Schuitema maintains that this intent is the key to unlocking all areas of human excellence. Our proposals have therefore been constructed around creating an ‘ethic of contribution’ within an organisation. This theme has struck a chord with clients and we have had various people ask us to elaborate.
The desire to create an ‘ethic of contribution’ is easy to understand. Organisations only succeed to the extent that the average employee comes to work to willingly to give more than they take, to make a positive contribution to the organisation. This requires certain kinds of behaviour in the employees. We want them to be diligent, respectful, honest, innovative, persevering and display integrity. We would typically call these behaviours ‘work ethic’, but it seems that there is a real lack of it in many organisations.
The issue of ‘work ethic’ has always been with us, but it has been heightened since the turn of the millenium with the scandals that have sunk entire organisations, starting with Enron and Worldcom, and peaking with the collapse in the financial sector in 2008-2009. In many professional courses, Ethics is now a compulsory subject as business schools and universities try and turn the tide. And yet, consistently during my training sessions, people talk about the challenges they face regarding the lack of work ethic, particularly amongst the ‘younger generation’. The ‘younger generation’ quite rightly point out that it was the ‘older generation’ that caused the above scandals and collapses in the first place.
The idea of ‘work ethic’ was initially coined by Max Weber in 1904 in his book ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’. The Protestants, beginning with Luther, had a very different view of work to that held by the Catholics. Luther taught that all stations in life could glorify God, not just those within the church, such as monks. Therefore, it didn’t matter if you were a woodcutter, a farmer, a servant or a lord, you could still go about your day in service to God. This brought meaning into people’s lives and was demonstrated by hard work, frugality, honesty, perseverance and integrity. These virtues, or values, were summarised as ‘work ethic’.
The Schuitema thematic holds that individuals are surrounded by the ‘other’. What we get comes to us from the other, while what we give goes from us to the other. We have very little control over what we get, but absolute control over what we give. We therefore have power when we focus on what we give, but quite weak when we pay attention to what we are trying to get. When we act on the basis of what we want to get, we are paying attention to our needs, whereas when we act on the basis of what we should give, we are paying attention to our values. Clearly, it requires a higher degree of self-sacrifice and self-control to act on the basis of our values.
Every value, or virtue, that is ascribed to ‘work ethic’ requires a degree of self-sacrifice, or giving oneself to the task at hand. The complaint about the lack of work ethic, then, can be reduced to the point that people are too focused on their personal needs and trying to get as much as they can for giving as little as they can in as short amount of time as possible. The unbridled greed of various scandals can certainly be attributed to this. People may have worked very hard at fleecing the system, but would anyone argue that this practice was representative of ‘good work ethic’? What may look like good ethic can only be determined once you understand the intent behind it.
The Schuitema framework for empowerment shows that before we can hold someone accountable, we first need to give them Means and Ability. Ability has two components: ‘How’ and ‘Why’. Of these, ‘Why’ is the more important, since it provides the motivation to keep doing what you are doing. If you only know how to do the job, but have no understanding of why it makes a difference, there is little motivation to keep doing it. With lack of motivation comes lack of engagement, low willingness and morale, boss-worker relationships that resemble ongoing negotiations, incentive programs that fail and high staff turnover.
When we think about the values mentioned above, we find that the list is essentially a list of ‘Hows’. ‘Work hard’. ‘Be diligent’. ‘Show attention to detail’. ‘Be honest’. ‘Display integrity’. ‘Be disciplined and responsible’. These are nothing more than a list of how we want employees to work. None of these values, in and of themselves, explain why we should do these things. People don’t know ‘Why’ they should do all these things and there is little motivation to continue doing so.
If an organisation finds itself wanting to address issues around work ethic, they need to first ask how the organisational culture is contributing to the malaise. People will only give themselves to a cause which they believe in, something which they see as bigger than themselves; reference the Protestants who were the subject of Weber’s observations. Their work ethic was based on a deeper understanding of their lives that kept them motivated to retain their values. Organisations need to understand this need for something bigger if they want to see people coming to work and giving unconditionally. Organisations need to define their vision, mission and strategies in ways that tap into people’s passion. We call it ‘the benevolent intent’ of the organisation.
People who are passionate about what their organisations do come to work with an intent to help the organisation achieve its goals, to support their peers and set them up for success, to empower their subordinates and to grow themselves. This is what an ‘ethic of contribution’ looks like. How do they do this? They employ the values that we define as a positive ‘work ethic’. Extend this to society at large, where it is easy to observe the decay in social ethics. For many people, there is a lack of higher purpose in life. The result is a focus on maximising personal accumulation, on how much they can get, rather than on maximising their contribution. It is detrimental in society, and as we have seen, it can tear an organisation apart.
In order to create an ethic of contribution within an organisation, we must first define what contribution the organisation is going to make that will light the fires of passion within its employees. When employees feel they are working for a greater purpose, they will seek to maximise their own contribution towards that cause. Define the ‘benevolent intent’ of the organisation in such a way that it creates an ethic of contribution and expect an automatic revival in the work ethic, too!