While sitting on the beach last week (I know, rough life we leadership coaches lead) I was reading Josh Dykstra’s book Igniting the Invisible Tribe. If you know Josh’s work at all, you know that he has a great way of creating conversation and making you think. In the course of reading, reflecting on my own attitudes about work and work experience, this newsletter emerged. I suspect it will be more than one newsletter.
The quote got my attention because I’ve been pondering several questions about how we become overwhelmed and how it affects the quality of our work, our relationships and our lives in general. There is a lot to ‘listen’ to today. It is easy to feel overwhelmed. Our choices around what and who we ‘listen’ to can dramatically influence how overwhelmed we feel. As leaders, it is critical that we be aware of this and understand that most of us will ‘listen’ to that which is interesting to us, might have some impact on us, either now or later, what we are passionate about, and we agree with (like-minded). As leaders, it might be helpful, if we want to be listened to that we be:
- Interesting
- Passionate
- Finding, creating, and connecting people to like-minded communities
Why? Because in the course of engaging people we have to start with who/what they are listening to. There are at least two sides to the conversations within our organizations. There is the ‘head’ side (job expectations, resources, policies, directions, process, progress, results, performance) and there is also the ‘heart’ side (What do you want from this job? What does success look like? What do you care about and are interested in? What are your strengths and how might we best apply them? Who else is interested in what you are? How do I hook you up with other like-minded, similar or different ‘strengthed’ people to help create new solutions?).
Which conversations are more numerous in your organization? My suspicion is that the more numerous conversations are ‘head’ conversations, and this is how it should be. There are a lot of ‘moving parts’ in doing the work that we are hired to do. They require a lot of well thought out answers. It stands to reason that there would be a lot of ‘head’ discussions.
I submit for your consideration that the more ‘meaningful’ conversations in an organization are the ‘heart’ conversations. It is through these conversations that we either engage our people in the work, relationships, and value of our organization, or we don’t. Our attitude about work and what we want from work is evolving. I hear a lot of criticism of ‘Millennials’ from ‘Boomers’ about their approach to work, but if we look closely at those in the work force today we will see that:
- They want more meaning from their work
- They want more meaning from their relationships at work
- Money doesn’t have the same meaning for them, and therefore is not the same motivator
- They want to create more meaning
- They want greater collaboration
This is the part of their lens by which their engagement for their work is influenced. The other part of the ‘heart’ conversations surrounds the emotional ‘connectedness’ they feel around how well they fit in their job, department, organization; how clear they are about what they are there to do, the expectations, how they are measured, and the feedback they receive; how much support they feel in their work and as a person; how valued they feel; and if they believe they are doing meaningful work.
I will explore next time how this ‘connectedness,’ along with your evolving work attitudes, creates a powerful energy to change how you and your organization approach work.
For now, I will leave you with a question to consider – Does your organization and work energize you, or suck the life from you? Regardless of how you answer the question, think about the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ that is occurring.
Enjoy your time of considering.