Work...ON Purpose!
Posted on April 22, 2017 by Mark Myette, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
The blog! Work...ON PURPOSE! It more than showing up!
“70% OF SUCCESS IS SHOWING UP.” WOODY ALLEN
Seems simple enough…
The irony in the number Allen refers – 70% – is it’s EXACTLY 70% of people in the workforce are doing JUST that – showing up…! 70% (7 out of 10) are DIS-ENGAGED! (Source: Gallup) There’s something amiss in the workforce that’s causing such high disengagement…
So, if you “go to work” this blog addresses how YOU – should “show up”, how to maximize YOUR role and your responsibility in it! Not only will YOU benefit but your key constituents will reap the benefits!
This blog also supplements a previous blog: 5 Steps to Make Work…Not Work!
For the sake of this blog, we’ll start at the top and work down the “work” pyramid…since the work environment, it’s people, and it’s place in the marketplace is shaped / defined by top leadership.
Business Owner / Entrepreneur
If you’re a reader of my blogs you know I have a certain propensity toward this person – the business owner, or aspiring owner. SEE: Wantrepreneur: Do You Have What it Takes? OR Making a Case for Career Polygamy… So, for this blog, let’s start here for the person who sets the tone for work…
Starting their business means they wore many hats — often at the same time. The smaller and newer the business, the more roles they are likely to have to fill. As their business scales, they gradually hire employees and contractors to assume some of these roles: Business Planner, Human Resources Specialist, Office Manager, Marketing Expert, and Bookkeeper and Accountant…
So, the FOCUS of the business owner is VERY different than any other of the roles below. Think of Steve Jobs of Apple – part 1 – when HE and Steve Wozniak formed the company. He had a very different approach during his Apple Start-Up phase…SEE “leader” section below…
Questions Business Owner / Entrepreneur should be asking themselves:
- What more can I give?
- What more can I learn?
- How can I personally advance the team / organization / company mission?
- How can I shine?
- Whom can I help?
Business Owner / Entrepreneur…ON Purpose!
- Vision – HAVE it.
- Culture – DEFINE it / LIVE it.
- Values – EXUDE them (NO poster for their office wall required to remind them.)
- Adaptable – lie a Swiss Army knife.
- Role Model – much like a parent, their words don’t mean much if their actions don’t align.
Leader
Leadership is the action of leading employees to achieve goals. It plays an important role in employee performance and productivity. A good leader, works with the business owner / founder to set a clear vision by influencing employees to understand and accept the future state of the organization.
So what does this mean for leadership in work? Leaders’ intentions and actions make them heroic. AND we need to appreciate the collective aspects of leadership. What is a collective act of leadership? An example might be Steve Jobs – part 2. When he came back to the company, after being fired previously, he demonstrated heroic leadership by refocusing the company on innovating to recover their falling market share and stock / company value. How did that strategy come about? I’ll bet there were many conversations with other leaders that created the strategy.
Questions Leaders should be asking themselves:
- What more can I give?
- What more can I learn?
- How can I personally advance the team / organization / company mission?
- How can I shine?
- Whom can I help?
Leader…ON Purpose!
- Self Aware – DEMONSTRATE emotional intelligence (AKA EQ)!
- Interpreter – TRANSLATE the vision from the founder.
- Recruiter – HIRE slow.
- Teacher – LEAD by example.
- Coach – exude it.
Manager
The manager’s role and job description are at a pay grade and job classification level of the organization that integrates functions and departments for implementation success. The manager responsible for a department normally has directly reporting employees for whom he or she has leadership responsibility.
Managers ensure employees are doing their jobs correctly, thoroughly, and on time. expectations and goals are clear. … objectives and goals are being met or exceeded.
Questions Managers should be asking themselves:
- What more can I give?
- What more can I learn?
- How can I personally advance the team / organization / company mission?
- How can I shine?
- Whom can I help?
Manager…ON Purpose!
- Self Aware – High EQ
- Attracts Talent – are always recruiting.
- Interpreter – translate their team’s unique gifts / talents.
- Teacher – lead by example.
- Coach – coach constantly (NOT just quarterly / semi / annually)
Co-Worker
While managers are vital for an employee’s success and sense of place in an organization, a recent study finds that co-workers play a more important role in ensuring a co-worker’s happiness at her job. An expansive study from employee engagement company, TINYpulse, examined a range of trends in the workplace.
Prominent among their findings was that employee happiness is 23.3 percent more correlated to connections with co-workers than with direct supervisors.
The “TINYpulse Engagement Survey,” which drew on 40,000+ responses from co-workers at 300+ companies worldwide, found there was a correlation coefficient of 0.92 between employees’ happiness and their relationships with co-workers. The correlation between co-workers’ happiness and relationships to direct managers was just 0.74.
When employees were asked “What do you love about your job?” their overwhelming responses were:
- Immediate team
- Colleagues.
- Freedom / Responsibility
- Culture / Atmosphere
- Variety / Learning
- Challenges
As for what co-workers are looking for in their fellow team members (with percent of respondents):
- Collaboration & communication – 44.3%
- Knowledge skills & talent – 26.4%
- Positive attitude – 24.5%
- Fun – 4.8%
Questions Co-Workers should be asking themselves:
- What more can I give?
- What more can I learn?
- How can I personally advance the team / organization / company mission?
- How can I shine?
- Whom can I help?
Co-Worker…ON Purpose!
- Self-Aware – High EQ
- Coachable – need to be approachable / willing to be given feedback.
- Lean In – understand their gifts and lean in on them.
- Aligned values
- Adaptable
Stakeholders
The term ‘Stakeholder’ is a broad term that applies to: People inside the organization, but usually outside of the team, who are in some way affected by the other groups. Typically Stakeholders will be users of the output from a project or benefit from its introduction.
Stakeholders…ON Purpose!
- Good team player
- Aligned values
Other “On Purpose” Blogs!
- Fill-In-The-Blank…ON Purpose
- Life…ON Purpose!
- 80K Hour Clock…ON Purpose!
- Career…ON Purpose!
My best in your quest.
Mark
I believe each of us is a gift. I create trusted relationships where individuals, teams and leaders NAME, CLAIM and AIM their gifts to achieve optimum performance.
