From a new employee’s perspective your organization might resemble Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice fell down a hole and encountered a world with strange new rules and an assortment of weird characters. 

Does your work place have any characters like these from Wonderland?   

·      The White Rabbit always running around stressed and harried saying things like, “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date, no time to say hello, goodbye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late”.

·      The Queen of Hearts, the ruler in Wonderland.  She is severe, dominating, childishly cruel and always screaming and yelling at her subjects, “Off with their heads!”

·      The King of Hearts who is ineffectual, but often quotes the rules. He does however undo some of the Queen’s cruel sentences. 

·      The Cheshire Cat who

 appears and disappears at will and explains Wonderland to Alice in a detached, clearheaded logical way as if the madness of Wonderland all made perfect sense. When Alice says she doesn’t want to be around mad people, he says, “Oh, you can’t help that. Most everyone’s mad here.”

·      Then there’s the caterpillar that sits on a mushroom, smoking a hookah. He turns Alice on—all the while treating her with great contempt!

·      The Dormouse who sits at the tea table and slips in and out of sleep. 

·      The Dodo who uses big words that he doesn’t always know the meanings of. 

·      The Mad Hatter who doesn’t seem to do anything else in life but take tea and talk.  

Do you have characters similar to the odd assortment in Alice’s Wonderland?  Remember Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the March Hare?  Tell us about some of the eccentric or loveable characters in your workplace in the comments section below. Should we warn or inform new employees about these characters?  

Remember, what gets rewarded gets repeated. For a fr*ee copy of Three No or Low Cost Rewards For Employees see the right hand column of this blog.  Start rewarding the positive behavior in order to reduce the “Wonderland” behavior.

Tags: New Employees //