Advice to Employees from a Chameleon

Lessons I’ve learned in the wilds of HR.

Miki Loveless
WX Weekly
4 min readAug 17, 2017

--

Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon

AA few years ago I was working as a customer service manager, I handled all customer inquiries including replacements, complaints, issues and anything else a customer would need help with. Most of my job was done over email and I spent my days in a cubicle. The only part of my job that I loved was training new employees. I really enjoyed getting to know them, seeing how their minds absorbed the new information, how they handled stressed out customers and what they did to resolve the issues. After almost two years, I was feeling burnt out and slowly made the move into HR without truly understanding why I was so attracted to the field. Typically HR is viewed as the department with all the rules and none of the personality, the Toby’s of the world. Now when people ask me, “Why in the world are you in HR?” I have a great answer; I love human behavior. Here’s the twist, I learn a lot about humans from my interactions with animals. I love animals, specifically hairless ones, but that’s another story.

Capone (hand), Miki (human), Frankie (arm), Ralphie (tree), Indie (brown), Shia (white), Ozzy (not pictured — a Chinese Water Dragon — was throwing a tantrum 😠)

Some may call me crazy, actually I’ll just do it for you; I’m crazy. I have two dogs and four lizards. Among those are two chameleons that occupy my living room and I have found them to be more fascinating than any other lizard that I have owned. Chameleons have a mind of their own and they prefer to do things their own way, unlike a bearded dragon or anole that prefers being completely dependent on me for food, water and shelter; chameleons want to hunt, they prefer to hide, they don’t want to be dependent on anyone, but themselves. After living with chameleons for a while, I realized we can learn a lot from them, no not how to shoot our tongues out to twice the length of your body, but some actual valuable life lessons, like for grownups.

1. Plan to Succeed

Have you ever watched paint dry? Well, that’s fascinating compared to watching a chameleon painstakingly plan how they’ll snatch up a housefly. Commonly when I meet with employees that are struggling, the recurring theme is they are getting hung up on over-analyzing the key results of an objective instead of how good that fly will taste, so to speak. The admirable thing to learn from chameleons is; once they make the decision, they will execute and they will succeed.

2. Be Aware

Chameleons can control each eye independently. Chameleons are aware of their full surroundings 100% of the time. For them that means making sure that a hawk isn’t dropping down to eat them and also keeping an eye on their next meal 😲. For us, that means to be aware of your tasks, be aware of your job, be aware of your team, be aware of your industry, and be aware of your competition. Awareness will make sure that you are never caught off guard.

3. Communicate

Chameleons are king of the jungle when it comes to body language. They have the most obvious way to let you know how they are feeling; they change color. Now, we don’t have to change to a vibrant yellow when we are tired and cranky to let co-workers know, but we still have clear ways to show how we are feeling. My boss once told me that touching your face during a meeting is a sign that you’re nervous. There are about a million studies that analyze body language; including this one. A good start is simply being mindful of how you want to make others feel. Chameleons hiss when they don’t want to be held, I wouldn’t suggest hissing; but if you want to be taken seriously, start with eye contact.

This post is in loving memory of Monkey.

Monkey 🐒 🦎

--

--

Miki Loveless
WX Weekly

With great happiness, comes great responsibility.