Humans work. It’s in our DNA – along with obesity, running late to meetings and knowing art when we see it (apparently). Hunting, gathering, farming, crafting and conquering the new world furrowed deep neural pathways to what has become a hard habit to break.

Why then, when most of us would be lost without it, are completely dependent on it – financially, emotionally and socially, and have become consumed by it, do so many people think work sucks.

If you doubt that, a recent study showed:

• 67% of employees aged 18 – 35 are ‘unhappy at work’
• 63% of people aged 30 – 35 feel work is a ‘disappointment’
• 59% said work does not give them the sense of purpose they are looking for.

Work sucks for two reasons:

First, we have managed to extract every ounce of humanity from work. It’s a functional, technical, resource driven, process dominated, task orientated world that can hardly muster a smile for the people that populate it. Humans, it turns out, like humanity.

Second, there’s a myth that the absence of humanity is because work is too focused on performance, but it’s really not. It is too focused on numbers, spreadsheets, emails, reports and meetings – but that has nothing to do with the kind of performance that produces results. And humans really, really like producing a result.

In other words, work today doesn’t give us what we had 200,000 years ago. Then, our ancestors hunted and gathered in tribes – supporting, encouraging and learning together. They knew what they had to achieve (survival), everyone took responsibility for the overall result, success was celebrated and the consequences of failure were clear (death).

Sadly, that kind of humanistic-performance culture is very, very rare in the modern world of work. Organisations just don’t prioritise and encourage support, learning, listening, ownership and caring for the needs of others or, bizarrely, the vigorous pursuit of goals, getting the job done, creativity, courage and a passion for excellence.

How to create a humanistic-performance culture.

The cultural guardians of old were Elders. Today, we call them leaders and they have the biggest impact on the inclusion of humanity and performance at work. Here are 5 practical ways to create a humanistic-performance culture (in a team or across the organisation):

1. Have a cultural vision. Don’t leave it to chance. Have a crystal clear picture of the culture you and your team want. Keep it simple and practical.

2. Talk about it – over and over again. Use multiple forums (big and small) to conduct this conversation. Tell lots of stories that win hearts and minds. Avoid PowerPoint.

3. Celebrate and share small, early wins. If it’s clearly related to your cultural vision make sure the largest possible number of people know what happened and why.

4. Don’t let things fester. Give cynics and non-conformists honest, constructive feedback about their behaviours straight away. Avoid promoting people that haven’t actively promoted your cultural vision – through words and deeds.

5. Get to new recruits early. Share your cultural vision at the interview – ask candidates what they have done – in the last week – to contribute to their teams culture.

At best, 1 in 1000 teams have a well balanced humanistic-performance culture. The overwhelming majority under emphasis humanity and performance at work – which is bad for the people, the institution and its shareholders. Ironically, changing that isn’t contingent on learning anything new – but unlearning new concepts that mask our evolutionary instincts: producing a result, innovating, growing and striving for the highest standard.

Independent Agents

Independent agents are already “owners.” They own their business, their time and the choice of projects they work on. Using independent agents means that an organization can assemble teams for temporary periods of time, anywhere form a few weeks to a few years, but each project is essentially a time-bound gig. The best performing organizations have a loose network of folks who they bring together very quickly, and then disband and reform them as needed.

Imagine having an internal Facebook where employees pitch their profile of various professional skills, and can be searched regardless of which department they report to or what their job title is. Internal customers sponsoring the work assemble their team based on their skills profile and price bid. Sponsors may even have the Amazon/eBay like ability to see a social peer rating on the candidates based on previous customers.

Operating this way allows an organization to maximize its investment. Everyone is properly motivated: the organization wants to pick the best ideas and employees want to deliver their best work, because otherwise they lose their security.

Capitalism At Its Best

Society based on a healthy entrepreneurial class creates a resilient economy of small, free-flowing markets that is less prone to wild swings. In a monolithic economy, if one corporation or industry even stutters, as we have seen in the wake of the 2009 economic crisis, there is damaging a ripple effect. No one thing should ever be too big to fail.

Next Steps You Can Take

Organizations that want to engage differently with their workforces should:

1. Look at your current employee base as more of a resource pool rather than pigeonholed specialists bound by a job description or duty statement. Instead, see them as talented individuals with a brain and many facets they could contribute if we – management – could just get the hell out of their way.

2. Shift the ratio of work from manager-assigned, to employees whose job is to identify tasks and pitch them to management, like small-business owners. And then give them the freedom to coordinate with coworkers how to accomplish the pitch.

3. Replace the death grip on roles with a crystal focus on goals. Shift job descriptions to talk more about the goals the company is trying to accomplish rather than scripting the day-to-day activities.

The key that will make this work in modern society is that you tap into a network of resources by quickly searching, recruiting, connecting, pitching, and evaluating the people and their networks’ performance. This may seem radical, but if you look around all the pieces are there. It’s just up to the organization and its leaders – you – to stitch them together.

So, what do you think? Share your thoughts with us below.

The stresses that an organization faces range from pressure to provide more value to its customers, the expectation to be more nimble in the face of change and to keep its costs as low as possible – that means it cannot be saddled with expensive non-performing assets. The major category of “non-performing” or “underperforming” assets is employees. However, an “under-performing” employee isn’t limited to the usually lingering dredges that everyone agrees is past their time to go.  Even your super stars can find themselves under-utilized given the high rate of change.

Ownership

Well intended organizations are taking up the mantra that employees need a sense of ownership with their work. But pushing ownership on someone who by definition isn’t an “owner” sounds like pushing a rope.  How can we work around this and still find ways to foster a sense of ownership for our team?

My argument is that organizations can take advantage of individuals who pursue job security through work flexibility. These individuals diversify their portfolio of unique skill sets so they have the capacity to be productive on more than one type of job. By being more marketable and cross functional, they have a higher resilience to sudden shocks because they can switch to secondary strategies seamlessly. An organization that not only accesses its human talent differently, but also fosters and encourages this shift will be strategically positioned for success when compared to its competitors who may not operate so progressively.

The future of organizations is clear: success will be based on who attracts talent in a fluid fashion and brings the talent together to develop and deliver products on an as needed basis. Why not take the next step to let these intrepreneurs become truly entrepreneurs and have all the ownership they want? By cultivating strategic networks of independent agents, organizations can have the talent they need from folks with a history AND a vested interest to serve at their best.

Tomorrow we’ll conclude and look at what intrepreneurs looks like and what you can do to engage this type of workforce.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share them below.

Although Wake Up & Shake It Up officially ended on June 30th, we’re delighted to share Lee Scott’s 3-part blog series.  Part one looks at the individual level and your contribution to increase your value.  Parts 2 and 3 take the organizational perspective…more on this tomorrow  Lee is an astonishing leader, coach, and human being.  He is the founder of Unleashing Leaders and a partner at Achieved Strategies.  At Unleashing Leaders, Lee works to inspire an epidemic of leadership and integrity by modeling the way.

For too long we’ve operated with false assumptions about the world; mainly that the status quo (the job I’ve had for 10 years) is the most likely future scenario, and major shifts are unlikely – i.e. As long as I’m loyal to my company, I will be rewarded with promotions, bonuses and a great retirement package after the next 15 years or so.

Loyalty is Dead

But if you really think about it, isn’t it unrealistic to expect one organization and one job to be rewarding and fulfilling for the next 30 years? The question doesn’t shock Generation Y, who truly looks at jobs as gigs rather than a life-long career.

If you want to have a satisfying professional life, it’s going to take more than one gig to feel like you’re contributing, growing, learning and interested in your work. Take that one step further: can we even expect that performing the same job over the course of a 5-day workweek will satisfy all of those things?

The illusion of job security through corporate loyalty is thankfully dying, because loyalty is not viable or sustainable through golden handcuffs.

Flexibility Equals Security

True job security is found in individual freedom, or by finding ways to be more flexible with how we work. How do we find work flexibility? It’s a matter of thinking about the unique talents you bring and different ways to express them.

For example, I used to work 70 hours a week for one corporation. Sometimes I took a day off to freelance or do some consulting. It was a coping strategy. Because I had reached a plateau, taking side projects was an outlet for my other interest areas and skills.

What has truly satisfied me is being an independent entrepreneur. I have multiple clients with myriad needs, which provides diversity, and lets me do business based on relationships. Operating this way not only makes me a more marketable contributor, but also it increases my job security – I know there will be future opportunities because I’m not so specialized that I’m a One-Note-Johnny who does only one thing.

In some fields specialization does make the most sense, but even within those fields the best strategy is to be what some folks call a “generalizing specialist.” You have a theme or domain of expertise, but you also have a portfolio of diverse skills that can be played out in different ways to support that specialty.

Next Steps

If you’re an individual who wants to increase your value either in your current job or in the marketplace, try these next steps:

1. Identify your strengths and areas of interest so that you can develop a portfolio of skills.
2. Identify connections or overlap between your interests and skills.
3. Identify opportunities that can enhance those complementary skills.

Throughout the month guest bloggers provided insights into how you can shake up your leadership style.  But more specifically, shake up your leadership style to reconnect with and inspire your employees and restore optimism back in the workplace.  Thank you to all the guest bloggers. You contributed amazing ideas and suggestions.

This wasn’t a “let’s all hug and all will be fine” blog series.  We provided insights to shake up your leadership style and to wake up from relying on familiar, even routine, leadership actions that may not inspire people who help to create the results you want/need.  Business is always changing. You, too, need to adjust with the changes.

The undercurrent to all the blog posts was that we must relate to each other as people, not as a means to increase profit or remove costs.  Even difficult decisions like layoffs can be executed and be done with a people-centered approach.

My ultimate dream for this blog series is that you find inspiration in one of the blog posts and “get some on you.” That’s my attempt to be poetic instead of saying apply the idea that inspired you.

Indeed we live in extraordinary times. With so much crap going on in our world, there are equal if not greater amounts of fantastic things people are doing to make a difference.

We know you are out there making a difference. Please continue to do so. And do so with the thought and action that you are never done learning about who you are as a leader.

Be bold.

Be brilliant.

Remember, who you’re being will influence how others view themselves. You have that much influence.

Focus on how you show up for your people and help them realize how great they are.

Epilogue

We had great conversations with many of the blog posts in this series.

So, we are taking the insights shared plus the blog posts and creating a special eBook.

In about a week or so we’ll have a way for you to sign up and receive the complimentary eBook automatically.  In the meantime, if you missed one of the blog posts, go here to read, or reread your favorites.  Feel free to comment.  You could be in the eBook.

We continue the Wake Up and Shake It Up blog series with me.  We’re winding down the series that’s generated tons of conversation. Let’s keep it goin

The gloves are coming off.  This month you’ve read 12 different bloggers’ posts on the why and how leaders need to shake up how they show up as leaders.  I asked the guest bloggers to challenge you and your thinking about what your leadership needs to be to make a difference in your organization…today.  That’s why we called it Wake Up & Shake It Up.

Let me revisit a point I made recently: Atrocious reminders of what happens when a leader places profit before people surround us (BP, Toyota, Massey Energy, Enron, Radio Shack, and so on.) It’s short-term thinking that may help the balance sheets. And the intricate connections that bind employees and the organization tears a little more. The outcome, employees become more disconnected from the organization’s purpose.   And more and more employees simply show up, “plug-in” to do their work, and “unplug” at the end of the day.  No joy. No passion. Lack-luster performance. Lack-luster profits.

Damn it!

What is it going to take to recognize that profit and people doesn’t need to be an either or choice? We need you and all other leaders to remember that the people who show up to work are in a relationship with you.  And many of the relationships out there need some repair.  This may not apply to you.  Try this.  Answer the three questions below to see if you have some repairing to do.  If you answer the questions below and are disappointed in your answer, you need to plan how to reconnect with your employees.

• How have I nurtured the relationship between my employees and me?
• What is my way of being that is driving my thoughts and actions?
• What am I not seeing, and who can help shine light into my blind spot(s)?

I believe at the heart of people and organizational success is how you view your employees.  If you see employees merely as objects, you are capping the heights of success.  If you see employees as people, recognize that they have a story to tell, and have a life outside work then you’ve removed the cap.

Okay, so where am I going with all this? It’s this: We need you and every leader to shake up how you show up to lead your employees. Wake up to what you’re doing that’s not working. No more rationalizing actions.

So, what can you do to reconnect with your employees? Here’s a list to get you thinking and planning your next steps.

1. If you laid off employees, stop secretive senior leadership trips to upscale hotels and resorts. Hold them onsite or at a local hotel.
2. Prepare middle-managers to start conversations with staff who may be struggling with the loss of coworkers, increased work loads, longer hours – give the anger/pain a voice and deal with it, don’t pass it off as the employees’ responsibility. You made the decision. Help them.
3. Invite employees to identify processes that are cumbersome, cause errors, time consuming and have them participate in streamlining them.  Pass the savings to the workforce.
4. Evaluate your customer service levels and surveys? Have they taken a hit? Is there a relationship between decisions that impacted the workforce and service level scores? Share your insights with your team, the organization. Identify next steps.
5. Locate areas in the business where performance is high. Observe what’s going on. Inquire into why things are going so well.  Determine what you can learn from the observations/inquiries and duplicate in other areas.
6. Spend personal time writing down what you stand for as a leader. Apply that to how you help people become rock stars in their work.
7. Learn the change curve and how to coach people through the different stages of change.
8. Remember that what you do will be viewed with some skepticism. Mindfully reconnect with people by openly sharing what you’re doing and why. Be transparent. Be consistent.  Encourage conversation.
9. Don’t pay your senior leaders big bonuses and tell employees that they won’t get much of a pay increase. This is outdated corporate crap that is eroding employee trust.

Let’s hear your list. Share them below.  Remember, we want to include your comments in the special eBook to commemorate this special blog series that comes out in July.

Cyrus Aram is the Director of Strategy & Operations, helping to lead the GTS Transformation. He brings over 17 years of private and public sector experience in the areas of customer strategy, business transformation, planning, program, change and quality management.

Business Transformation.

Two words which in the domain of both public and private sector carry definitions which are as diverse as they are numerous.

For sake of this blog, let’s say “transformation” allows you to move from your current organizational state to a desired future state (sound logical?).

The next step surely is to present a consultant triangle around transformation- take a look at the one below.

Perhaps you have spent many years trying to balance these worlds of People, Process and Tool.  Perhaps you have seen articles that allocate the percent success factor each of these dimensions carry upon your critical, strategic initiative.

I have bad news to share.

While this “triple constraint” is important (heck I have made a good living off of managing them), the underlying Big Play (defined as a real important thing to pay attention to) is NOT the People, Process and Technology of an organization but the CULTURE in which they operate.

Culture in my plain English term is the set of norms that govern an organization.

Show me a culture where a high sense of urgency exists, change is seen as a constant then I will characterize one transformation plan.

Show me a culture that is complacent, slow to move, then the transformation road map takes a very different turn.

I’d love to hear your responses. Share them below.