1: Imagine working for an organization with a strong and deep workplace culture. We love our job and our company. Our work has purpose and meaning. Leaders walk the talk regarding integrity and doing the right thing. We feel a sense of belonging and connection with our colleagues and have autonomy in our work.
“How much more would another firm, known for its toxic culture, dysfunctional employees, soul-crushing work, obsessive and controlling management, and terrible brand, have to offer us to lure us away from our current job?”
That’s the question posed by Fred Kofman in his terrific book The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.
“Most people I ask this question refuse to give a number,” Fred writes. “They just wouldn’t do it. There are things that money can’t buy.”
2: And yet, almost 90 percent of the global workforce is disengaged or actively disengaged, spreading discontent.
“Puzzling, isn’t it?” Fred observes. “A disengaged organization competing against an engaged one is like a mule racing against a thoroughbred horse.”
He likens having a solid workplace culture to “picking up thousand-dollar bills from the sidewalk.”
Yet, most leaders don’t recognize the opportunity or don’t do enough about it. Their team members “sit there, unmotivated and disengaged,” Fred writes. “This makes no economic sense.”
So what gets in the way? Fred believes there are two things:
“The first is the mistaken belief that money is what people want most—a belief that’s deeply embedded in the way organizations are run.
“The second is a psychological cage in which most human beings are trapped.”
Transcendent leaders know these “hard problems” require a “soft approach,” he observes.
They understand “that human beings are moved not primarily by money once their basic needs are satisfied,” Fred notes, “but by meaningful purpose, ethical principles, significant people, and personal mastery.”
These leaders know they can’t “dangle carrots or wave sticks in front of their people and get any more than rote obedience.”
Fred cites research from the Gallup organization, which has conducted “the most extensive empirical research ever carried out on the subject of productivity and engagement,” he notes.
“It examined over four hundred organizations, interviewing a cross section of eighty thousand managers, and about two million surveys. Using performance measures such as sales, profits, customer satisfaction, employee turnover, and employee opinions, they distinguish between bad and good workplaces.”
The answer to the question “How do I motivate people?” appears to be driven by economics.
But it’s not, Fred observes. The real answer is “driven by psychology.
“This answer has to do with the human quest for meaning and transcendence,” he states. “When a leader taps into this existential thirst—providing an opportunity for followers to create an individual and a collective identity, to become someone they feel proud to be, in a group to which they feel proud to belong—the leader gains access to the most precious resource: engaged human beings.”
More tomorrow!
_______________________
Reflection: How engaged am I at work? How engaged are my colleagues?
Action: Journal about my answers to the questions above.
What did you think of this post?
