My first blog! I feel as if I should be brandishing a champagne bottle over the bow of an about to be launched ship. After years of speculation, wishful thinking, and planning, “Integrity Works” is ready to set sail. Those of you who have started a company can identify with my mixed feelings of excitement and fear. It’s a great concept, but will enough people care? And will some of those caring people pay?
“2009”, an experienced business executive said, when I’d come to him for advice, “is perhaps not the best time to associate integrity with business.” But then he stopped, and said, “But maybe the concept of integrity is a good sell right now.” I knew what he meant. He meant that there might be more organizational openness to the concept now due to a perceived need to rebuild public and employee trust.
But I look back over the years I’ve spent consulting with employees and managers and executives and it strikes me that there’s long been this need, not just in recessionary times, and not just in the corporate world. In every sector there seems to be a general malaise, a lack of trust and a lack of excitement and joy about work. Work often seems more associated with stress than energy, conflict than harmony, manipulation rather than transparency, obligation rather than pride. “It’s just a job”, is a phrase I’ve heard muttered with resignation countless times. Usually that’s said by people trying to come to terms with their increasing disenchantment with their job, their declining health, their struggle to balance their lives, their STRESS. These are the people who say they hate their jobs, or, marginally better, “I like my job, but I hate my manager”, or maybe, “I like the people I work with, but I hate my job.” It’s them trying to put those bad experiences in perspective-“it’s just a job”.
Remember when you got your first job? Do you remember how proud and excited you were? Your first job meant so much. It meant growing up, responsibility, independence, a chance to prove yourself. Wasn’t looking at your first pay check great! You knew it wasn’t “just a job”. What happened to all of that? What did you encounter that took your idealism away and turned it into obligation?
Now I know that many of you still have those feelings, and still love your jobs and what you get out of doing them aside from money. And I’ll bet there are good reasons for that. Maybe you found the job that exactly fits your skill set and catches your imagination. I’m willing to bet that two other things are part of the equation for you. I’ll bet that somehow your job has meaning to you, and I’ll also bet that you’ve met some pretty special people while doing your work.
I’ll write more about the need for meaning in my next entry, and focus a bit on people before I sign off from my maiden blog voyage. “Downsizing, outsourcing, layoffs, contract work, cut-backs’, all these are terms associated with poor employee morale. But do you know what really upsets people at work? Injustice, insincerity, favouritism, harassment, rudeness, hypocrisy
People will generally grit through tough times, and accept hardship if they believe that everyone’s in the same boat. People generally love to feel like they’re part of a team that shares in successes and in failures. That’s why there’s such outrage when executives manage huge bonuses while others in the company are getting laid off or just getting by. And that’s why there’s such disgruntlement when people gain advancement, not on merit but by seniority or preferred relationship. That’s why morale is eroded when behaviour clearly inconsistent with organizational values goes undisciplined. “What’s the point, it’s just a job.”
You should have seen some of the looks I’ve received when I’ve talked about wanting to bring joy into people’s work. JOY!? How unrealistic and idealistic, and, well, “young” of me. But I know that it’s possible. When organizations set values, and live by them, and everyone feels a vital part of a team; when people feel like they’re valued, and their work has meaning, when they feel like they’re taking part in a cause more than just doing a job, then that sense of purpose, that pride, and yes, that joy, is possible. That’s my mission; in fact, it feels like a calling. I want to work with you to build integrity into your organization to bring you meaning, purpose and joy. I know that integrity works.
Thanks for “listening”.
Yours,
Theo
P.S. Check out the forum and let me know what you think.
