Principle 7: Enthusiastic People (Item 6)
Potential of an organization is realized through its people's
enthusiasm, resourcefulness and participation.
You should work to ensure your work environment provides value to your
employees. If you provide what your employees perceive to be valuable
then they will enthusiastically volunteer their creative contribution.
Each person will have a different perception of what is valuable to
him or her, at different times of their career and for different reasons.
It can be money, power, influence, the excitement of creativity or being
part of a team, being responsible, doing their duty, being practical,
the social structure, meeting and dealing with customers or their fellow
employees, solving problems, solving world problems, having fun, doing
neat stuff. All together, it is what people find satisfying from work.
More and more companies are finding that the way forward for their
employees is to use the same value proposition process that they use
for their customers. The skills the company has established for finding
out what its customers value and building value propositions around
those wants and needs, can be extended to find what its employees want
from work and the company. Value propositions for employees are then
built around those wants and needs.
Just as an company should find out what customers don't like about
the products and services the company offers, the company should find
out what its employees don't like about working for the company. The
company should then work to eliminate those dissatisfiers.
[You need to be clear about the difference between `values' (or beliefs)
that people hold; and what they think is of `value' (or useful) to them.
Much of Principle 7 is concerned with beliefs and `values'. In this
section, we are concerned with what people find useful or `value'.]
Below is a list of what employees appear to value. It has been assembled
by considering the major issues that cause employees to be dissatisfied
and so withdrawing their enthusiastic volunteering.
- Being respected
- Being appreciated
- Being supported
- A climate of trust
- Recognition
- Honesty
- Space to have their say
- Security of tenure and of their person
- Knowing where they are going (and a map of how to get there)
- Being told why something needs to be done
- Being enabled to do their work (receiving sufficient skills, knowledge,
resources and authority)
- Learning new skills and obtaining knowledge
- Being part of a team (or work family)
- Being involved in decisions that affect them
- Being able to demonstrate competence
- Being cared for
- Status
- Being able to do their duty and act responsibly
- A work place that shares their values (or where they can fulfill
their values)
- Safety
- Having fun and doing neat stuff
- Being creative
- Not being blamed
- A balanced life – with family and health needs heeded
In building value propositions, it is useful to have a picture of what
employees perceive to be of value. Here is a model about what people
value at work. It applies regardless of situation. There are four dimensions.
Sense of purpose. The more consistent the company's purpose
is with the individual's the better. The higher the purpose the better.
The higher the perceived value of the individual's purpose and role
the better. The more coherent it is with their values the better. The
more it extends personal endeavor the better. People like a `just cause'.
Sense of control or `choice'. The degree the individual can
exercise control over his or her situation. The amount of discretion
they can exercise in the pursuit of purpose. The strictures that deny
them the opportunity to "do what is best". The extent they
can contribute their ideas and act on their ideas. The degree they can
make a free and informed choice.
Sense of achievement. The degree they see the results of their
action. Personally acquired feedback - not the stuff directed at them,
but the stuff they learn through inquiry and direct interaction. The
closer the relationship with the end-user the better. The greater the
freedom to inquire the better. The greater the pursuit of learning new
skills and the refinement of skills and knowledge the better. The greater
the degree of freedom to act on the learnings the better.
Sense of affiliation or `belonging'. The greater the consistency
of contribution the better. The greater the alignment of what the person
wants to do with what the organization wants to do the better. The greater
the alignment between the person's values and the company's values the
better. The greater the focus on humanness the better. The greater the
listening systems the better. The more inclusive the better. The more
diversity is prized, nurtured and coalesced into surprising actions
the better.
(Chris Russell
supplied this model.)
Employees lose their motivation to volunteer when they think there
is a gap between what the company says it is doing and what they are
being asked to do. If people think that the company has a `just cause',
they volunteer. If they think that the company is not committed to its
`just cause', they withdraw.
Alignment with the `just cause' is crucial to liberate creative and
emotional energy.
Misunderstandings and misinterpretations can cause employees to believe
that the company is not acting in accordance with espoused values. Senior
managers must work hard to dispel misconceptions by using active dialogue
to reach realistic understanding of the situation. Often, it is only
by using active dialogue that clashes with values can be straightened
out and practical implications for policy implementation can be found.
As we saw in Principle 1 (`Role Models'), it is crucial that
the most senior managers demonstrate their belief in the spirit of company
Values. Senior managers should take every opportunity to show they care
about the Values and the Principles.
Most companies have forbidden topics. Things people just don't talk
about if they want to stay in favor and keep their jobs. These are often
the latest failed scheme by one of the bosses or incentive schemes that
work against to best interests of the company (ie rewarding A while
hoping for B).
You should encourage discussion and dialogue on such topics –
painful as it is for the people involved. Out of the discussion can
come learning that can help prevent recurrence of similar mistakes.
Such dialogue should be based around available facts and data (including
feelings) and how they have informed the decision process.
(Trompenaars (1998) Riding the Waves of Culture, and Senge et
al (1994) The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook make a useful contribution
to this area.)
People need information about what is going on. An company is a social
organism with social purposes and interactions as well as business purposes
and interactions.
Most managers forget this. We are a social species that spent most
of our 400,000-year history in small family groups and very small villages.
Because we are a social species, social interaction is critically important
to us. Failure to understand its importance is to overlook a major cause
of system failure.
It may help to think of the company as a huge family with its ongoing
likes, dislikes, misunderstandings, feuds, hatreds, infatuations, loves
and fads. More often than not, this history drives the daily behavior
of the company more than any vision or purpose.
Like or not, even in large corporations, we still have the needs of
villagers. We need to know what is going on with people in our village.
Now, our village is likely to be our work group. Or the twenty to thirty
people that make up our "work family". (Don't forget that
most people in the work place spend more of their waking time with their
"work family" than with their real family. The social contact
with the "work family" is therefore at least as important
as that with the real family.) Around the "work family" is
"the network". The often-large numbers of people that each
person can draw on to mutually help each other.
Many people spend more work time trying to keep up their relationships
with their "work family" than they do on work for the company.
The temptation is to try to stifle this `unproductive, non-work'. That
is a mistake. Relationship building is natural for people. The networks
and relationships are what make the company function.
All work groups need processes to make the social interaction quicker
and easier. You can acknowledge that it happens and work with it to
the company's benefit. Suggestions include:
- Find ways to bring the work group together so that the social interchange
can happen with minimum disruption to the workflow.
- Team days.
- Have the team discuss its relationship building and networking in
terms of the values, mission, vision, Goals and objectives of the
company.
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