I want these things so that businesses can catapult to levels of results unhinged by their grace and compassion for their people. I want these things so that employees are fulfilled by their time given in pursuit of the businesses goals and their own personal goals.

I want for employees to seek to understand the actions and decisions tossing aside shallow assertions that place blame. I want for the relationship between employees and employers to evolve together to cause greater meaning of work and how it gets done.

I want these things because work isn’t a means to an end. It’s an enriching part of our individual stories to help companies’ unfolding pursuit to provide something of value to society.

For most of us work is a necessity. Let’s make work a necessity that inspires, evokes optimism, and allows business and people to do good together. This is what I want: work to evolve to create greater meaning.

What strikes me about MBWA is how it places management on a pedestal: the manager wanders about and swoops in to solve problems and do good by modeling company values.

Employees today are more keen on such practices and often view them with skepticism. Economists magazine wrote, “Employees suspect it is an excuse for managers to spy and interfere unnecessarily.”

MBWA is an important practice. In fact I advocate for managers to use it but with some minor adjustments.

Intent. MBWA is an opportunity to create connection points with people. It’s to interact with staff as people with interests other than the work their paid to do. If your intent is to merely get updates on work, it won’t be effective in deepening your relationship with employees. Why are deeper relationships with employees needed? It goes back to meaning. To make work meaningful, a leader must understand employees’ hopes, strengths, even interests.

Openness. Use MBWA to share recent decisions. Get real time input on projects. Connect people and ideas that are or could be mutually beneficial. Recognize people who had a positive impact on the team or company.

Share up the “spotlight.” Don’t make MBWA about you. It’s about your team.

Diversify. As you wander the area where your team sits, make sure your conversations are both about the team or a team member and about what you need or need to share.

MBWA doesn’t need to be a hug-fest. Don’t make it just about advancing your agenda or meeting your own needs. Make MBWA about connecting with employees and connecting employees to timely, relevant information and other people.

I’ve never stopped to think about the holiday much beyond it being the final hurrah of summer fun. The holiday, though, was in celebration of the worker. The Industrial Age worker perceived to be replaceable and under-skilled.

Fast forward to the 21st Century. The vestiges of such views of employees may still linger in the hierarchies and practices of corporate America, but their affects are waning.

Today we know that employees want and demand more from their employers beyond wages and benefits. The majority of employees today use their hands not to build something but to tap out ideas, solutions on a keyboard. Today the knowledge worker is what companies want, need to remain competitive. Relevant.

Knowledge workers demand work that is meaningful. We demand a relationship with the boss that adds to our professional lives.

We celebrate more than the well-being of the country and companies this Labor Day. We celebrate the well-being of employees who make things happen for their employer. We celebrate a different union. It’s the union of people and a company’s purpose.

Do not be fooled to see it any other way. Without the people, there would be no major corporation or small business. Period.

Here’s to celebrating employees and their talents. It’s what has always made a business great.

I’m asking you, though, to stop saying it. Put up your pinky and pinky swear it. I’ll say it with you.  Really? Really. Why?

In these times where so much uncertainty whirls about weaving itself into decisions and water cooler conversations, paralysis has come over entire companies. Logic and informed decisions have been replaced with frantic actions and shaky decisions.

So, going back to that pinky swear, here’s what I’m asking of you:

Stop waiting for upper management. You have complete control over how you respond to the circumstances around you. You have influence over the environment. You can cause optimism.

You can mobilize people in your team by adding meaning to their work.
You can make time to connect with your people as people.
Keep or start having one-on-one sessions to help employees better apply their talents to their work.

You can lead from where you are and make a difference in the professional lives of those who report to you or work alongside you.

Show your crazy, beautiful leadership. We need it more than ever today. Tomorrow. Always.

Graphic by us

]]> http://achievedstrategies.com/blog/inspire-dont-wait-for-upper-management/feed/ 12 http://achievedstrategies.com/blog/leadership-brief-resources-that-helpyou-show-your-appreciation/ http://achievedstrategies.com/blog/leadership-brief-resources-that-helpyou-show-your-appreciation/#comments Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:00:21 +0000 Shawn Murphy http://achievedstrategies.com/blog/?p=3155 On Sundays we like to take it nice and easy. We like to take it slow. Leadership Briefs are quick reads to frame the upcoming work week. Today I’m planting seeds of optimism in your thoughts.

Social technologies have heightened our awareness to different even new ways of connecting with each other. These technologies present possibilities for people to show how much and what they appreciate about others.

Here are a few social tech faves of mine plus other resources that make it easier to express appreciation.

Rypple. This social tech platform has been touted as the replacement to annual performance reviews. That remains to be seen. But what is compelling about the product is anyone can give positive feedback to anyone. It’s timely, unlike the annual review process.

Yammer. This is Twitter behind the firewall. For companies looking to create a more secure Twitter expereince, Yammer is the solution. It’s a way to share knowledge, decisions, updates, even poll employees’ thoughts about an idea. Yammer can easily be used to show your appreciation for someone’s extra effort.

Baudville. For a more low-tech approach, Baudville offers neatly designed products to express your gratitude. Products range from neatly designed thank-you’s to engraved trophies and plaques.

Give More.com. This site has a lot of heart and includes some popular DVDs like 212 Degrees and Love Your People. Great videos. Great supporting products. Great ideas to show your appreciation and get inspired, too. Here’s a video from the company’s Smile & Move product. I like the message.

So, what is your favorite resource that helps you show your appreciation for your people?

Let’s focus on that last sentence: we want a lot in return for our work. If you think it’s money and great benefits we want you’d be right. They, however, are not tops on our list. It’s meaning and personal development.

We want work to be meaningful. We want to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.

We want our lives to count for something.  Is it noble? Perhaps. Let me point to the opening of this post: in total we spend 1/3 of our lives working. Gulp!

Leaders, use this as a wake up call. A rallying cry to tap into this human need to make a difference. Carve out time to find out what your employees want, dream, hope for. Look for ways to help make that happen, if possible. If not, how might you encourage them?

In Linchpin one of Seth Godin’s messages that I love is that we are not cogs in a wheel:

“The system we grew up with is based on a simple formula: Do your job. Work hard, Listen to the boss. Stick it out. Be part of the system. You’ll be rewarded.”

Showing up to work just to do a job isn’t going to help the company. It isn’t going to help you make a life that counts.

As a leader, you can add meaning to the work environment. You do this through the relationships with those whom you lead and work. It’s transforming those relationships to encourage people to apply their talents. First you must know what they are.

New Era Leaders understand their employees’ passions, talents and expose them to make that 1/3 of their lives have meaning.

Graphic by Shawn Murphy

Let me get personal for a moment. I decided this year to make major changes to the nature and focus of my work. It’s too long a story for a blog post to explain what led me to this crossroads. What’s important for this post is where I started this inquiry. I asked myself, “What’s important to you?” I had to dig deep to honestly answer the question. I turned to naming my personal values – listing them on paper.

So, with that in mind, these are the changes I’m experiencing as a result of finally naming my values.

Clarity on priorities. If you’re like me, you have many interests and possibly suffer from Shinny Object Syndrome. I was diagnosed years ago with SOS. An unexpected outcome from naming my values, I could see more clearly where the value-adds could be and where detractors lurked. This clarity influences decisions on projects to start or not; opportunities to chase or turn down; relationships to grow or cut-lose.

Greater personal value of my time. I’ve blocked time on my calendar when no meetings, phone calls can be scheduled. I use those chunks of time to work on projects that align with my values, addressing needs from relationships that matter (this looks a little different when at work), pursuing new ideas that advance my work.

Removal of weighty relationships. Speaking of relationships…Let’s be honest. Most of us have relationship that don’t contribute to our day. Naming your values shines a brighter light on those relationships. When values resonate with you, tolerance for them weakens. In our professional lives, we can’t cut lose weighty relationships. Knowing your values can strengthen how you politely invest in necessary or politically necessary relationships…without compromising your values.

Most of us intuitively know what our values are. Rarely, though, do we pencil them down and define them. Once I identified my values and wrote them down, they became real for me. They catalyzed me to look with renewed interest at the next steps in my work. A surprising outcome was how much more decisive my actions became.

There is a bit of awkwardness in doing this. In our professional world, we won’t always find congruency between our values and the company’s. Naming and knowing your values provides a benchmark, of sorts, to guide how to respond to those awkward situations.

Image shared freely courtesy of me