Can you imagine what it would be like if you were at Disney World and saw Mickey Mouse with his HEAD OFF? That’s right—Mickey Mouse, with no head. Dreams shattered! Possibly worse than finding out Santa Claus isn’t real (I hope I didn’t spoil it for you). Well, it happened. The story goes like this:
As you may know, Disney is famous for many things. In addition to their locations and world class experience, they also have leadership institutes, management programs and other kinds of business-oriented offerings. I’ve been to a few, and they are quite good. I was speaking to a business acquaintance, and he was telling a story of his experience attending one of the leadership programs. When his group took their bus to Disney World, the bus pulled up in the back of the park, where cast members park, enter and exit the buildings. This is totally hidden to park guests—and for good reason.
When the group got off the bus, the people made their way towards the building entrance; and what did they see? Mickey Mouse, standing outside the building, with his head OFF…smoking a cigarette!!! The horror of it all, right? Not only would my storyteller always have the visual of the Mickey body with a human head, but that human head on a mouse body was smoking! Talk about having an indelible image imprinted on his brain…and at an institution who prides themselves in always keeping you in the appropriate fantasy and mindset…can you believe it?!!
You can imagine this became quite the topic of conversation with the folks leading the Disney leadership program. While the Mickey smoking thing likely doesn’t happen often, here was part of the rationale—everyone, including Mickey Mouse, needs time to take his/her ‘head off’ and blow off steam—off stage, never in front of the theme park guests, but everyone needs time to decompress and even vent.
Whether you agree with the time or place, I have to say that I totally get the concept of ‘head off’ and venting. Think about your own company. The reality is that our team members, especially the front line folks who are closest to the customer, often deal with high stress situations, many times one interaction after the other, and they (as well as non-customer facing team members) need time to vent, recharge and get their heads back on straight.
In our experience, in addition to informal ways of doing this, 1:1 meetings with managers can be a great outlet for this kind of mindset check in. I like to think of it as the ‘is your head on right?’ part of the 1:1.
1:1s, as you may have read in some of our other blogs, serve as one component of an overall System of Management, and yes, allowing for venting time is useful and productive -when done right. I had a client recently who asked me, sort of dumbfounded when I suggested a bit of venting time in 1:1s, something like— ‘do you mean I should build in time for my employees to bitch and complain?’
Yes. Absolutely, yes. With guardrails. Allowing for 5 minutes to vent can be very healthy and cathartic for employees—when done within a productive framework. For example, when an employee begins expressing, it is good to ask a clarifying question, such as: ‘are you venting, complaining or something else?’ ‘are you looking fo - r input, guidance and coaching, or do you just need to get something off your chest?’ Following the vent, it is also highly productive to ask questions like this (two of my favorites): ‘So, what did you learn?’ and ‘So, what are YOU going to do about it?’
Your takeaway from this blog? Everyone needs to get her/his head right from time to time. It can be much more useful to allow for this kind of ‘head off’ venting than to have your team members bottle it up, and have negative energy and distraction when dealing with your customers. Channel their experiences to ensure they are learning. Venting with no learning or no personal responsibility is NOT productive, and so this is an art that you and those who have direct reports need to practice this.
Put your team in the best position possible to provide highly engaging, positive and focused interactions with your team members. Let them take their heads off every now and again—and so should you.
Andrew Freedman, Principal at entreQuest, specializes in helping eQ’s clients grow by creating well aligned company cultures and strategies that result in remarkable client and employee experiences.
