Seeds 4 Growth
By Mark A. Mears
LinkedIn Newsletter #7
February 9, 2023
Let’s Put the “Human” Back in Human Resources:
All We Need Is… LOVE!
Welcome to Seeds 4 Growth issue #7!
In each issue, I will use the “Higher Power of 4’s” to provide 4 “seeds” within a particular topic designed to help individuals, teams, and organizations find purpose in fulfilling their true growth potential. And by doing so, grow leaders into living legacy builders who desire to make the world better.
“Nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people.
At the end of the day, you bet on people, not strategies.”
— Lawrence Bossidy, former COO of GE
Within my new book, The Purposeful Growth Revolution: 4 Ways to Grow from Leader to Legacy Builder, I outline a holistic model for purposeful growth that features a LEAF as a natural symbol of growth as well as an acronym (Leadership, Engagement, Accountability and Fulfillment). As found in nature as well as in life, we go through various seasons of growth, transformation, harvest and regeneration.
Today, the calendar shows we’re now past Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day is coming up soon. In the hit movie starring Bill Murray back in 1993, the cynical TV Weatherman character he plays (Phil) wakes up each day as if it was the same day – Groundhog Day. As a new dawn of work emerges—primarily due to the downstream impacts of Covid-19—leaders cannot merely do the same thing and expect a different result.
In the spirit of the “Season of Love,” I would like to offer a more loving, heart-centered approach to leadership.
The new world of work is changing… on purpose.
To that point, according to a McKinsey research study conducted in August 2020 among more than 1,000 US-based employees, nearly two-thirds surveyed said that COVID-19 has caused them to reflect on their purpose in life. And nearly half said they are reconsidering the kind of work they do because of the pandemic. Millennials were three times more likely to say they were reevaluating work.
It's as if we were all given a time-out to deeply reflect upon not only what, but who is most important in our lives. This sense of mortality led us to question our purpose in life and what role our work may have in helping us fulfill it.
The Case for Purpose
A summary of the research findings published in an article written on April 5, 2021 by Naina Dhingra, Andrew Samo, Bill Schaninger, and Matt Schrimper stated:
For starters, we know that employees at all levels of the organization say they want purpose in their lives. Eighty-nine percent of our survey respondents agreed, a proportion that tracks closely with academic research.
Seventy percent of employees we surveyed said that their sense of purpose is largely defined by work. Senior executives in our sample nudged that average upward, but even so, two-thirds of nonexecutive employees said that work defines their purpose. This signals the clear opportunity for employers and leaders—an open door to encourage your employees at all levels to develop and live their purpose at work.
Such findings have implications for your company’s talent-management strategy and its bottom line. People who live their purpose at work are more productive than people who don’t. They are also healthier, more resilient, and more likely to stay at the company. Moreover, when employees feel that their purpose is aligned with the organization’s purpose, the benefits expand to include stronger employee engagement, heightened loyalty, and a greater willingness to recommend their company to others.
Unfortunately, given the impact of Covid in expediting “The Great Repurposing” (my term), we are going backward, not forward as the term for lack of engagement (“Quiet Quitting”) has emerged as a major issue for those who did not leave the workforce; rather they decided to quit, but stay.
“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.”
— Simon Sinek
What Are We Missing?
According to the Gallup 2022 State of the Workplace Survey, 32% of employees are considered engaged; whereas 18% are considered actively disengaged. That leaves the remaining 50% in the “mushy middle” where they could go either way. The engagement elements that declined the most from the pre-pandemic levels were:
This resulted in a decline by -6% of employees who claim to be satisfied with their employer.
Younger workers’ engagement was impacted more than older workers. Engagement for those under age 35 (young Millennials and Gen Zers) experienced more decline in:
Women experienced more of a decline in engagement than men. In comparison to men, women saw larger declines in:
Almost every organization I’ve worked for has focused on the importance of its people (“Our people make the difference,” “Our people are our most valuable asset,” “Our people…”). Depending upon where you work, people may be called Employees, Workers, Personnel, Staffers, or worse yet, FTE’s (Full-time Equivalents). On a financial P&L statement, they are referred to simply as Labor. On the other side of the ledger, some organizations call their people Associates, Partners or in the rare case of Disney, “Cast Members.”
The common denominator in any organization, regardless of its output, is people.
News flash—we are all in the people business!
I believe there is great power in the words we choose that can lead to a desired outcome in a given situation. Let’s examine some common words or phrases and challenge them a bit deeper to see if we can arrive at a more “humanistic” way to improve our people skills—from Recruiting, Ripening, Recognizing and Retaining—to create a more purposeful, engaging, productive, and fulfilling work experience.
Team Member vs. Employee
Within the context of an organization espousing a shared sense of purpose, values and business goals, I prefer the term, Team Member. An employee sounds like just someone who gets paid to do a job. Conversely, a team is a collection of diverse individuals featuring different backgrounds, experiences, skill sets and motivations. A leader’s job is to integrate and align these individual assets into a supremely focused, highly engaged and well-executing team where “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
The image of an Olympic rowing team comes to mind as a perfect example of the power of teamwork. With all of its oars in the water and rowing at the same time in synch with the cadence of the Coxswain, the scull moves fluidly, gracefully, and swiftly across the water—this is called, “Swing.” It only happens when all eight oarsmen are rowing in such perfect unison that no single action by any one is out of synch with those of all the others.
“If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”
— Patrick Lencioni
Community vs. Culture
In addition to my preference for calling people team members vs. employees, et. al., there is a not-so-subtle distinction between the terms, culture and community.
In business, we almost always hear about the culture of an organization, right? On the surface, that doesn’t sound bad, but if we dig a bit deeper, wouldn’t it be better if we could work in a community vs. a culture? A community feels like a place one “belongs in” as opposed to a culture where one may be just a “part of.” And this is a significant distinction when we talk about the importance of DEIB.
Remember, Diversity just gets us in the door, Inclusion gets us a seat at the table, Equity gets us an equal voice; however, without Belonging, we may not feel comfortable being truly vulnerable to give our very best for fear of potential recrimination by “rocking the boat.” When we belong to a community, we feel a much greater sense of safety and security to BE our true, authentic selves.
Like-Hearted vs. Like-Minded
Similarly, we hear certain phrases so often we take them for granted, or at face value without looking deeper into their meaning. When two people tend to agree on the same issues, they claim to be “like-minded.” Again, that sounds great on the surface, but it can also lead to divisiveness if we merely cling tightly to our mutually shared world views without being open to hearing from those who may disagree.
Obviously, working well as a team is important; however, great danger exists in merely thinking as a team. In 1971, Yale psychologist Irving Janis published an article in Psychology Today in which he coined the term “groupthink.” It refers to a group of people who find comfort and harmony in community at the cost of critical evaluation of ideas, which leads to dysfunction and poor decision-making. The reason focusing too much on cultural fit is dangerous is it suggests working well as a team requires us to agree, which leads to groupthink.
I totally agree with that philosophy since I can’t imagine how a team or organization could establish a foundation for driving step-function-change growth (much less incremental year-over-year growth) if everyone thought the same way.
As Dr. Phil often says, “And how’s that working for you?”
Groundhog Day!
Given we are all “whole” people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, skill sets and motivations, wouldn’t it be better if we were considered “like-hearted?” I’ve always said that if you know someone’s heart, you are more likely to listen to and consider a differing point-of-view as a fellow human, or give them grace when they may show up as less than the best version of themselves from time to time. Like we all do.
"As water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart."
— Proverbs 27:19
Communities are built upon personal relationships and, as we all know, lasting, loving relationships are founded on trust. When we can fully trust those around us, we can feel more comfortable being our true, authentic selves while giving our very best to/for the team.
And, in the immortal words of the great marketing guru Peter Drucker, we learn, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” However, I posit that community is a much better tasting and more fulfilling dining experience than culture regardless of meal occasion.
So, what does all this have to do with Human Resources? Well, as it turns out, plenty as a goal as of The Purposeful Growth Revolution is to put the “Human” back in Human Resources. Here’s what I mean:
Human = Belonging to a Community of Like-Hearted Team Members
Resources = Part of a Culture of Like-Minded Employees/Workers
Here’s an interesting idea to improve engagement at work: What if we flipped the script and provide resources for our team members to be more human as opposed to merely treating them as resources?
So, what does it mean to be Human?
And, what does it mean to be Human at work?
We learn in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, these represent some of the most basic of human needs that provide us with a sense of belonging, community, safety and love—whether in life or at work. And mean is derived from meaning, which translates to the unique purpose that motivates us each day to live a life of fulfillment in ALL we do.
Simply put, work should mean more than just a paycheck.
Whether in person, remote, or some form of hybrid, it is vitally important for leaders to cultivate a sense of belonging that will allow all “like-hearted” team members a safe, mutually respectful community to help fulfill their purpose in alignment with shared team and organizational goals.
As purposeful growth-hearted leaders who are interested in creating a “living” legacy—paying it backward in ways that will inspire others to do likewise—we must learn to LOVE our team members as the humans they are. And as I learned from my friend Rebecca Blust, when you examine the word r-evol-ution a bit closer, you can see the word love is right in there—written backward!
“A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than fear.”
— Herb Kelleher
Here is an easy way to break down LOVE into a revolutionary process consisting of 4 integrated components that build upon one another to make team members feel more “Human”—seen, heard, valued, and empowered:
Seeds 4 Growth
When I worked for Pizza Hut years ago, I remember a relevant quote I heard from then PepsiCo Chairman/CEO, Wayne Calloway when asked what he looked for in a leader:
“Eagles who can fly in formation.”
Imagine that incredibly powerful image of beauty, alignment, and strength the next time you look toward the sky!
The new world of work is changing... on purpose.
Let’s put the “Human” back in Human Resources.
All we need is LOVE!
If you are interested in learning how you, your team, or your organization can find purpose in fulfilling your true growth potential, I would be delighted to work with you. Please check out my website at https://www.MarkAMears.com and let’s get connected.
The Purposeful Growth Revolution is ON!
Are you IN?