Mantra for increasing Productivity - Ikigai Culture
Fact and Example of Long life and High Productivity - Okinawa an island in Japan have more than 400 centenarians (person who has reached the age of 100 years) and have second highest Life Expectancy rate 85.2 Years.
Okinawa practices Ikigai, Ikigai means your 'reason for being'. In modern world for everyone its Purpose of life, whereas for corporate world: it broadly classifies as "collective purpose" of the organization. Wherein, Leaders encourage the idea of identifying and matching their own purpose with organisation's purpose and percolates to everybody in the organization and this leads to focus their attention to collective purpose and increased productivity to achieve them.
Ikigai is no more a secret and its simplified Venn diagram comprises of 4 quadrants and 4 questions (Diagram 1). The intersection of every two quadrant’s signify Passion, Mission, Vocation and Profession respectively. For high performing teams they should be always reminded with these key questions. I would like to portray professional and personal Ikigai
A Short story to narrate from “Anthony de Mello’s book Taking Flight
A woman in a coma was dying. She suddenly had a feeling that she was taken up to heaven and stood before the Judgment Seat.?“Who are you?”
A voice said to her.?“I’m the wife of the mayor,” she replied.?“I did not ask whose wife you are but who you are.”
?“I’m the mother of four children.”?“I did not ask whose mother you are, but who you are.”?
“I’m a schoolteacher.”?“I did not ask what your profession is but who you are.”?
And so it went. No matter what she replied, she did not seem to give a satisfactory answer to the question, “Who are you?”?
“I’m a Christian.”?“I did not ask what your religion is but who you are.”?“I’m the one who went to church every day and always helped the poor and needy.”?“I did not ask you what you did but who you are.”?
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She evidently failed the examination, for she was sent back to earth. When she recovered from her illness, she was determined to find out who she was.
For Leaders, Ikigai for driving organisational Purpose
For most organisations, they have mission, vision statements and core values that communicates the purpose of Business. The paradox of our time is that Vision, mission statements and core values have merely become a tick box exercise, rather than a valuable tool to empower teams and drive organization purpose across the organization. Leaders should essentially aim to do the following:
1. Practise Purpose - Lead by Example : Leaders should practice and abide by Purpose of the organization, every decision making process should be influenced by the Purpose and should take organization closer to its IKIGAI.
2. Preach Purpose - Communicating and re-iterating company’s purpose engraves and enriches culture and with time everybody starts focussing on unanimous collective purpose.
3. 360 degree Echo of Purpose - Its imperative to get a buy-in from everybody and hence 360 degree feedback and nurturing of Collective purpose is key aspect to reach organisational IKIGAI
Practising, Preaching and 360 Echo of Purpose is definitely a staunch and robust framework of increasing productivity and innovation.
Few references of the article attached
Reference from a Book - Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations