The Power of Working for a Purpose

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Ariana Friedlander by Ariana Friedlander

Circa 1945 from Seattle Municipal Archives

Over the weekend I heard an interview on NPR with Corey Sharp, a DEMCO worker restoring electricity in Louisiana. With Hurricane Issac making landfall just last week, the treturous conditions have resulted in many communities without power. And Melissa Block’s interview with Corey caught my attention as he beamed with pride because his work had a purpose, “definitely it’s a good feeling, you know, putting people’s electricity back on”

When Melissa Block observed, that to restore power he would have to work through the weekend and therefore be “laboring on labor day,” Corey didn’t even seem to notice.

He laughed and responsed, “I definitely will be laboring on Labor Day. It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s what I’m here for. No big deal.” This struck me, I don’t remember the last time I heard someone sound so proud to work on labor day. All I usually hear (and have likely cavetched about myself), are people complaining about not getting the holiday off like everyone else.

Maybe that’s the difference between working just for a paycheck versus working for a purpose. The difference being between external (paycheck) or internal (purpose) motivators. One of these is more powerful a motivator than the other. You guessed it…..purpose will motivate people to strive for more, to take pride in their work and achieve greater outcomes.

Believe it or not, there’s actually proof of this, numerous studies have been conducted to compare the productivity of workers receiving external rewards as motivators against those motivated intrinsically. They found that the extrinsic motivator of money only increased productivity so much before plateauing. Whereas, the intrinsic motivators, purpose, challenge and autonomy, resulted in significantly better outcomes for employers.

Why is this? You might ask! Because, contrary to popular belief, people are more motivated when they’re work has a deeper meaning. Have you ever worked for a boss that constantly drilled improving the bottom line? I have and can attest to the fact that it only provides so much of an incentive. After a while, you get tired of working your ass off just so someone else can take a fancy vacation. And many bosses mistakenly think that if they offer just a bit more of a reward, a bit more money, that you’ll make magic happen.

But the reality is, most people are not that shallow. Sure, it’s great getting time and a half for working on a holiday. But it is even better working for a purpose, making a positive impact in your community and helping others. That’s when people stop complaining about work and embrace their responsibilities with pride; that’s the power of working for a purpose.

Surprise, You’re the Problem! Organizational Leadership Lessons from the “Flight of the Buffalo”

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Ariana Friedlander by Ariana Friedlander

Photo by Autumm

This is one of my favorite passages from the Tao Te Ching: “Knowing others is intelligence; Knowing yourself is true wisdom.” Of course people often mistake awareness of their likes and foibles as self-knowledge. But as the Tao Te Ching goes on to say, “Mastering others is power; Mastering yourself is true strength.” True self-awareness is the ability to recognize and change your habits, and practices to align with your greater purpose and values in life.

Most everyone has had an experience working for a company that continually tries to address shortcomings by changing little things. When I did sales for a small business that had issues with high employee turnover they tried changing their hiring process, their training process, their bonus structure, etc. all to no avail. That’s because the problem wasn’t with the process, the problem was with the bosses and they’re style of organizational leadership.

There’s a great quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that captures the essence of this common problem, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” Part of our natural learning process is to mimic the behavior of those around us. And there’s nothing more demoralizing than a leader whose actions contradict their words, yet that is such a common problem in many organizations.

True self-knowledge is the ability to recognize the discrepancy between what you say and what you do so that you may actively work towards repairing the discord. No one is perfect, but we all have the potential to learn, grow, change and better ourselves. In fact actively learning is imperative to successfully leading a team towards achieving greatness and creating the change you seek.

While the book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence Learning to Let Employees Lead, was published over 15 years ago, the leadership lessons are very relevant still today. Both of the authors struggled to see continued success until they realized that they were the root cause of the problems in their business! Belasco and Stayer reflect, “Most of my efforts in the early years were consumed with changing ‘them’ (employees and customers). I only came to realize later that ‘they’ behaved the way ‘they’ did because I behaved the way I did. If I wanted ‘them’ to change their behavior, I had to change mine first.”

So before you try to address a problem by blaming others or changing protocol or implementing a new process or trying a new incentive structure, take a step back and ask, “am I the one that needs to change?” That’s not an easy question to answer and admitting your own culpability in the situation may not come easily to you (especially if you’re uncomfortable being vulnerable). But you’ll have to push yourself beyond your comfort zone because that’s where true learning happens!

Are you leading your team in the right direction? We will be reviewing Flight of the Buffalo at the August 16th EntrepreNerds discussion and professional development workshop. Signup today to join us and we’ll provide the tools and learning environment to help you move from knowledge to action!

Why Aspiring Entrepreneurs and Business Owners Need to Know About the E-Myth

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Ariana Friedlander by Ariana Friedlander

Aspiring entrepreneurs often glamorize what it will be like to own and run a business. While that is part of what makes the whole endeavor so appealing and inspirational, it also hides some big and important truths. These truths of business can make the difference between having a company that runs like a well oiled machine and the alternative, a business owner run ragged by their company. Which would you choose?

I, for one, have seen what a business owner run ragged by their company looks like. Symptoms often include long workdays, high employee turnover, feelings of despair or exhaustion, and the losing of oneself. It is not a pretty sight and definitely not something I aspire to. So how does one go about building the well oiled machine?

Michael Gerber’s book, the E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don’t Work and What to Do About It, provides just the right prescription. To start he describes a framework that explains the dynamics of a business. There are three different personalities needed in a business, the Technician, the Entrepreneur and the Manager.

Just because you know how to….say make pizzas….doesn’t mean you know how to run a pizza joint. That is the essence of the E-Myth. Many small business owners that are just getting started are dominated by the Technician personality. They think, “Hey I know how to make pizza, why not just open my own place!”

In order to succeed, you need all three personalities present in your company. The Entrepreneur is the dreamer, providing the vision of success, and the guiding values. These serve as the foundation from which your business is established as well as the ideal for which you are always striving.

The Manager, on the other hand brings order. It is the Manager personality that creates the systems and plans to achieve the vision for success. The Manager quantifies, orchestrates, and strategizes. While the Entrepreneur innovates new and exciting ways of doing things.

And the Technician is the one that does all the heavy lifting. The Technician loves getting things done and without them, nothing would get done. But when the Technician personality dominates a business owner, you end up doing all the work yourself. That is because you don’t have the leadership of the Entrepreneur nor the orderly systems of the Manager. It is the symbiotic relationship of all three of these personalities that make a business operate like a well oiled machine.

While this analogy of the three personalities may seem overly-simplistic at first glance, the ease with which Gerber conveys the complicated dance of business is quite effective. Because the personalities of both the Entrepreneur and Manager are often overshadowed by the Technician, Gerber also provides a framework for which to incorporate those necessary components into your business. It is called your business prototype, and to learn more about that you will have to read his book!

We will be discussing E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don’t Work and What to Do About It at the July 9th EntrepreNerds meeting. For more information or to sign up visit us online www.Meetup.com/EntrepreNerds.

This post originally appeared in the Fort Collins Digital Workshop blog.

Success in Business is All About Asking the Right Questions

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Ariana Friedlander by Ariana Friedlander

Photo by Valerie Everett

Good questions are a powerful tool. And when you’re in a position of leadership, it is especially important to ask the right questions! Organizational leaders have a huge responsibility to provide a shared vision for success that they influence their team towards attaining. Peter Drucker’s Book, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About your Organization guides leaders through the process of asking the right questions to succeed.

As Francis Hesselbein observes in the Forward, “Simple questions can be profound and answering them requires us to make stark and honest – and sometimes painful – self-assessments.” The more direct yet open a question you ask, the more useful the answer will be. As long as it is a sincere answer.

Employee Engagement
Ultimately, Drucker’s recommending “a method for assessing what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what you must do to improve your organization’s performance.” The entire process, from introspection and self-assessment to improvement and actualization, should be continuous and integrated throughout your organization.

To lead a successful organization it is best to engage your team in this process. After all, Peter Drucker’s philosophy was developed around the belief that an organization’s employees are their most valuable asset. He showed us that effective management of employees directly contributes to the ultimate success of any organization.

Engaging your team in the process builds buy-in and helps to ensure a shared understanding of your direction and priorities. In addition, your team possesses valuable knowledge that helps to inform your answers and strengthens your organization as a whole. In order to glean the most out of this process, remember that you need to provide honest answers. That means you must embrace vulnerability with your team, which is a challenge for some bosses.

The Questions
As any good interviewer knows, one question often begets other questions. That is much the way Drucker’s book is organized. The “Five Most Important Questions” each represent an ultimate question that is answered by asking several other corollary questions. So before you rush off to contemplate Drucker’s “Five Most Important Questions” remember that the answers may lie deeper than the initial question allows you to dig!

What is our Mission?
Who is our customer?
What does the customer value?
What are our results?
What is our plan?

We will be discussingThe Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About your Organization at the June 7th EntrepreNerds meeting. For more information or to sign up visit us online www.Meetup.com/EntrepreNerds

Are You Getting Caught up Shoulding All Over Yourself?? 5 Steps You Can Take to Blaze Your Own Trail!

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Ariana Friedlander by Ariana Friedlander

I see this all the time, business owners that talk about their decision with the expletive, “should.” “Well, I should do social media, it is free and everyone else is doing it.” Or “I should offer coupons, people like buying things that are discounted.” The problem with should is that it is not, in and of itself, a rational way to make a decision. So, stop shoulding all over yourself!

"You should go that way"

I’m going to tell you what you should do (hahahaha) instead. Ok, all jokes aside, seriously, the next time you say “I/we should,” take a step back and ask yourself. Is this in my/our best interest? Do I/we have the resources to support this over the long term? Will it help me/us to achieve me/our vision? Is it in alignment with our mission? Does this support our brand?

Reflecting on these things will help you avoid the problems that result from shoulding all over yourself. When you do something because it is what you feel you should do, your passion and enthusiasm is usually not in the game. As a consummate volunteer (I’m really trying to draw boundaries with that), I have admittedly continued to stay involved with things even after I’d emotionally and mentally checked out because I felt that I should. Specifically, I thought that a good volunteer should stick with it, see it through and never give up!

The point? Doing something because you should usually feels insincere and inauthentic, and most people can tell! As my own example above demonstrates, this can happen on both a personal and a professional level. On a personal level, doing what you should can often be construed as following the formula, i.e. grow up, go to college, get a job, buy a house, have kids, go on a disney vacation, max out your credit cards….hopefully you get the point.

When addressing the should factor on a personal level, again take a step back and reflect. What drives you? What do you hope to achieve in your lifetime? What impact do you want to create in business, in your community or in the world? In an ideal world with no boundaries or limitations, consider what your life would look like?

Whether you’re overcoming personal or professional “shoulding,” there are 5 steps you can take to avoid blindly following the formula and being empowered to blaze your own trail!

Develop an understanding of your purpose;
Envision your future;
Evaluate what needs to occur for you to achieve your vision;
Take steps to create your vision (that means saying no to things your “should” do sometimes);
And re-evaluate

I’ll be giving a talk at The Fort Collins Chamber Envisions Young Professionals on June 6 at 11:30am.

Title: So, You Got a Job, Now What? How to Avoid Shoulding All Over Yourself

Description: Do you ever get caught up in doing what you should, when all you want to do is blaze your own trail? You don’t want to follow the formula, I get it. And luckily you don’t have. In fact, you’re more likely to enjoy success when you do what you love and use your strengths.

Learn more or register online.

What does Medical Anthropology have to do with Business Consulting?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Ariana Friedlander by Ariana Friedlander

I did not think that my background studying Medical Anthropology in college had any relevance in my qualifications as a business consultant. That is until colleague helped me to realize the connection simply by stating, “I did not know that you studied Medical Anthropology, what’s that?”

And so, I began on a subject of which I am really passionate – what I studied in College. You see, Applied Medical Anthropology is the study of how culture affects our perceptions of health, healing and illness. In bio-medicine we often compare the body to machines: our heads are like computers, and our bodies are like cars. We get “tune ups” to stay healthy. And when you’re sick, take a pill. And if that one doesn’t work or you have bad side effects you take another one. You know how it “is” in our culture.

Prescription Pills - The Proverbial Silver Bullet!

What’s really interesting to me is how other people in other cultures perceive health, healing and illness. That’s a big part of what I studied in Medical Anthropology because it impacts how we provide aide to other countries. Just because it makes sense to us that you should take a pill for malaria any time you travel to a country that is afflicted with the disease does not mean that the locals feel the same way. In some cultures, people do not believe in pre-emptive medicine simply because they believe in only taking medicine when you’re showing symptoms. Therefore, locals are not going to comply with the doctors orders to take Malaria pills before they get sick. The cure has to fit the culture and their perceptions of health, healing and illness.

Nyay Health, Patient Care

So, why is this relevant to business? Because, businesses are the same way, the solution will only work if it fits in the culture. There’s no one size fits all magic bullet to repair an organization in peril. There’s not a single formula for success that you can follow for every business decision you have to make.

A lot depends on your company culture, which can be better understood by looking at the beliefs and values that guide your business (the ones that are actually practiced which can sometimes be different from the espoused values). And also by understanding what motivates your employees; what is considered professional versus unprofessional behavior; and how your employees interact. Every organization has its own unique culture, its own special traditions and practices.

Businesswoman with a Handheld Device

Fostering a positive and healthy company culture is integral to your long term success. That is why it is better to work with a consultant that will provide solutions and recommendations that are relevant and realistic to implement. If the remedy does not fit the culture, noncompliance will ensue and problems will worsen!

Nurturing Sustainable Business Growth

Tag Archives: Company Culture