Work can be enjoyable
if we are on purpose. One trend in management since the information age
has been an emphasis on right here, right now. The industrial age brought
us technology which helped us do more with less; that is, less people.
If we look at a listing
of occupations from 1890 we will notice that "Horse Shoe Expert"
doesn't show up on resumes nearly as often in 2000. Technology has created
a new listing of job descriptions, from web designer to CIO (Chief Information
Officer), which did not exist as long as even 30 years ago. With these new
jobs came a reduction in many of the older jobs - and a new set of rules.
With the new set of rules came new problems in the workplace.
One
of the problems is a tendency for management to address people at the lowest common denominator
and create new rules limiting personal freedom whenever an employee makes a
mistake.
Another
problem is the trend where companies protect themselves through legal documents
trying to avoid various types of lawsuits, from sexual harassment to
discrimination.
Contributing
to these problems is the prevalent usage of coercive management styles - creating rewards
for goals achieved and establishing a "do this, get that" mentality
among corporate workers. This style of management does not yield the
highest results.
What
does work is the following:
1. The Goals
Stating
goals as "attainable facts" will yield higher results. Effective goals are
clearly defined and easy to identify. An example would be: to
achieve double the amount of sales over the next six months from the previous
six months.
However,
the goal also needs to be stated INTRINSICALLY, not just as a number, but as
types of activities that are likely to yield success. An example would
be: to establish five new relationships where we feel our likelihood of
success will be higher than others over the next month. Another example
might be: to identify a new way of providing support to help our customers
work efficiently with our company.
2. The Activities
Certain
activities are more likely to yield success than others. Rather than
getting all bent on the number of calls a salesperson made last week, I'd rather
know what type of call or meeting the salesperson had which they feel might lead
to a better relationship and therefore yield future business from a client. I
call this "high probability selling" which not only keeps stress
low on the salesperson; it also builds more success.
The
aspects of work which are spiritual and emotional are as important as the
empirical (scientific) and logical so frequently reinforced in our measurement
systems.
How
can we measure something of spiritual value? This is the question that is
difficult for managers to quantify - so they discount it. An example might
be that someone just has a feeling about a new idea, so they believe further
research and development is warranted. Although we don't want to chase
after every half-cocked idea that comes along, we do want to consider as many
options to growing business or developing new products or services or methods of
doing things, right?
Well,
many companies say they do, but when push comes to shove - they just want you to
fit your square peg idea into their round hole. This is bad for you, bad
for them. AspireNow is encouraging companies to embrace new ideas that go
outside of the box. In doing so, we are all more likely to realize success
and say on-track with our purpose.
We
can set unique goals, in a spiritual manner, and be creative in the
process. I am a firm believer in using both methods of setting goals and
planning activities. By embracing our spirituality at work and trusting
our intuition, in combination with our traditional scientific methods of
planning, we will realize more fulfilling work results.
Scott
Andrews is CEO and Founder of AspireNow (www.AspireNow.com),
a leading business productivity and personal development firm based in
California. AspireNow helps organizations launch new products and
services, train sales teams, and innovatively change businesses through
cutting-edge business models and techniques to improve success. For more
information, contact Scott@AspireNow.com,
or visit http://www.AspireNow.com.
