind? Find the spark in your own work and work with that level of energy -- I promise you, it's contagious. 

-- doug smith


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