Published on: Monday, February 21, 2011
7 Meaning Drivers to Leverage at Work
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In the last few years, many leaders have been playing a corporate version of "Whac-A-Mole." Every time a crisis pops up — like the need to cut costs, keep customers, or outsmart competitors — they move quickly to beat back the problem and then move to the next crisis.
But now, as the economy slowly begins to recover, leaders need to shift from attacking short-term problems to developing long-term opportunities. Emerging from the economic recession will require us to overcome a parallel psychological recession. Many employees and leaders are fatigued with "Whac-A-Mole" and want more out of work than endless responses to crises. The degree to which leaders address this need will define their future successes.
We believe leaders can make more informed decisions about how to motivate and engage their employees by considering the question of meaning. Leaders help shape a vision that is engaging to others, weave the stories that help people make sense of the past and imagine the future, tap into the unique desires and values of individuals, and engage people's hearts as well as their heads and hands.
So how can leaders more systematically help employees find meaning at work? In
The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations that Win we cull research from diverse fields of thought to suggest seven drivers of meaning leaders can leverage to this end:
- How can leaders help employees develop strengths that strengthen others? Help employees identify and creatively use the traits and values (like integrity, leadership, love of learning, kindness, etc.) they most identify with.
- How can leaders help others create the story that connects their work to their passions? Match the purposes (insight, achievement, connection, or empowerment) that motivate employees to the jobs they do, helping them create a line of sight between their work and the results that matter most to each person.
- How can employees learn to connect with each other both socially and emotionally? Foster friendships and key relationship-building skills to create high-performing, high-relating teams.
- How can leaders promote a physical and emotional work environment with affirming routines that resonates for employees and customers alike? Promote positive work environments through attention to characteristics like humility, selflessness, order and openness.
- How can leaders customize what work employees do? Help people identify and work at the types of challenges that line up with their personal experience of engagement or flow.
- How can leaders consciously generate ideas with impact and generalize them throughout the organization? Build in time for both individual and corporate-level self-reflection to help people discover lessons from setbacks and develop resilience and to get in front of the pace of change.
- How can leaders promote civility and delight without turning the plant floor into a frat house? Encourage civility and delight from little things that personalize and civilize the world of work (e.g., time to chat, recognition, praise, friendly competitions, cookies, pictures, playfulness, humor and creativity).
To paraphrase Nietzsche, "He who has a why to work can bear with almost any how." Leaders are the experienced "others" we look to for help in finding our own "why of work." We hope to begin a dialogue that also helps leaders explore the "how" of creating this essential "why."
In recent workshops where we talk about meaning, participants universally get it. From the newest hire to the soon-to-retire, people understand the search for meaning. Most recognize the line of sight between making meaning and making money. Then, we ask people where they find meaning in their lives, and we get these responses: "family, exercise, community service, gardening, yoga, meditation, travel, music, theater, dining out, worship, and so forth." We then point out the sad but obvious reality. While most seek and see the value of meaning, they all find it
outside of work. Almost no one sees their work setting as a place to enhance meaning. Thus, leaders have an uphill task, not just in understanding and validating meaning, but in making it happen at work.
Maybe this ability to making meaning happen at work is such a differentiator, because most know what it is and that it matters, but are not able to bring it into the work setting.
We hope the seven drivers we have identified offer leaders a starting menu for the creation of meaning
at work. Leaders who are serious about being meaning-makers will make a difference, to themselves, their employees, customers and investors.
Dave Ulrich & Wendy Ulrich
Dave Ulrich is a professor of business at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and co-founder of The RBL Group. He has written fifteen books covering topics in HR and Leadership, is currently on the Board of Directors for Herman Miller, is a Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources, and is on the Board of Trustees of Southern Virginia University. He has been ranked the #1 Management Educator & Guru by BusinessWeek, selected by Fast Company as one of the 10 most innovative and creative leaders, named the most influential person in HR by HR Magazine for three years, and has been on the World's Top 50 Business Thinkers List since 2007. He is also the 2010 recipient of the Kirk Englehardt Exemplary Business Ethics Award.
Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D., was a psychologist in private practice for over fifteen years in Michigan before joining her husband to serve when he was called as president of the Canada Montreal Mission in 2002. They now live in Alpine, Utah, where she founded Sixteen Stones Center for Growth, LLC, offering seminar retreats on forgiveness, abundant life, loss, spirituality, and personal growth.
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