COULD IT WORK?
I’ve come across a few people who’ve suggested that a crucial part of leadership and achieving the organization’s vision, lie in better aligning team member’s skills, strengths, passions and interests with organizational vision.
This sounds like a revolutionary concept, for what I think are obvious reasons. If we want people to be fully engaged, fully productive and achieve our highest standards, what better way is there, than ensuring that they feel they are a perfect fit for their responsibilities and vise versa?
The question, of course, is how is this achieved?? Is it one of those great sound bites that sound so powerful, yet seem to dissipate into the ether? Or is it a practical, simple and easily implemented concept??
These thoughts were recently sparked by two of my LinkedIn connections, whose authentic, experienced leadership and integrity I respect. They’re in different fields, with different personalities, and focuses. But they both talk about the value of leveraging people / job alignment in a vastly different way to the traditional hiring approach.
Monte Pedersen , speaks primarily about aligning culture and strategy implementation and execution. In this post, he mentions this point amongst others:
“* Managing your people individually requires getting them focused on where their strengths and passions reside and leveraging these to benefit the business.”
I immediately thought this was a potentially powerful approach to boost engagement and productivity. But how exactly do we do this? Does it mean that we need to sit back and let team members choose what their jobs are, based on their strengths and passions? And if so, how does the work they don’t want to do get done? Is it even remotely viable to allow employees to pick and choose?
Considering that we have specific jobs we’ve hired specific people to do, would it not be a tad impractical to align their specific strengths and passions with their job responsibilities? And how would this align to the organization’s vision and desired outcomes.
I might have thought of it this way if I hadn’t been reminded of something said by Ludmila Praslova, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, ?? a long time ago. If I remember correctly, she spoke about when she was youngster, not yet diagnosed as autistic, and had the imagination, and initiative, to use job crafting to secure employment at a time when the term ‘job crafting’ did not exist. Since then, Ludmila, a professor of Organizational Psychology & Business, has written many times about how employers can actually benefit from allowing employees to job craft, and by offering job flexibility.?
In a Harvard Business Review article, she examines the ‘what’, and the ‘how’, giving real-life examples of the benefits for both employee and employer.?
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Ludmila defines 3 ways of job crafting as follows:
“There are three ways that employees job craft:?cognitive crafting, or changing their mindset about the tasks they do, allowing them to find more meaning and purpose in their work;?relationship crafting, or reshaping their interactions with others in the workplace; and?task crafting,?or changing the responsibilities and the nature of certain tasks. Jenna and Celine received support for task crafting — to everyone’s benefit.”
The ‘Jenna and Celine’ example is detailed in her article.
She goes on to to explain ‘strengths-based work’:?
“Traditional approaches to person-job fit are primarily focused on finding individuals who “fit” jobs. Strengths-based work calls for tailoring jobs to align with what individuals do best.”?
To illustrate these concepts, she provides international, real-life business examples.
To reiterate, Monte Pedersen and Ludmila Praslova, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, ?? are both successful, highly respected professionals, in different fields with different focuses. Both, however, believe it’s time to replace the traditional, almost universally disliked ‘command and control’ management mindset with something better and more appropriate for today’s business environment. ?
They understand that employees are not just ‘cogs in the wheel’.?
Employees are people. As most of us know, people are best motivated and most productive when they are treated with respect and dignity. The concept of aligning individuals’ strengths and passions with their job responsibilities as well as the organizational vision, is the polar opposite of ‘being soft’, or a lack of accountability, or weak leadership. It is the most logical, most viable and most sustainable way to ensure that the organization enjoys higher productivity, loyalty and profitability.?
This resonates with me. It resonates with the philosophy on which Optevo has been built. I could go on at length explaining exactly how and why Optevo fits so well with what I’ve discussed here, but that’s a topic for a future article devoted entirely to exactly that.?
In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts I’ve discussed. Are they viable? Does your organization subscribe to these? If not, would they consider such a shift?
#JobCrafting #WorkManagement
Chief Experience Officer at billquiseng.com. Award-winning Customer CARE Expert, Keynote Speaker, and Blogger
3 个月QUI TAKEAWAY: Your employees don't care how big your company is. They only care how big you care about them. So, CARE BIG for your people.* Andre, I ?? your post to express my appreciation and kudos for sharing, especially, "Employees are people... People are best motivated and most productive when they are treated with respect and dignity." I whole?edly agree! In appreciation and in the spirit of paying it forward, I offer this: ?? With GREAT respect, we, as leaders, do not need to think and talk among ourselves about "aligning team member's skills, strengths, passions, and interests with organizational vision". We need to talk with our team members about what they want. Several consultants have already done the "how" and "why". A recent Call Centre Helper Magazine article on employee absenteeism offers insights from two consultants and me which confirmed the necessity of having leaders consistently CARE. Whether it is regularly interacting with agents at least weekly (Jeremy Watkin) or conducting a semi-annual growth interview, leaders focus on the agents' well-being. At least, we should do what they and I do. *CARE BIG for your people.* https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/care-big-your-people-bill-quiseng/
Executive & Leadership Coach | Consulting Specialist-Culture & Organizational Effectiveness | Talent & OD | I partner with business leaders to enable & transform their unique personal potential through adaptive coaching.
3 个月Andre Williams What you have mentioned -> "Employees are people. As most of us know, people are best motivated and most productive when they are treated with respect and dignity." We are going to the root of Maslow's Needs Hierarchy where we are touching on the softer yet the most robust aspect of human edifice - moral values/ethics leading to the point of intrinsic motivation. I have been a part of the command and control and other leadership styles where I experienced that respect, open communication and leader identifying my potential and talent were the drivers of my productivity especially. However, when I was fully dumped with a very critical project not at all aligned to my competency and yet when the trust and respect were maintained it still helped me to complete it with proficiency. So, in my view it is definitely a combination of the softer aspects of the leader's behaviour coupled with their sharp acumen to identify and leverage the skills and potential to the tasks.
Fractional Chief of Staff | Strategic Advisor | Empowering CEOs/Founders to Design Human-Centered Organizations and Achieve Personal + Performance Excellence | Open to Fractional Chief of Staff Roles
3 个月Love this Andre Williams! And as you know leaders are easily IMO able to accomplish this thru the use of design thinking as a leadership practice. I will say, what holds leaders back from engaging in this is this dual thinking that it’s all or nothing. Much like the WFH vs. RTO the more rigid linear thinkers don’t see how it will work so they fail to even start. Which hopefully the increase of Ai use will push them in the direction of integration of the job crafting you suggest. Another great resource for this discussion is Mark C. Crowley and his book Lead from the Heart. One of his own personal stories and I believe he has stats to back it up that employee satisfaction sky rockets with even small accommodations of employees using their gifts and talents.
Award-Winning Author, The Canary Code | Professor, Organizational Psychology & Business | Speaker | Culture | HR | Inclusion | Belonging | Wellbeing | ?? Moral Injury | Neurodiversity | Autism @ Work | Global Diversity |
3 个月Good memory,?Andre Williams?- I did job craft when I was 14, although that was not to secure a job but to survive the Soviet-style "professional education" aka required factory labor (being autistic and dyspraxic really does not align with operating industrial machinery). Job crafting works even better when people are in a profession they actually chose and with some fine-tuning, could maximize their strengths. It is a fantastic way to support both organizational results and human wellbeing!
We develop leaders at all levels using The Leadership Academy platform | 5x Leadership Author | Executive Coach | Keynote Speaker ?? Daily posts on Leadership, Mindset, and Personal Growth
3 个月Love the paper/article here - I think both work as I said in the reply to Monte and Andre. I have had people work themselves out of a job and asked them to create their dream job - but it had to add value to the organization. Some got it. Some had no idea where to start or how to start crafting a job that added value. I had one person craft her new job and she excelled to the point where people asked her to replicate what she did. My boss in my previous job allowed me to craft The Leadership Academy in 45,000 person company and it took off. Four years later I am on my own doing my dream job - something I dreamed about doing when I was 28 years old - back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.