There is a growing concern about the decline of loyalty to one’s workplace and of work satisfaction. This decline can greatly impact productivity and innovation, which then contributes to a vicious cycle of continual decline. Companies, as well as non-profits and public employers, all want to do better. How can the workplace be made more attractive and fulfilling, especially to young, talented millennials who have so much talent and energy to offer?
To answer that question, we can look at family businesses, for they have long had a reputation for creating “spirit”—a special sense of belonging, participation and commitment among employees. This spirit derives from the values of the owning family, their loyalty to employees and long-term commitment to quality. People who work in such an environment feel a special bond with the business, what it stands for and what it does. They also feel a bond with each other and with customers, suppliers and their home community. Spirit represents a deep, rejuvenating capability to get results in a way that respects and enhances the wellbeing of everyone involved in the enterprise as well as the long-term viability of the business.
Why do people want to be in touch with spirit in their workplace? For many reasons. First, work feels more meaningful when people can see the connection between what they do and something greater. Second, spirit helps people get aligned so that they are all working together towards the same end to create positive results. Third, spirit motivates people to higher levels of effort and performance. Fourth, spirit helps people trust and respect each other, leading to more open, sensitive and supportive relationships. Finally, spirit helps workplaces connect to a higher purpose that goes beyond the work itself, perhaps linking the organization to issues of social or environmental responsibility.
Spirit is not something that can be “bought” or imposed within a company. But workplaces that offer meaning and attract commitment do exhibit these common qualities that stem from their culture and operating values:
1. They help employees find their inner purpose and mission.
Asking employees why they do the work they do, what is important about it, and how they can best do what is needed creates an awakening of spirit that serves two functions. It encourages people to find their own sense of purpose and mission instead of trying to figure out what the organization or others want, and it gives them an opportunity to think of ways they can do something special at work. The personal purposes that emerge might focus on such issues as respecting other people, creating an environment where people can do their best work, completing a special project or helping their group achieve a goal.
In addition, this focus on personal mission helps teams learn how each member wants to be recognized and what matters most to them about their work. As a result, people begin to feel more linked to each other and more caring, trusting and supportive as a team.
2. They use collaboration to define the company's vision.
People work more effectively when they understand how their work fits in with the big picture. But as demands from customers, competitors and the environment shift constantly, employees can easily get confused about what they are supposed to be doing and how their work can really make a difference to the organization. In response, organizations can align the efforts of many around a set of common values and principles and a vision for the future. This vision is not static but must be updated and redefined continually.
A meaningful vision is not just a top-down effort. True, the top leadership, including founders or owners, set a stake in the ground. But to tap into spirit, employees throughout the organization need to be engaged to link the vision to their own work and define it in relation to their own environment. These collective experiences and ideas can be used to revise and develop the vision further. As a result of this collaboration, the final vision is something that everyone in the organization can feel part of and hold within themselves as they work. This fosters work satisfaction, self-esteem and proactive participation.
3. They define and sustain clear values and policies about working together.
Organizations that emanate spirit are those that uphold such values as treating customers and employees with respect, helping other people do their job, and looking for creative new ideas. In contrast, organizations that value power and conformity will show this by supporting these practices: competition for every job, the primacy of individual results, treating people lower in the organization as inferior, not listening to or respecting new ideas, and making pleasing the boss the ultimate goal.
Many workplaces believe that people work better when motivated by fear. But research has shown that people work best when they feel valued, are praised, get feedback and do not feel intimidated. Thus, adopting values that embody respect for the employee and the capability of each person is a spiritual principle that is rooted in the psychology of motivation.
4. They tap into people's inner creativity and wisdom.
Most workplaces rarely tap into the deeper levels of creativity and wisdom of all their employees. While they readily ask for time, they ask for only a small percentage of each employee’s talent and ideas. In such workplaces, the phrase “why bother?” crops up all too often—when people know something positive that could be done but don’t feel that their ideas are encouraged or that they can have any impact.
This paradigm is based on the old assumption that a few people at the top act as the creators and the rest follow along. Yet today, given the speed of innovation and continual global change, many organizations find that many, if not all, of their employees must exercise judgment and creativity daily—in working with customers, in rethinking products or services and in looking for opportunities to leverage what they have. And organizations are now realizing that the way they involve their people will determine how much of themselves their employees will be willing to share.
Furthermore, practices that build creative exchange in groups and teams increasingly have a spiritual aspect, incorporating such techniques as meditation, deep reflection and looking inward—techniques that are a time-honored part of many cultural traditions.
5. They cultivate emotional intelligence in work relationships.
A workplace can enhance its emotional intelligence by encouraging people to listen to each other, respect other points of view, and engage others with sensitivity rather than intimidation. Such practices build trust and fairness and ultimately make the workplace a desirable place to be.
Emotional intelligence comes when these practices are integral to the functioning of a company, which means that managers and supervisors will lead not by the power of their authority but by building consensus, inviting participation, and encouraging all employees to put their own stamp on the workplace. Sometimes talented people lack these skills, but a workplace that teaches and rewards them will have more spirit and more success.
6. They create a climate of dialogue and discovery.
Dialogue is a way of allowing a conversation to flow and develop by combining the ability to listen to oneself, to look at one’s assumptions and personal responses to others and to listen to and be open to the ideas and experiences of others. In dialogue, people learn from each other and themselves and build a shared reality that can be applied to solve a business problem, develop a team, resolve a deep conflict between members of a group or develop a strategy or plan for implementation. Organizations that support dialogue encourage employees to be less concerned with advocating their own views than with inquiring into how these views came to be and testing them in light of the reactions of others.
7. They develop managers' skills as facilitators and mentors.
Positive workplaces teach their managers the skills of leading by involvement, emotional intelligence, dialogue and discovery. Many managers say that this is how they want to lead, but what stops them is a combination of the following: a lack of role models; insufficient feedback about their behavior with and effect on the people around them; not having the skills to manage this way; and/or the inability to deal with the consequential feelings of loss of control and uncertainty.
Once an organization’s leaders and/or owners understand the power of these values and practices, they can set out to integrate them within their own workplace and ensure that they are supported by people at all levels of the organization—and rewarded within the company culture. Yes, they will need to develop learning processes that teach people new ways and help them begin to practice them. But the end result will be enriching for all: an environment of good will and mutual respect with a felt, shared sense of a greater purpose. This will be an environment where people want to work, a workplace with spirit.
