SEASHELLS at WORK
“I definitely have come out of my shell a lot more, when you question who you are, you can’t be proud of who you are. Now that I’m trying to peel off those layers and really understand who I am, I don’t have anything to be shy about.” -Ricky Williams
I was invited as a Guest Presenter at the very first Call Center Training Convention in the Philippines held last February 21-22, 2007 at the Edsa Shangri-la Hotel. This was hosted by Teledevelopment Services, an Ohio-based company that provides contact center, consulting, and training services in the Philippines and in various parts of the world. This two-day convention focused on the 3Ps of Peak performance: People, Programs, and Projects. I presented the topic “Communicating and Relating at Training” where I emphasized the importance of communicating and relating with trainees during training.
The 5-point agenda of my topic - What’s in a Name, The Amazing Power of Acknowledgment, Praising: the Sure Way to Success, The Power of a Note, and Talking Without Words - caught the interest of my listeners because of its relevance in the training industry today. The highlight of my presentation was when I compared the people in the workplace to SEASHELLS AT WORK.
All of us at work are responsible for each and every member of the workplace. In order to create a harmonious relationship with our co-workers and colleagues, each one needs to communicate and relate with one another. The 5-point agenda can very well help in achieving this goal. As we do so, the SEASHELLS AT WORK must be handled with care.
Some seashells are simple, fragile, delicate, and easily broken...so are some people we work with. We need to handle them kindly and with care. They need us for strength, confidence, and empowerment.
Others may look plain and ordinary. Sometimes, you may feel there is nothing special about a particular co-worker. We need to look again. We may see that each one is unique just as each shell is unique. It is our responsibility to discover and uncover their hidden talents and potentials. We need to help them realize their importance and worth to the industry where they belong. We need to help them discover their worth.
There may be shells with pieces chipped away or broken off. Some of the people we work with have had difficult life experiences that have chipped away at their positive attitudes and dampened their spirit. As their co-workers, we need to help them love themselves, rebuild their confidence, empower their self-esteem and renew their enthusiasm.
Some shells are hard. Sometimes, the people you work with build a hard shell to protect themselves from harm. We need to help them open the hard outer shell to nurture and value the life within. We need to make them value themselves and in the process make them value the people they are with.
There are many beautiful shells out there at sea. Every colleague at work has a special quality and beauty. We need to uncover it and help others see, appreciate, value, and love it. We need to make them realize that they are beautiful inside and out. This will surely boost up their confidence level.
Other shells were once very thin and seemed to be built one layer at a time. Some people at work are like that. Each one has a small core of knowledge and experience in life. Some will have many layers built around this core, some may have only a few. We need to accept them as they are, and help add carefully to their growth.
To beat the extreme heat this summer season, some of us will trek to our country’s well-known beaches. Just as we see various sizes and shapes of shells out there in the waters, we also discover the uniqueness in each one of them. There will be no two similar shells just as there will never be two similar people at work. Each co-worker in our workplace is unique too! They are the SEASHELLS in our workplaces and in our lives. We need to communicate and relate with them in harmony and with care.
As author John Updike says it, “We hope the “real” person behind the words will be revealed as ignominiously as a shapeless snail without its shapely shell.” |
