Purpose and Meaning in Work I Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive and Founder, TWB_
02 Jan

Finding Purpose and Meaning in Work: Growth and Transformation in the Leadership

By TWB_ In Communication, Corporate Training, Leadership /  7 No Comments

Dreading work is common. That’s why weekends were invented. Ah, it’s the weekend! Oh, it’s Monday!! Or you have a new assignment or a new boss or a restructuring is going on or maybe you’re simply bored in your role. And you ask yourself the question: Why am I doing this? Does my work have any meaning?

The quest for “meaning at work” impacts every job productivity and retention metric. Consider this:

  • A survey of 12,000 employees across companies and industries found 50% lacked meaning and significance at work (see The Energy Project).
  • Employees who derive meaning from their work are 3 times as likely to stay with their organizations, have 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and 1.4 times more engagement with the company.
  • “Meaning at Work” impacts longevity and productivity positively more than other ‘job satisfiers’ including:
    • Learning and growth
    • Connection to a company’s mission, and
    • Work-life balance!

So what can companies do to make their employees feel that their work has meaning? The short-term answer seems to be — making employees feel happy. Terms of employment, lavish cafeterias are all answers to that question — make employees happy. However, this ‘happiness’ is temporary. The other is to make jobs more creative, less monotonous and facilitate a sense of meaning with a career path. But they are still answers to different questions. A more significant one is to give the job meaning and purpose. So what then in meaningful work? 

What is the meaning of “meaning”?

Happiness isn’t the only ingredient to a life well-lived. Sometimes it’s not even a criteria. On the other hand ‘meaning’ is what causes people to go into unknown territories, motivates to do things out of the ordinary and causes personal growth and long-term satisfaction.

The trick is there is no one meaning of “meaning”. While it is important for each of us, it is also different for each of us. In the corporate context, one way to define meaning is through its negation: while companies are rarely good at finding “meaning” poor leadership is connected to a loss of meaning very quickly! There is a lot of research which shows meaning at work can be enhanced if employees have an opportunity to realistically reflect on their work & their contribution in the company and their respective lives. A few steps that are known to enhance this are (a) a culture of ethics (b) keeping high moral standards (c) executing on social responsibility that employees can support.

 

What can management do to give meaning to work?

The following steps allow management to engage with employees in a way that they find work life more meaningful:

  1. Discuss the meaning of the organization & their contribution to it: When employees understand the purpose of the organization and the positive impact it has on business and communities it allows them to be a part of something meaningful. This works best when employees have a clear view of the company’s goals, values and vision and plans for the future. Management should explain how every role impacts the greater organization. When employees see how their work contributes to that big picture it enhances their sense of meaning and purpose.
  2. Culture and community: Management should help their employees feel connected to communities or other employees that are impacted by the company’s products or services, so they understand clearly who it is that they are helping.
  3. Create a purpose: What is the difference between these 2 mission statements (a)“To be the most successful computer company in the world” and (b) “To be the most successful computer company for the world”? They point to a major meaning trap. When you say ‘for’, meaning comes from the impact of our work on others. People aren’t inspired by what they do, they are when they know they matter to others.

 

As an employee what can you do to give your work meaning?

The first thing to remember is that purpose is built, not found. Working with a sense of purpose requires thoughtfulness and practice. Here are some things you can do to find meaning at work:

  1. Become conscious that other people matter: If you have meaningful relationships at work you will find more meaning at work. A Gallup study found that the most engaged workers report having a best friend at work. Those reporting higher meaning are not necessarily those who are doing more, but those who have more meaningful relationships.
  2. Build social experiences: Purpose can be found in the simple things that connect colleagues. Sincerely asking a colleague how they are because you are genuinely interested not because it is small talk, will give meaning to both of you!
  3. Find what fuels you: ‘Meaning’ is not a vague idea it is tangible and you must look for it for yourself. If you value contribution find out how you can contribute to a group, or a customer or a community. If you value humour do you make colleagues, and customers smile?
  4. Don’t invest everything at work: Work gives meaning your life but it is only 1 of 4 parts that do —  faith, family, and community are the others. Life’s’ portfolio is a balance between these 4 things — faith in something bigger than each of us, your family that you nurture, your community that you impact, and success through meaningful work that creates value. Learn to focus on each in turn.
  5. Write a personal statement: One way to create more meaning is to define your purpose by making a personal declaration of purpose. It is a simple, succinct, jargon-free, and expressive. A statement about how you decide to live each and every day. For instance “I’ll always give my children the best opportunities they need”. Just stating it gives your life purpose even though nothing else in your job has changed. Now you know it has mean because it drives a purpose.

Purpose isn’t magic. It is something we must create. The fact is most of us don’t work for fun. For the most part, we work to earn money and to pay bills. Work in itself is a meaningful act of service — parents often work hard for their children, some work to support ageing parents. Focussing on what brings meaning to them will create meaning in your own life. With the right approach all jobs are meaningful.

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_

Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a 1996 MBA graduate and 1993 BTech. Rakesh Shukla is the Founder & CEO of TWB_ which is the partner for technology & business content for Fortune 500 leaders worldwide. A motivational speaker he speaks on creating success from professional and personal failure. He divides time between his 2 homes in Bangalore and is called the ‘dog-father’ for being papa to the 750 rescued dogs that live with him at the VOSD Dog Sanctuary. Rakesh has featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies, and at TEDx talks.

 

 

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Technology Manager in Leadership Roles - by Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive and Founder, TWB_
01 Jan

Moving Technical Managers to Management Roles: Leadership Transformations by TWB_

By TWB_ In Communication, Corporate Training, Leadership /  9 No Comments

Technical Managers moving into Management roles is a script that plays out every day in large tech companies. Managers with the best technical expertise and ability to reach performance goals consistently are the first consideration for senior management roles. It is clearly an expectation from managers that they are promoted to management, the management thinks it is great because it represents continuity and that deep understanding of technologies, products and systems. Until it hits everyone.

The new management candidate gets increasingly frustrated because they spend little time using their technical skills and instead on  “people problems,” navigating office politics, and coordinating.  Such a transition hits hard because there is a no clear fit of existing skills to new professional demands and there is no quick way to acquire them. In this article, we’ll explore how the HR/ Management of the company, the Tech-manager can make the transition. This transition can occur from early to mid-career roles, and again from mid-career to management. Here’s what each of the participants in this situation should need to consider to get Technical Managers to move into Management roles:

The HR/ Management checklist to promoting Technical/ Functional Managers

Making this transition to Mangement roles gets harder as the candidate gains years and experience — so the first thing to consider is transitions that come earlier in career say in the middle management level.  To begin with, how do you determine that functional/technical manager is a good candidate for a management role? To begin with they should have demonstrated these skills:

 

  1. Great Communication & People skills: (S)He has strong great writing, oratorial and presentation skills as well as people skills.
  2. Willingness to suspend ego gratification:  to concentrate on helping others succeed: Management is about ensuring success at an organisational level and is not about pursuing personal success or fulfilment as much as it is one’s colleagues and co-workers.
  3. Strong ‘hard skills’: They need to not only have great organizational, project management, and budgeting skills management requires being able to task-switch among them. It also requires overall inputs into detailed deliverables, and to manage — people, time, technology and money — in getting things done.
  4. Strong strategic thinking bias: They need to have a deep understanding of how the technology works to help businesses and organizations meet their goals and objectives. This requires an understanding of the risks and rewards that technology presents, and how to produce the best returns on customers’ investments and activities.
  5. Ability to manage communications in both directions: Success depends on understanding the needs of those above and below them in the organizational chart. Stakeholders are on both sides with management the incumbent has to communicate to both sets carrying expectations, instructions but most of corporate goals and actions to produce the most positive outcomes possible.

The Technical/ Functional Managers checklist to Management position

If you are a technical or functional manager moving into a management position you need to prepare yourself these 2 fundamental shifts:

  1. The first is your mindset has to change — Your technical knowledge is only limited help in your new management role as you now have to focus on the skills and successes that involves multiple functions and teams.
  2. The second is that your identity in the company will change –Being a superstar in your functional role will not save you from starting at the beginning again, and you need to be prepared for this “identity demotion.”

Here are some steps you can take to make your transition into a management role smooth

  1. Solving Strategic Problems: You need to translate problem-solving into a management context. Problems will require multiple functions within the company and other industry players etc to solve. Reading on cutting-edge business thinking can allow you to think & engage on a broader front.
  2. Build a cross-functional understanding: Technical Managers frequently have a narrow worldview. Unless you understand and leverage the marketers, sales, operations and and others, you will struggle to move beyond your role as a technical manager.
  3. Find a mentor — Look for someone in your organization who has succeeded in a management role coming from a functional role. A mentor can help you avoid some of the mistakes that they made and help get across to the right people within the organization critical for your success.
  4. Stay away from technical work– Resist the temptation to get involved with technical projects that aren’t your responsibility.
  5. Meet with your reports and their teams —  Meeting them allows you to find out what interests and motivates them, and they have the professional environment necessary to be successful in their role. It also allows you to find out what your team expects from you.
  6. Be a good communicator —  You need to learn how to write, learning how to speak and learn how to behave as ‘management’. Emails need to be crafted with care and sensitivity. Communication needs to demonstrate your intelligence, knowledge and thoughtfulness.
  7. Dress up: Your colleagues, the industry and ecosystem you inhabit expects it. Always dress the part for the position.

Technical & functional managers from IT, finance, sales, or marketing are promoted to management because they know their job well. The problem is that they have little management experience and most organizations offer very little management assistance.  In a management role instead of focussing on macro influences, strategic issues, and “people aspect” of their new role, they continue to stay in their comfort zone — their own projects and technical skills. It is important for the organization to focus on how to make the transition smooth so the organization benefits from the deep functional understanding that the incumbent brings as well as fresh ideas and thinking.

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_

Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a 1996 MBA graduate and 1993 BTech. Rakesh Shukla is the Founder & CEO of TWB_ which is the partner for technology & business content for Fortune 500 leaders worldwide. A motivational speaker he speaks on creating success from professional and personal failure. He divides time between his 2 homes in Bangalore and is called the ‘dog-father’ for being papa to the 750 rescued dogs that live with him at the VOSD Dog Sanctuary. Rakesh has featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies, and at TEDx talks.

 

 

Are you looking to leverage technical managers transition to management?

 

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