I want to share three wonderful quotes I came across while writing a book about senior leadership team excellence. They share a common message at the core, let’s see if you can notice it.
”The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit…. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.” Peter Drucker, from Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Practices and Principles.“Work can be one of the most joyful, most fulfilling aspects of life. Whether it will be or not depends on the actions we collectively take.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, from Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning.
“The winning strategy combines analytically sound, ambitious, but logical goals with methods that help people experience new, often very ambitious goals, as exciting, meaningful, and uplifting – creating a deeply felt determination to move, make it happen, and win, now.” John Kotter, from A Sense of Urgency.
Do you see the common theme? The BEST work experiences come from how we feel about work and our connection to the powerful and altruistic nature of work. So as a leader, are you creating this type of environment?
Every week I meet managers and leaders who don’t get this point AT ALL. They talk about expectations and accountability and results and change and that is all very good and important. What I rarely hear, is leaders talking about how they excite, create meaning, or help people think “we.” I can’t remember ever hearing a leader talk about their interest in creating a joyful and fulfilling workplace. Ironically, focusing on how people feel about their work is a highly efficient way to improve ownership and results.
Many organizations use “Results Orientation” as a core competency. Let’s start describing it fully – not just focusing on the importance of accountability and measurements, but also how culture, passion, and challenge impact results.
There is a lot of work done on the theme of engagement, which has many many links to issues of leadership and the clarity of work, and which offer ideas for being more inclusive in one’s style of leading.
Work is more engaging and motivating when people can play an active role in what is happening, rather than being just one cog in a set of gears. Being involved in what is happening is what can lead to intrinsic motivation — the extrinsic stuff is okay, but not nearly as effective as the motivation that comes from alignment and participation.
So many surveys over the years have shown that people are “workers” more than participants and many have no clue as to how their contribution might integrate with the overall organizational goals and desired results. After a while, they just do not care any more.
One of my favorite little factoids is this:
A Sirota Survey of 2007 found that 85% of employees say their morale declines significantly after spending 6 months on the job. THINK about that one as it relates to the reality of organizational leadership; people come into the organization ready to be involved and engaged and, within 6 months are, “in but out” insofar as feeling a part of things.
If they are not engaged, what are they? Can we really expect good performance if people aren’t involved and included? Are they being effectively managed or led?
For me, engagement is pretty simple. Ask them for ideas and align them to the desired outcomes, both departmental and interdepartmental.
_I_ think that organizations do not do a very good job along these lines. Dan Pink talks about the issues around motivation, as did Alfie Kohn more than 20 years ago. Leaders need to lead and motivate and make the workplace a more engaging place to work. We are not yet at a point where people don’t matter, regardless of how well you think your call directors and automatic information distribution software works!
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