Finding Meaning @ Work

Employees who find meaning in their work are more satisfied, more engaged, and in turn, are more productive. They work harder, smarter, more passionately and creatively. They learn and adapt. They are more connected to customer needs and they stay longer in the organization. Leaders invest in meaning making not only because it is noble but also because it is profitable.

Dave & Wendy Ulrich define an “abundant organization” as a work setting in which individuals co-ordinate their aspirations and actions to create meaning for themselves, value for stakeholders, and hope for humanity at large. Abundant organizations are profitable organizations, but rather than focusing only on assumptions of competition and scarcity, abundant organizations focus on opportunity and synergy.

Abundant organizations create meaning for both the employees who comprise them and the customers who keep them in business. Employees, customers, investors benefit when employees find meaning at work. Employee attitude is a key lead indicator of customer attitude and satisfied customers help the business to survive and thrive. Employees who find meaning at work are more competent, committed and contributing. In turn, employee competence, commitment and sense of contribution lead to increased customer commitment. In turn, customer commitment leads to better financial results for the company.

Making meaning is an important cause and lead indicator of long term organizational success. These intangibles explain about 50 percent of the market value of a publicly traded company. Meaning reinforces employees’ passion for work because it ties what they do to a greater good that also pays off in the market place. Passion for work is an intangible asset that has a direct impact on a firm’s market value. Over a 10 year period from 1998 to 2008 “best companies to work for” have had a 6.8% stock appreciation versus 1% for other firms, the authors quote.

Leaders spearhead the search for meaning in both good and bad times. In good times, when talent is scarce, meaning matters because employees are essentially volunteers who can choose where to allocate their time and energy. In recessions, employees who feel that they have been treated well as compared to others in different organizations, have a sense of gratitude which lasts longer than the recession. Reason why the search for meaning at work is becoming even more important today than ever before is that the technological, global and demographic trends today make work far more complex than ever before, thus necessitating both more team work as well as greater specialization. Teamwork requires unprecedented skills in co-operation, prioritization and communication. Added to this is the increased trend of greater isolation. People now spend many more hours in front of a computer than they do with real people. The sense of isolation spreads to the workplace as job changes, international assignments, and constantly shifting work groups dominate the work landscape and undermine the sense of community. In a work setting, countering these trends means building a culture that unite and unify people.

Gallup Management Journal’s semi-annual Employee Engagement Index shows that only 29% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs, while 54% are not engaged and 17% actively disengaged. Disengaged employees are less likely to meet corporate goals or to stay with the firm. When only fear of unemployment keeps employees on the job, they are probably not giving their best.

Rather than define an organization by its structure, roles or rules, the authors define it by its capabilities, that is, what the organization is good at doing. For example, Apple has the capability to innovate; Disney entertains; Marriott has the capability to serve; Walmart delivers low prices. To survive, organizations must not only amass capabilities but also turn internal capabilities into value for external stakeholders.

Meeting both organizational and individual goals is seldom easy. Leaders effectively connect the two when they create a clear line of sight from employee meaning to customer and investor confidence. Dave & Wendy Ulrich propose the following to help leaders drive the abundance agenda, that is, how organizations can help employees make meaning, add value, create emotional energy in the organization.

1. What am I known for? (Identity): Positive psychology asks what makes people happy in the long run. Researchers in positive psychology have discovered that when we identify and regularly use our signature character strengths, life becomes more satisfying and meaningful. Leaders in abundant organizations not only recognize and build on strengths but also use those strengths to create value for external stakeholders. Leaders need to help employees develop honest self - perceptions by helping employees discover their signature strengths through formal assessments, informal observations, conversations, and assignments.Capabilities represent what the organization is known for, what is good at doing, and how it patterns activities to deliver value. These capabilities also become the identity of the firm, the deliverables of HR practices, and the keys to implementing business strategy. An organization’s capabilities are rooted in its values and reflect its reputation or brand.Leaders need to meld organization capabilities and personal strengths of employees through hiring, training and compensating employees whose personal identity melds with the identity of the organization or its sub parts. People find a sense of meaning when they are in an organization where they fit and feel valued for doing exactly what they do well. Leaders meld personal and organization identity by shaping an individual’s personal strengths into organization capabilities.

• Where am I going? (Purpose and Motivation): Employees who can meet their personal goals at work remain motivated and engaged. When our personal goals align with organizational goals, work feels like a meaningful extension of our private journey. Leaders need to help employees and organizations find a good fit between the purposes that motivate the individual and the purposes that motivate the business as a whole.
• Whom do I travel with? (Relationships at work): People find meaning in their work when there are meaningful relationships at work. The increasing complexities of today’s workplaces require combining people with different skills into cohesive and high performing teams. Hence leaders need to strengthen positive work relationships that enhance teamwork. These work relationships make even difficult work more doable. When leaders help their organization “families” move beyond the superficialities of getting along to struggling through conflict so that they can understand one another’s strengths and weaknesses, they can approach the kind of synergy that occurs in the best of human relationships. This means that leaders need to learn and model the skills of building good relationships at work.Research by the Gallup Organization reveals that employees who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be highly engaged at work than those who do not. Those with a close friend at work are almost twice as likely to be satisfied with their pay. People with close friends at work are 27% more likely to see their strengths as aligned with their company’s goals.Effective leaders play an important role in helping subordinates make friends, build strong teams, resolve conflicts, get along with customers, and build relationships of trust and support throughout the organization.Two simple skills that enable trust and deepen connection between any two individuals are: (i) good listening; and (ii) appropriate self- disclosure. These are the skills that allow close friendships to develop out of mere acquaintances.
• How do I build a positive work environment? (effective work culture or setting): Leaders who engender positive work environments promote good communication, development opportunities, and pleasant physical facilities to ensure a positive culture at work. Positive work environment inspires, invigorates, and challenges. Employees have positive relationship with each other. They see work as adding to their quality of life and personal well- being, not detracting from it. In a positive work environment, an employee knows what is expected and what he or she can expect for meeting or not meeting those expectations. Negative work environment persists when employees don’t know for sure what they should do or understand what happens if they reach or miss goals. Employees want leaders who set clear goals and expectations and then follow up to make sure people are accountable for results. When employees participate in expectation setting, they develop a greater ownership for them. When leaders offer direct and clear feedback and help employees analyse their performance, strengths and a weaknesses, employees learn and move forward. When employees succeed, they have a better experience at work.A positive work environment is fostered by communication that is redundant, two way and affectively charged. Effective communication requires redundancy when complex or new ideas are involved, it probably takes 10 units of communication for one unit of understanding. This means that leaders need to over communicate through multiple media. Two way communication helps employees see where the company is headed and contribute to its success. They know they have the ears of those shaping that agenda, and they are empowered to help. Affect implies that information has emotional appeal. When leaders share personal stories or feelings about any information, it becomes more memorable and impactful for the employees at large.Leaders build a positive work environment by facing and running into conflict rather than avoiding and hiding from it. Running into conflict rather than away from it means respectfully airing multiple points of view, being transparent about problems, and moving quickly toward problem solving when things go wrong.
•  What challenges interest me? (Personalized Contributions): The most engaged employees are generally those whose work gives them the opportunity to stretch while doing work they love and solving problems that they care about. As leaders involve both teams and individuals in enjoyable challenges , they engage employees hearts and their minds. Different people find different kinds of work easy, energizing, and enjoyable and different problems meaningful. Leaders need to adapt broad general challenges to individual requirements and predispositions. The study of talent has evolved from a focus on employee competence (ability to do the work) to employee commitment (willingness to do the work). Employees who are competent but not committed will not perform to their full potential. Commitment comes from building an employee value proposition that engages employees to use their discretionary energy to pursue organization goals. Commitment or engagement grows when we wok in a company with a vision, have opportunities to learn and grow, do work that has an impact, receive fair pay for work done, work with people we like working with and enjoy flexibility in the terms and conditions of work.

Leaders personalize work for each employee by:

ü  Understanding what outcomes matter to the employee

• Creating a clear line of sight between what employees do and the outcomes they desire.
• Helping employees discover the intrinsic value of their work
• Shaping work conditions and matching employees to conditions that appeal to them.

When there is a clear line of sight between what we do and what we value, we find work more meaningful. When leaders build a line of sight between action and outcome, employees are motivated because they want those outcomes.