Putting Humanity First in Our
Organizations
Each month I receive an email with a preview of the latest
leadership books. There are always five or six new entrants in this already
crowded field. Meanwhile, my Twitter feed overflows with three steps, five
tips, and seven ways to improve engagement, build trust, and employ
mindfulness.
Yet with all this knowledge
available, employees don’t seem to feel as if they are being led any more
skillfully than in the past. In my travels, I encounter people frustrated by
seemingly arbitrary rules, vague visions, out-of-touch bosses, and a lack of
development opportunities. They are confused by labor laws and company
policies, which often are evolving more slowly than the work arrangements of an agile, tech-enabled economy.
Further, data
from Gallup has shown that workforce engagement has
hovered around 30 percent for years.
This is why I was stopped
cold recently by a simple formula for effective leadership. In the book The
Leadership Challenge, by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, first
published in 1983, a CEO offers this straightforward philosophy: Grow
the company profitably. Share the wealth with employees. Ensure that everyone
is having fun.
As I reflected on this direct and open prescription, I wondered
why anyone has ever felt the need to write anything else on how to run an
organization. This seemed like an intensely prudent yet humane approach to
business. Growth satisfies investors and provides funds to increase internal
rewards, sustain training, and fuel ongoing innovation. Sharing the wealth
reflects consideration for the full range of stakeholders: employer, employee,
and shareholder. And what better way to measure employee engagement than by
people enjoying what they do? If you can pull off all three, it seems logical
that the organization will thrive.
Perhaps, I wondered, we could take significant steps forward by
forgoing fancy formulas and returning to the principles articulated back in
1983, being mindful to incorporate the changes brought by globalization,
technological advances, and the increased diversity in the workforce.
To test my hypothesis, I reached out and interviewed people who
are focused on engagement and leader development. I asked them to react to the
quote from Kouzes and Posner’s book. While generally embracing the idea, each
of them added important nuance that strongly emphasized humanity.
Focus on culture.
Organizational psychologist
Nicole Lipkin said that humanity “is the crux of everything” in organizations,
yet “we've gone against human nature in how we’ve designed them.” She said that
excessive rules go against the “sticky culture” of a great team, one on which
people appreciate one another and their respective contributions. Instead,
these rules instill fear of stepping out-of-bounds. That stifles the
willingness to treat people as people.
Lipkin summarized people’s
needs using the SLAM model: social connection, leadership excellence, aligned
culture, and meaningful life. “No matter how old you are, or your
status, these are the things we need as humans,” she said. “We underestimate
the social connections — they can make a mediocre job enjoyable. It
requires leaders to pay attention to the pulse of the culture. We are so busy
rewarding for performance that we forget to reward for the behaviors that make
an organization a great place to work.” Lipkin noted that the expectations
millennials have for flexibility, investment in their development, and
work–life integration actually play more into our psychological
need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness and how we naturally interact with people than do
industrial-age structures.
Give and take.
Leadership coach and former
Inc. 500 CEO Alden Mills is a former Navy SEAL, and thus has learned from a
group renowned for its leadership excellence. He told me that “to lead is to
serve and to serve is to care.” There, once again, is the importance of
humanity. Mills noted that although people want to be part of something larger
than themselves, they also want a reciprocal process. Executives who expect
employees to be all in for the mission yet treat them as disposable units of
production fail to understand the second half of the equation. “Truly great
companies treat their employees like they treat their customers,” he said.
Stop to connect.
Modesta Lilian Mbughuni, a
serial entrepreneur and human-capital consultant from Tanzania, reflected that
when she launched her first venture, she thought that a vision that highlighted
substantial tangible rewards would be enough. It fell short. “The people must
have ownership in the vision,” she said. “They need to be enabled to accomplish
it. If there is one investment you should make, it is [in] people.” She looks
for service-oriented people who are interested in a purpose higher than
themselves. She noted that there is a relatively small pool of top talent in
Tanzania and multinationals can always pay them more. To attract and retain
this talent, “I had to continually ask myself, ‘What did I do by them?’”
Mbughuni said that those who aspire to lead have to be humans
first: truly “seeing people,” having genuine conversations, demonstrating
respect, and being willing to say “I don’t know.” Some executives shy away from
emotional encounters. She takes the opposite approach. “Sitting down for a
heart-to-heart talk can be messy,” she said. “However, ultimately we are more
efficient when we take time to stop and connect.”
Reframe the question.
Executive coach Michael
Bungay Stanier suggested a simple way for leaders to ask their subordinates
effective questions: Adding the words “to you” to the end. For example, “What
does this realignment mean?” invites abstract analysis. “What does this
realignment mean to you?” makes it much more personal. It injects
humanity into the conversation.
Commit to diversity.
Anka Wittenberg, chief
diversity and inclusion officer at global software firm SAP, is
concerned with the challenges of creating an aligned culture, which spans many
national boundaries, ethnic identities, and social norms. “I strongly believe
that if we give people opportunities to grow and have fun, the company will
grow,” she said. “However, some people are always left behind. Patterns and
processes don’t include those who are underrepresented, so we have to think
about the sustainability of the culture.”
To address culture sustainability, SAP has committed to actively
foster diversity with four focus areas: gender, generations, cultures and
identity, and disability. For example, the company met its goal of filling 25
percent of leadership roles with women this year. It has committed to hiring
650 people with autism by 2020; more than 110 have been hired so far.
Such initiatives open doors, though they also add complexity.
Here, I think that the final component of Lipkin’s model is useful: making work
part of a meaningful life. Meaning and satisfaction are derived through
building skills and achieving goals as well as through participation in a
welcoming culture. For example, Wittenberg noted that SAP’s research shows that
when members of the LGBT community can out themselves in an inclusive
environment, their productivity goes up 10 to 20 percent.
Should executives in 2017 revert to 1983? In some ways, yes —
organizations are still populated by people and thus humanity matters. Given
the increasing levels of technology, automation, and business rules that come
with the efficiency of enterprise-wide software systems, finding ways to
acknowledge people’s needs as humans is more important than ever. Globalization
and increased diversity in the workplace also require a human focus if we are
to create environments where as many employees as possible contribute to the
fullest extent of their abilities.
The three principles stand the test of time as guideposts for
thoughtful discussion of how to bring — and sustain — humanity in
your organization. Don’t restrict your thinking about humanity to just an
executive retreat and don’t be afraid of those messy conversations. “You must
serve your people so they can serve you,” Mbughuni said. “They want to see
their aspirations fulfilled —and they have options.” So, too, do leaders. I
suggest opting for profitable growth, sharing, and embracing a bit of fun.
Eric J. McNulty
https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Putting-Humanity-First-in-Our-Organizations?gko=3c982&utm_source=itw&utm_medium=20170815&utm_campaign=resp
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