The one activity that defines our lives in the 21st century is work. It is what all of us are expected to commit a large part of our lives to doing. In preparation for this life of work we first go to school and after 14 years of education we go to college for at least another 4. Then we begin our careers and work for the rest of our productive lives.
It is generally assumed that work is necessary to earn a livelihood. Therefore our purpose for living becomes earning a livelihood. Most young people often dive into the challenge without giving it a second thought. After all we are by nature a competitive species and need to prove ourselves against our peers and so the work place becomes a sorting ground. An environment for dispensing reward, or punishment. Both status and financial success are the means for the allocation of this reward.
This is why most places of work, most organisations are fundamentally competitive, both within organisations and between organisations. Generally we find that in organisations where financial reward is not hugely at stake, the issue we compete over is status.
But all of us at some point in our lives, either when we have ‘made’ it, and we realise success is not all it was cut out to be, or when its time to retire and and we can see the end in sight, ask a basic question: Is this all life is about? This acquisition of things and proving of oneself over and over again.
The contention of this essay is that there is more to this experience and that the answer does not lie outside the the work space, but within it. The answer in fact lies in the central element that defines our work life which is is our relationship to the organisation we work for, and more directly the person we work for – our boss.
What determines this relationship is our Intent. As long as we believe our purpose is to get something out of work, money, status power, we spend our lives on this fundamentally unfulfilling and competitive roundabout.
To understand the notion of Intent we need to consider it alongside with what gains our attention. What is it that we generally give our attention to? As human beings our default position is to give attention to what we are going to get from life. This usually fall into four categories: respect, security, fulfilment and harmony.
If we don’t realise that from moment to moment, instant to instant, what we are going to get from life is not in our hands, we remain victims, defined by the other. That includes our friends, family or boss. On the other hand if we give attention to what we are able to give to the other, that is always in our control. Therefore when we focus attention on what we are giving we become invulnerable. What this means is that our experience of life is not determined by the other, but by our own Intent.
Therefore life’s journey in this modern age, which is focused around our work, is actually about a process of maturation. Of realising through our work and that real fulfilment, happiness and success is in the contribution we make to existence and that the unique element that each one of us bring is to existence IS life’s purpose. We can then use our experience of working to polish our intent by deliberately focusing our attention on giving what the moment requires rather than worrying about what we are getting from the moment.
If we realised that the purpose of all economic activity is not to make a bigger pie, faster cars and more air-conditioners, but the maturation of human beings that perform it, we could change the whole nature of our work experience.
To enable this change we must first change the nature of the relationship of the leader, the “boss”, with his subordinates. The leader needs to realise that he is not there to get something out of the worker. He must realise that his project IS the worker. It is this simple realignment of the function of the boss or leader, a re-calibration of the leader’s Intent, that is key to both organisational success and human excellence.
It is generally assumed that the job of a boss or a leader is to create more wealth, make his company number one and make the shareholders richer. To achieve this end he uses his people (human resources) to get to that goal.
This sets up the organisation for failure in the long term because essentially people don’t like to be used, even if they are getting paid for it. The basis of such a relationship then becomes, “Let me get the most that I can, while giving as little as I can”.
Employees need to realise that the role of their leader is to enable his people through their Care and Growth. Care includes being both supportive and nurturing. Growth on the other hand includes making sure employees have the means, ability and accountability framework within which to grow. Its not always about being nice, it is about being appropriate.
If the workers believe their boss, their company, is there to in fact give them both Care and Growth, rather then being there to simply get work out of them, they work because they want to, not because they have to.
People essentially work for one of these two reasons. Either because they WANT to work or because they HAVE to work. People who work because they have to, work as long as the boss is watching. People who work because they want to, who have developed the maturity to realise their fulfilment lies in the contribution they make not in the pay check or title they have received, will go the extra mile.
Therefore the success of the company is not the goal of leadership. The success of the company is in fact a by product of encouraging the growth of enabled, committed and mature people.
It is for this reason that we say that people don’t exist to serve organisations, organisations exist to enable people. If the members of an organisation believe that the company exists fundamentally to look after them, and push them to grow, the success of the company is almost guaranteed because they will give of themselves willingly. Then the boss wont have to get work out of them.
The critical variable in this equation therefore is the Intent of the boss or leader. Is he there to serve his people through their care and growth, or does he believe his people are they there to serve him and the company?