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Book Review

The Purpose Effect

Recommendation

Dan Pontefract, author of Flat Army, explains how companies can establish meaningful goals, provide energized workplaces, and contribute to their communities and society. Such “purpose-driven” firms put principles ahead of profits, but they find in the long run that being purpose-driven is good for business. Pontefract shows firms how to reach a meaningful “sweet spot” where three important roles come together: each employee’s “personal sense of purpose,” the company’s purpose and the role-based purpose employees feel when their jobs align with their priorities and beliefs. Those who seek a sense of direction for their organizations and business students will benefit from this detailed, practical, inspirational book.

Take-Aways

  • “Purpose-driven” firms put principles above profits. They focus on their customers, employees, team members, community and society, as well as profits.
  • The “Purpose Effect” has three components:
  • “Personal purpose” centers on each employee’s identity and commitment.
  • “Organizational purpose” concerns a firm’s “principles, ethics, leadership and culture.”
  • “Role purpose” focuses on turning each worker’s job into a “calling.”
  • The alignment of these elements creates an energizing “sweet spot.”
  • The Purpose Effect inspires employees by making their jobs meaningful.
  • Purposeful organizations follow the “Good DEEDS” acronym: “Delight, Engage, (Be) Ethical, Deliver” and “Serve.”
  • To use it, make customers feel great, engage with your employees, operate ethically, always be fair and serve all stakeholders.
  • Purpose-driven companies set out to earn profits and improve society.

Summary

Behind the Scenes Making Sausage

Johnsonville Sausage LLC, headquartered in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, produces meatballs, sausages and bratwurst. It employs 1,500 people it refers to as “team members.” It sells more than $1 billion in meat products annually.

In 2015, a fire destroyed Johnsonville’s plant in nearby Watertown. One hundred Johnsonville members had no place to go to work and nothing to do. Johnsonville’s management decided to keep paying them their full salaries. In return, it asked its members to volunteer for community work for 20 hours each week and to spend another 20 hours each week on self-education. These activities occupied its Watertown workers for nearly a year until a new plant opened.

“When the culture of an organization is harmonious – when team members feel as though their opinion and contributions matter – a causal relationship between increased team member commitment and bottom-line improvements becomes a likely outcome.”

Johnsonville Sausage has been a special place to work ever since Ralph C. Stayer founded the company in 1945. Its “culture statement” says that Johnsonville’s goal is to “become the best company in the world,” something it characterizes as a “moral responsibility.” The firm serves “the best interest” of its stakeholders and the “personal growth” of its members. Johnsonville’s intranet publishes the “personal development commitments” of each member.

“When an individual performs in a role so that meaning and fulfillment [are] demonstrated, good things can happen for all stakeholders.”

A drive to implement the “Highest Impact on Customer Service” (HICS) is the foundation of Johnsonville’s business strategy. Team members work continually to implement it. Johnsonville’s purpose transcends profits. Its culture statement represents the firm’s deeply held ethos, by which the company lives daily – even in the toughest times.

“While purpose in the workplace is imperative, leaders are potentially overlooking its significance to the overarching health of our civilization.”

Johnsonville executive Cory Bouck explains, “It would be morally wrong to hold people to incredibly high standards without also giving them every opportunity and resource to stretch and grow themselves in order to be able to deliver against those high standards.”

“Purpose-Driven” Firms

Many notable organizations across a broad range of industries have set an example of how purpose-driven companies act. Consider these examples:

  • In-N-Out Burgers, a fast-food chain, pays new employees an above-the-minimum wage.
  • Gravity Payments, a credit-card processing company, pays every employee at least $70,000, based on a Princeton study finding that $75,000 represents the ceiling for emotional well-being. Gravity’s CEO lowered his salary by $90,000.
  • Fairphone, which makes mobile phones, uses “conflict-free minerals” to manufacture “ethical” cellphones.
  • Ikea manufactures a wide range of furniture, following a core business plan that calls for “prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”
  • In 1982, Johnson & Johnson quickly ordered stores to remove 31 million bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol from their shelves when a criminal poisoned a few bottles with arsenic, killing seven people. The company reportedly lost more than $100 million, but cemented its long-term reputation for caring about its consumers.

The “Purpose Effect”

Purpose-driven firms base their activities on the Purpose Effect, which concerns the organization’s purpose beyond making money, the roles that its team members play within the organization and their individual motivation. The organization, individual team members and society all benefit when each element is in place.

“When an organization and its team members are indeed on the same page – when the sweet spot is being demonstrated by all parties – a collective sense of community can be felt.”

The Purpose Effect engages and fulfills team members and engages them. In this atmosphere, people do better work. If an organization’s purpose conflicts with employees’ purposes, they will be unhappy at work. But the Purpose Effect ensures that all workers feel that their jobs represent more than just paychecks. They want their work to be meaningful and to give them a genuine sense of purpose. As management expert Peter Drucker explained, “To make a living is no longer enough. Work also has to make a life.”

The Components of the Purpose Effect

The Purpose Effect emerges at the intersection of three essential factors:

1. “A Personal Sense of Purpose”

Each team member should have a special, motivating purpose that addresses “what, who and how.” Personal purpose calls for knowing who you are in terms of three aspects: First, develop yourself. Be determined to improve and grow. Ask, “What am I doing to evolve myself?” Second, define what your life should be, and redefine it regularly. Ask, “Who am I in life and at work?” Third, decide every day to act in a moral, ethical and responsible way in keeping with the person you choose to be. Ask, “How will I operate and be perceived by others?”

2. “Organizational Purpose”

This is why your company exists. Organizational purpose defines who and what the company is to itself, team members, customers, its local community and society as a whole. Organizational purpose concerns “principles, ethics, leadership and culture.” Organizational purpose requires the implementation and deliverance of solid “fair practices” to all team members. This involves compensation (pay your people fairly); performance management (substitute “coaching and mentoring” for “in-depth scrutinizing”); and “recognition” (58% of all team members want more workplace appreciation).

3. “Role-Based Purpose”

Every organization assigns people to certain roles to meet its goals, and every team member’s role should be meaningful. Most people define themselves according to their work; that’s why their roles at work are so important. Employees’ role purpose should completely align with their “personal and organizational purpose.” For role purpose to emerge, companies must treat their employees well.

“The sweet spot is less a gentle overlap between three categories of purpose, and more the result of dynamic tension between three often contradictory demands.” (Box of Crayons consultancy founder Michael Bungay Stanier)

Team members who have a sense of the purpose about their roles don’t think of their jobs as meal tickets. Instead, each person views his or her job as a “calling.” This is how you want your employees to feel about their work. University of Ottawa research indicates that 76% of people who see their jobs as callings are “always engaged” at work.

The “Sweet Spot”

The sweet spot of purpose is where the three areas come together in a “reciprocal relationship.” A balanced sweet spot emerges only when these main components work together. This aligned structure supports members of the staff, “teams, the organization, customers, owners and, perhaps most importantly, society as a whole.” The sweet spot isn’t a final destination. Instead, it’s “an outcome of the alignment between personal, organizational and role purpose.” To reach the sweet spot, organizations first need a declaration of purpose.

“An organization without purpose [could] miss out on keeping or hiring high-performing individuals.”

The declaration of purpose of Deere & Company (previously known as John Deere, still its trade name) states, “We are committed to serving those linked to the land, thereby helping to improve living standards for people everywhere.” Whole Foods’ purpose is, “Helping support the health, well-being and healing of both people – customers, team members and business organizations in general – and the planet.” Patagonia’s purpose is to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

“Win-Win-Win”

Many companies have a shortsighted focus on profit alone. Such organizations should broaden their perspectives. Mana Ionescu, the founder of Lightspan Digital, a purpose-driven Chicago firm that offers professional content marketing and social media services, says that companies need win-win-win strategies.

“In a world where anything or anyone can be owned, manipulated and exploited for profit, everything and everyone will eventually be.” (University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan, “The Corporation”)

These tactics create profits as well as giving customers solid value, making significant contributions to society, and providing meaningful, rewarding and satisfying work for their employees. However, win-win-win will work only if all team members, no matter what their individual roles and authority, perform as both “leaders and followers.”

“An individual who seeks a personal sense of purpose in life…is constantly developing, defining and deciding his values, priorities, attributes and general ways of conducting themselves.”

The culture of a win-win-win organization is “open, connected, collaborative, participative”; it’s based on “general reciprocity.” This means that all team members work together for the common good and understand the organization’s goals of achieving a high level of service as well as a profit. Everyone in a win-win-win organization should have a “purpose mind-set.” That is, all team members should feel passionate about their work and their performance. Everyone should commit to developing a “meaningful and engaging” workplace.

The “Job Mind-Set”

The purpose mind-set stands in marked contrast to the job mind-set, which shapes the actions of employees who do their jobs simply to earn paychecks, and the “career mind-set,” under which employees focus primarily on advancing their careers so they can earn more money and accumulate more power and prestige.

“Companies in which more employees perceive their workplaces as ethical report higher retention rates, more positive work and supervisory relationships, better dispute resolution, and enhanced productivity.” (Keyes)

Both of these money and power-oriented mind-sets undermine the purpose mind-set. When you educate your employees about their personal, organizational and role purposes, address these negative mind-sets directly. Explain why they aren’t in alignment with how people think in a purpose-driven organization.

“Personal Declaration of Purpose”

Each team member should create his or her personal declaration of purpose that answers the all-important question, “Who am I in life and at work?” This brief written document provides each person with an “ongoing definition” that changes depending on evolving circumstances. You can’t achieve balance – the sweet spot – among your personal, organizational and role purposes unless you know the personal purpose that brings meaning to your life.

“Good DEEDS”

Organizations that are formally or informally dedicated to their purpose subscribe to the goals outlined by the Good DEEDS acronym:

  • “Delight your customers” – Remember, customers are the top priority; strive to make them happy.
  • “Engage your team members” – Helping your team members flourish will create a sense of communitas, denoting a “feeling and spirit of togetherness.”
  • “(Be) ethical within society” – Make a positive contribution, and have no negative effect on people or the environment.
  • “Deliver fair practices” – Offer top value for a reasonable price.
  • “Serve all stakeholders” – An organization’s stakeholders include its “customers, team members, the community and owners.”

Purpose Is Good Business

McKinsey & Company advises companies to “integrate environmental, social and governance issues into their business model – and act on them.” Purpose-driven companies achieve “positive productivity gains,” and they enjoy “short- and long-term growth” and “financial benefits.” Deloitte reports that 73% of team members in purpose-driven organizations feel “fully engaged” in their work.

“By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work 12 hours a day.” (journalist Robert Quillen)

Companies that operate with purpose are on the path to becoming productive, successful enterprises with engaged team members. Their focus is to improve society as well as to increase profits. This isn’t just smart business; it’s also the moral, ethical thing to do. Futurist Buckminster Fuller probably said it best: “Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”

About the Author

Dan Pontefract is “chief envisioner” of TELUS Transformation Office, a consulting firm that helps organizations enhance their corporate culture and collaboration practices. He also wrote the bestseller Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization.

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Book Review

Coach the Person Not the Problem

Recommendation

Marcia Reynolds promises the key to transformational coaching: being fully present. She teaches readers to focus on individuals rather than their problems to draw out your clients’ true feelings and get to the root of their concerns. Packed with easy-to-grasp tips and case studies, Reynold’s book includes the five techniques of reflective inquiry. Find out how to use thinking partnerships to expand your clients’ perspectives and help them gain the power and confidence to move forward.

Take-Aways

  • Successful coaching techniques focus on inquiry, not merely on asking questions.
  • People don’t transform their thinking on their own; coaching helps. Coaches can use five essential techniques:
  • 1. Focus – Direct your attention as a coach to your client rather than to the client’s initial problem.
  • 2. Active replay – Affirm clients’ stories by echoing their words.
  • 3. Brain hacking – Help clients discover values or biases that may prevent them from seeing alternative approaches.  
  • 4. Goaltending – Help clients keep their story on track.
  • 5. New and next – Promise engagement and prod clients to take action.
  • Coaches must know what to say, guard their emotions and remain present.

Summary

Successful coaching techniques focus on inquiry, not merely on asking questions.

Acknowledging the differences between inquiry and questioning differentiates good coaches from great ones. Many coaches learn to ask specific questions, quite like following a checklist. However, this approach takes focus away from the client’s responses. Effective coaching seeks to spur reflection rather than to provide solutions to a particular problem. To become your client’s “thinking partner,” use reflective inquiry: Pair statements which spark reflective thinking with questions.

“The intent of inquiry is not to find solutions but to provoke critical thinking about our own thoughts. Inquiry helps people being coached discern gaps in their logic, evaluate their beliefs, and clarify fears and desires affecting their choices.”

When coaches use a series of questions with clients who come to them with specific problems, the questions direct the client to a solution for that particular problem, yet underlying issues often remain. Reflective inquiry, by contrast, helps clients understand the beliefs and fears that shape their choices. Reflective inquiry also allows people to reframe their initial problem and place it in a larger context.

True coaching creates a thinking partnership between the coach and the client. This partnership helps clients shift their perspective to see what their words and actions reveal, to evaluate their situation and to believe in their potential. Some coaching moves away from developing this client relationship and, instead, relies on advice-giving. However, simply providing solutions inhibits the client’s ability to become a self-aware and independent thinker going forward. Strong coaches create connections with their clients, bring their client’s true concerns to light and help them develop the confidence to tackle problems on their own in the future.

People don’t transform their thinking on their own; coaching helps. Coaches can use five essential techniques.

People naturally resist reflecting on their thoughts. When others question a person’s beliefs, he or she often becomes defensive, erecting emotional barriers and resisting change. Yet when an effective coach uses reflective inquiry to summarize a client’s own words and paraphrase his or her ideas, then connections form and self-awareness begins.

“Reflective statements help people think about what they are saying.”

This practice of reflective inquiry prompts the necessary two-way conversation. In one example, a client expressed frustration with the ideas her co-workers offered in business strategy sessions. Through coaching, she discovered that her concerns were rooted in her reluctance to recognize cultural differences and that affected her thinking about the way other people approached business priorities. By shifting her perspective, she learned to be more inclusive and became a better leader. All coaching sessions must include these key elements:

  • Goals – Establish a desired outcome, even if it does not present itself initially.
  • Blocks – Identify any hurdles that may affect progress toward the goal.
  • Actions – Determine next steps.

Clients can maximize the impact of their coaching sessions by participating openly. They must commit to following through on ideas and reflecting on any revelations. This coaching approach focuses on transforming the client’s behavior rather than simply solving an isolated problem.

1. Focus – Direct your attention as a coach to your client rather than to the client’s initial problem.

Five essential techniques facilitate reflective inquiry: “Focus,” “Active Replay,” “Brain Hacking,” “Goaltending” and “New and Next.” When clients embark on a coaching journey, they usually identify a problem or a situation needing resolution. Coaches can use the problem to begin a two-way conversation, then, gradually, shift the focus away from the particular problem. At that point, the coach can help bring to light any hurdles and misperceptions that cloud the client’s thinking. This shift may make clients uncomfortable; yet, challenging the beliefs that govern their actions can expand their thinking and give them much-needed direction.

“If you believe the person you are coaching has some experiences to draw from in seeking a resolution to the issue presented, then the focus needs to move away from the external problem and onto the person.”

An executive leading a division that his organization was attempting to sell expressed anxiety over problems he had with his team leaders, some of whom questioned whether they should move on to other positions. Upon further reflection, he discovered his issue centered not on his employees and their motivations but on his own ability to secure another job – an uncomfortable revelation his coach pushed him to acknowledge. This type of awareness-based coaching shifts the focus from the initial problem to the client and uncovers sentiments the client has been unable or unwilling to acknowledge. Use “Focus” effectively by taking these steps:

  • Set clear expectations for the session’s agenda and the coach’s role.
  • Confirm belief in the client’s abilities and potential.
  • Know when to transition from the problem to the client.

2. Active replay – Affirm clients’ stories by echoing their words.

The practical coaching method of restating a client’s story offers insights and clarity into the client’s direction. Active replay calls for the coach to employ two strategies: summarizing and observing. Summarizing a client’s words on the surface appears straightforward, yet it can be powerful in helping the client understand his or her true motivations. For example, one client expressed disappointment over her husband’s unwillingness to change his job schedule. After hearing her coach summarize her words, she realized the true source of her frustration – a breakdown in communication – and that shifted the direction of the coaching. Summarizing uses three useful techniques:

  • Recapping – Use the client’s words to clarify understanding or point out contradictions.
  • Paraphrasing – Alter the client’s words slightly to try to guess their true direction, which they can confirm or rebuff.
  • Encapsulating – Sum up the conversation succinctly to elicit a more accurate understanding of the problem from the client.

Observing clients as they discuss their concerns often offers the coach as much information as the words they speak. By noticing hesitations, emotional shifts or changes in tone when the client tells his or her story, coaches can share the emotions they observe and explore their meaning.

“Reflective statements and questions provide an active replay of not just their behaviors but also the beliefs, fears, disappointments, betrayals, conflicts of values and desires prompting their actions.”

Importantly, coaches must allow clients to express their emotions without judgment, since these observations often provide important revelations, and judging them may cause clients to withdraw. Coaches should do the following when engaging in active replay:

  • Use client’s words to recap or paraphrase, then validate them.
  • Drill down to the main points of the client’s story.
  • Notice changes in temperament when summarizing.
  • Provide emotional safety for the client.

3. Brain hacking – Help clients discover values or biases that may prevent them from seeing alternative approaches.  

Life experiences provide context for people in their day-to-day lives. When they face problems, they intuitively lean on those experiences. The coach’s job often entails breaking through clients’ experiences to expose beliefs or prejudices that may hamper their ability to consider different strategies. Coaches must encourage clients to explore their beliefs to see what makes sense and what does not. In one coaching session, for example, the client had to first question her beliefs about what good managers “should” accomplish instead of focusing immediately on the tough decision at hand.

“Our beliefs, biases and assumptions come from our experiences but are formed through the filter of our life values and social needs. As we experience life, we pull from our context to make meaning of our situations.”

People prefer to view situations through the lens of their long-held beliefs and the related standards that guide their actions. Coaches must balance these values and the biases they produce with clients’ social needs, such as the need for respect or control. When coaches help clients recognize what they value, how those values shape their decisions and what they feel they need, clients can reframe their desired outcome in those contexts. In brain hacking, resist judging your clients, notice their emotional reactions, and affirm their efforts and intentions.

4. Goaltending – Help clients keep their story on track.

At the onset of a coaching session, coaches and clients establish desired outcomes. Yet often, goals shift or the outcome becomes less clear. Coaches must continue to move with the conversation, set new goals as needed and make sure the client agrees with the direction. Expressing and working toward a stated outcome assures that the conversation stays focused and that clients can apply what they learn after their session.

“Clarifying the desired outcome gives the coach guardrails to keep the story from falling off the edge of a forward-moving path.” ”

Coaches use three essential practices to maintain focus:

  1. Establish what clients want; then have them sort through their options.
  2. Monitor changes in the conversation that may uncover an alternate outcome, and, with that, new insights that offer clear solutions.
  3. Identify take-aways and steps toward commitment.

To keep the goal in focus, coaches must listen for what clients feel is most important as well as for ideas that cause emotional reactions, like fear, frustration or embarrassment. At the same time, the coach helps clients identify any blocks that prevent them from moving forward. Once a new outcome surfaces, the client and coach can discuss next steps. Coaches using goaltending should heed three tips:

  • State what you hear as the problem and ask clients to choose an outcome they want to work toward.
  • Notice when an outcome shifts, and relay this to the clients.
  • Recognize emotional triggers and ask how the clients’ reactions relate to the desired outcome.

5. New and next – Promise engagement and prod clients to take action.

Reflective inquiry yields insights into clients’ true goals. To benefit from coaching, clients must commit to taking action. Before clients can act, however, they must acknowledge their insights and agree to new goals.

“Without formally wrapping up the coaching session with a verbalized commitment to action, clients may forget what they thought they knew to do after the session ends. They might even lose the insight they had.”

During the session, the coach works with clients to reiterate their objectives and then shifts to outlining next steps.Using questions such as, “What will you do with this knowledge?”, “What hurdles might inhibit you from moving forward?” or phrases like “Take time to reflect” creates openings for clients to share their plans. This increases the likelihood that they will follow through. To maximize this phase, take these steps:

  • Recognize and share emotional shifts that may prompt new revelations. 
  • Allow clients to change the direction of the coaching after exposing new insights.
  • Develop a plan for action.

Coaches must know what to say, guard their emotions and remain present.

Astute coaches create a safe zone for clients to discuss their concerns and open themselves to self-reflection. A coach’s emotions influence the relationship with the client and the client’s willingness to share.

“The mental habits of being present, receiving instead of listening, and releasing judgment change the dynamics of relationships. Using reflective statements followed by affirming questions decreases assumptions, keeping the conversation on the same page.”

Three mental habits – the A.R.C. of coaching – influence a coach’s ability to be present for their clients:

  1. “Align your brain” – Coaches must practice physical and mental awareness when coaching clients in order to focus on the discussion at hand. The coach’s objective – to broaden the client’s perspective – requires that the coach participate in – but not steer – the conversation and offer clients space to tell their story.
  2. “Receive, not just listen” – The key to active listening, or receiving, lies in holding back judgment. By remaining quiet the coach can better read clients’ emotional energy as well as their words. This strengthens the thinking partnership.
  3. “Catch and release judgment” – Like all humans, coaches have judgmental instincts; yet in coaching sessions, judgment can impair the client relationship. Coaches must learn to recognize when their own biases and assumptions impede their ability to form a partnership with their clients. For example, when a client laughs nervously, rather than trying to guess why, the coach needs to ask what thoughts the client had at the moment.

People benefit when they learn coaching skills. Companies benefit also when leaders instill an organizational coaching culture. The coaching mind-set opens people’s minds to different perspectives and increases employee engagement. More engagement means lower turnover and a more agile work environment.

About the Author

Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, helps coaches and leaders work with clients to create transformative conversations. She has provided coaching and training in 41 countries, and Global Gurus named her as one of the world’s top five coaches.  

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Book Review

Meaning, Inc

Recommendation

Declining morale, lower productivity, burnout and lack of advancement make work seem like a grind. Plummeting employee engagement is a global phenomenon, especially in developed nations, but there is a remedy: add meaning to your corporate culture. Author Gurnek Bains (writing with Kylie Bains) teaches that making your employees’ work more meaningful can reinvigorate their engagement, and improve your profits, productivity and public relations. getAbstract finds plenty of depth in Bains’ argument that companies prosper and people work better when they know that their labor serves a greater good. Using studies and analysis, he demonstrates why leaders who want energized employees should begin by explaining what their work really means.

Take-Aways

  • Companies worldwide are finding that workers are not fully engaged in their duties.
  • Only 20% of U.S. workers reported being “enthusiastic” about their jobs.
  • Employees want their work to be significant and to make a contribution to society.
  • Today’s companies face more responsibility: Two-thirds of the world’s largest financial entities are corporations – as opposed to nations.
  • People have a sense of meaning when their activities relate to something purposeful.
  • Meaning becomes more powerful when workers can connect their values and beliefs to what their companies are doing.
  • People create meaning to survive and to frame their activities positively.
  • Creative leaders transform their organizations and convert opportunities into action.
  • Maintaining work-life balance is a major source of meaning and job satisfaction.
  • Your company can improve engagement by giving employees a sense of purpose.

Summary

The Price of Great Rewards

Businesses today ask more of their employees, clients and customers. At the same time, governments ask more from businesses. In the years ahead, increasingly powerful corporations will be asked to contribute more to society, over and above paying taxes. To put this in context, realize that Wal-Mart’s $287 billion gross annual sales in 2005 would have made it the 22nd largest nation in terms of gross domestic product. The World Bank and Fortune magazine found that two-thirds of the globe’s largest financial entities are corporations, not nations or public institutions.

“Meaning can and will give businesses a genuine competitive edge.”

As companies become more important, some executives are finding that they can encourage their employees to work harder by helping them reach for more meaningful corporate and personal goals. Companies such as Virgin, Starbucks, The Tata Group, ANZ Bank, Genentech and Southwest Airlines have realized that working toward purposeful objectives motivates employees and leads to greater profitability. Injecting meaning into daily operations gives employees a sense of purpose. The alternative is having workers who are no longer engaged in their work, thus undermining morale, competitiveness and earnings.

“At the core of a company’s identity lie the implicit values and ground rules that govern its day-to-day behaviors.”

Companies create meaning when they improve the way they relate to their employees and customers. Companies on this positive path typically exhibit these characteristics:

  • They offer stretch goals in pursuit of their core objectives.
  • They innovate, deliver employee benefits and make people feel special.
  • They allow people to be individuals and to build their own talents.
  • They critically evaluate each person’s work and contribution to group efforts.
  • They are concerned about wider issues.
  • They forgo short-term goals that conflict with their deeper purpose.
  • They live their stated ideals.

“Genuinely listening to what people want and responding to it authentically is what we understand by ‘creating meaning’.”

For example, take British Petroleum, whose CEO was one of the first major executives to acknowledge the danger of global warming, an odd admission from an oil company leader. BP, now the world’s second largest oil concern, uses the concept of “mutual advantage” to work with different constituencies. Genentech, a biotech firm that Fortune called the best company to work for in the United States, spends about 20% of its revenues on research and development. It offers innovative HR programs and it caters to working mothers. Starbucks also supports its employees and its coffee growers, even though that doesn’t always boost its bottom line. Companies that embrace a higher meaning thrive because they meet their customers and employees’ expectations of how socially conscious businesses should act.

“The increasing reaction against big global brands stems from the sense of personal meaning that people seek as consumers.”

Not only do employees want their work to make a meaningful contribution, but customers are also starting to scrutinize companies more critically. A gasoline company can no longer just provide fuel; it must be a key participant in environmental and conservation issues. McDonalds had to change its operations after bad publicity about the impact of fast foods on health. Incidents like this have made customers more aware of their power. Half of those who responded to a British bank’s survey said they had boycotted a business within the last year because of perceived ethical violations. The Internet has made it much easier to organize boycotts by directing messages to targeted audiences. More companies are struggling to find new ways of doing things as they realize that the approaches they used in the ’80s and ’90s no longer work.

Finding New Ways

At the executive level, more CEOs say they are devoting more time to image management and regulatory demands. One oil executive said his company’s main business was managing political relationships, not drilling for oil. Other executives complain that old ways of shaping employee behavior, such as organizational restructuring, process re-engineering, goal incentives and hiring new executives, no longer motivate the workforce.

“One Australian executive described to me how shocked people from his American parent company had been when he told them that to get people to come to business meetings they had to serve beer.”

A 2003 Gallup poll found that overall only 27% of workers said they were “engaged” in their work. In Great Britain, only 19% of people found their work satisfying; in Germany 12%; in Singapore 6%; and in France 12%. In the U.S., a Harris survey of 23,000 workers found that 20% felt “enthusiastic” about their work, 22% felt valued and 20% felt their companies honored their stated values.

“In 21st-century organizations, the key to raising levels of commitment will be to create an authentic sense of meaning.”

Since people spend about 50% of their lives working, their quest for meaningful employment is not surprising. Keeping people in jobs that offer paychecks but no larger purpose is getting more difficult. To complicate matters, executives often develop inaccurate impressions of employee concerns and morale, particularly since workers tend to disguise their true feelings about their jobs. Fear and ambition drive many workers, but studies indicate that employees have begun to wear a “psychological uniform” that disguises their cynicism, staleness, “change fatigue,” resentment and belief that life should mean more than just working. More workers find their superiors are pushing them to meet increasingly higher growth targets with no end in sight.

“At best, engagement levels are stuck at disappointingly low levels, despite all that organizations have done in an effort to inspire and motivate people.”

For their own survival and peace of mind, people try to create meaning and to frame their activities in a larger context. Noted psychoanalyst Victor Frankl, writing about the psychological importance of meaning, said human beings want to know why they exist. Psychologist Abraham Maslow advanced Frankl’s work by placing self-actualization near the top of his hierarchy of human needs. In Eastern cultures, the Sikh religion fosters communal belonging and distinctiveness. Historically, Sikhs are bold, courageous and willing to act on new ideas – all attitudes that help create meaning.

“Hence, career commitment is replaced by career ambivalence, at best – career apathy, at worst.”

People experience “meaning” when they see that their activities are linked to something purposeful. This affects brain chemistry. When a person creates a meaningful association, a chemical reaction links neurons in different parts of the brain. These new pathways form fresh concepts or put events in context. Building these connections adds to the individual’s sense of significance. Linking your personal goals to helping society improve is very powerful, particularly when you figure out how to have a positive impact. Employers can nurture this process by helping workers connect their personal sense of meaning to the company’s activities. This is a subjective process, so people have to make many of these connections themselves, perhaps with a leader’s help. The result is a larger sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Input vs. Output

Maintaining a balance between work and life is a major determinant of job satisfaction, but an increasing number of workers believe they have put more time and commitment into their jobs than they have received in wages or appreciation. Even when corporate productivity and profitability increase, workers rarely receive a direct personal benefit.

“A major reason behind the ubiquitous sense of work-life imbalance is that people don’t really know what they want.”

People tend to bracket their work lives as separate from their personal lives because they derive meaning from their personal time that is largely absent at work. Work creates stress. Levels of tension are even higher at companies where people have few opportunities for self-expression, individuality or purpose. The opposite is true at companies such as Genentech, which emphasize a good work-life balance. The firm allows people to work on projects that interest them, and provides day care and paid sabbaticals.

“The creation of meaning is all about how people frame things and contextualize their activities.”

In companies where employees share a sense of meaning, managers tend to be less controlling and competitive, and more self-aware and collaborative. This makes staffers more accountable, energized, innovative and willing to take responsibility. Creative leaders can transform their organizations in this direction. Such leaders, like Steve Jobs of Apple, know their company’s DNA and environment. They possess economic, technological, political, social and demographic foresight. They understand what drives their firm and their employees’ efforts.

“While many believe that earning more money will improve the quality of their life, the reality is that once people in the U.S. and the U.K. earn over the threshold of £12,000 ($25,000), there is virtually no relationship between their salary and their happiness.”

To enlighten employees about your company’s meaning, undertake “inside-out” branding, sending employees the branding messages you would generally direct to customers. This approach makes employees, not an ad agency, responsible for building the brand. Virgin Airlines is very adept at inside-out branding. Its employees are its biggest advocates on and off the job. Branding from the inside out can help your company develop a distinct identity and live its values. Use it to reorient staffers and involve them more emotionally with your customers.

New Approaches

Companies can create meaning by using innovative organizational structures. Take these firms, for example:

  • Semco – This Brazilian builder of ship parts reorganized when it passed into the hands of its founder’s 21-year-old son. He fired many senior managers, eliminated job descriptions and business cards, and told people to organize themselves into self-managed teams to pursue value-adding activities. Since 1988, revenues have increased “tenfold.”
  • W.L. Gore – The manufacturer of Gore-Tex encourages workers to pursue projects they enjoy and to follow colleagues whom they think have the best ideas. Worldwide surveys consistently rank it as one of the best places to work.
  • Whitbread – This U.K. brewer revamped its structure and culture. Among other steps, it began fostering workers’ individual talents. Within two years, its share price doubled.
  • Diageo – The world’s largest manufacturer of branded liquor (including Smirnoff, Johnny Walker and Guinness), launched a mentoring program to create “world-class leadership.” Some 5,000 executives took a two-day seminar to become better managers and team members. The classes emphasized coaching, including observing and understanding performance, giving feedback and suggesting change.
  • Southwest Airlines – The company built its reputation for service by cultivating a fun-loving, familial, egalitarian culture. It engenders employee loyalty by avoiding layoffs, and offering profit-sharing and stock-purchase programs. It has a history of profitability and the industry’s best safety record.

The Importance of Belonging

The lack of a sense of belonging is the greatest predictor of employee depression, according to a 1999 University of Michigan study. Depressed staffers make mistakes and miss work. In fact, depression costs billions of dollars a year in lost productivity. In the Western world, people traditionally derived a sense of belonging from their families, religions and community lives. But as those societal ties have weakened, people have come to base more of their personal relationships around their work. When the workplace fails to provide bonding or meaning, the result is stress, turnover, absenteeism, poor performance, detachment, weak morale, pressure to conform, and a lack of trust between workers and management.

“The cliché that money can’t buy happiness seems to be true.”

To create a sense of belonging, companies should welcome newcomers since they reinvigorate long-time employees. Corporations also should encourage strong collegial relationships, inspire loyalty by promoting from within and raise their culture’s level of inspiration, innovation and creativity. Firms should openly communicate about the way their values translate into business practices.

Linking Money and Happiness

In the search for individual meaning at work, many employees confuse bigger salaries with greater happiness. However, studies show that simply earning more money does not increase employees’ level of happiness. People commonly pursue careers they believe will make them happy, only to find that once they achieve their career goals, they are not actually happier. Often society’s prevailing norms define career goals and success, not the individual. This undue pressure to meet a standard of happiness defined by other people just creates a sense of failure and more stress.

“I used to think culture was an important part of the game. I now realize it is the whole game.” [–Former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner]

Modern society has many valid definitions of “success,” ranging from earning wealth to exercising regularly and losing weight to being well-read and having lots of friends. These confusing, multiple goals can jeopardize a person’s work-life balance. To break this cycle, people can seek outside help to determine what would make them happy, to provide a sense of fulfillment outside of work and to foster change, if change is necessary.

About the Author

Gurnek Bains is a founder of a corporate psychology consultancy with offices in London, Sydney, New York, Hong Kong, Edinburgh and Düsseldorf. He has been a senior corporate adviser on cultural and personnel issues for 20 years.

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Summary

The Basics of Performance Coaching

In sports and other areas, a coach helps individuals fulfill their potential so they can perform at their best. Coaching focuses on learning, not teaching, and covers “planning, problem solving, reviewing” and “skill development.” Just as a baby discovers how to walk independently, a coaching subject (called a “coachee”) learns to grow and achieve through self-actualization. Coaches are not necessarily experts in any particular field of business, but they must be experts in coaching itself, including its customs and methods.

“Good coaching is a skill, an art perhaps, that requires a depth of understanding and plenty of practice if it is to deliver its astonishing potential.”

A professional coach sets out to maximize each subject’s sense of personal potential to create a path to improved performance. A coach helps people learn to believe in themselves without reservation. Coaches don’t instruct as much as they treat people with humane concern to help them make the most of their innate capabilities. When managers coach their subordinates, they must adopt a different, more nurturing “communication style” than the usual in-the-office approach. Most managers wield authority somewhere on the spectrum between “dictators” and “persuaders,” but coaching works on a different scale. When acting as coaches, managers should ask questions that enable their subordinates to understand the tasks at hand more fully. Coaches help people consider pivotal issues and discover answers that can guide their future actions.

“Adopting a coaching ethos requires commitment, practice and some time before it flows naturally.”

If you are a manager, how do you know when to don your coaching hat? Look for an opportunity when a subordinate needs to learn something meaningful, when you both have time and when the quality of the result is particularly important. Today, employees expect – and may demand – more control over their own activities. With such increased involvement comes deeper responsibility. Coaching adapts well to this new paradigm by helping people enhance their performance, which makes them better able to take on added duties and accountability.

Awareness and Responsibility

Effective coaching works to increase people’s awareness and their “focused attention, concentration and clarity.” Awareness implies the ability and self-perception to separate the trivial from the critical. Great athletic coaches help their players become more physically aware so their bodies perform better. Superior business coaches help subjects build “mental and people awareness,” so they become more attuned and learn to direct their efforts where they are most relevant.

“The greatest barrier is the inability to give up what you have done before.”

Coaches must organize their professional methods to encourage heightened mental states, such as perceptiveness and responsibility. The coach is a facilitator and “awareness raiser,” not an instructor or problem solver. The ideal coach is “patient, detached, supportive, interested, [a] good listener, perceptive, aware, self-aware, attentive” and “retentive.” Yet, “technical expertise, knowledge, experience, credibility” and “authority” are less important. The coach doesn’t worry as much about teaching best practices as about enhancing each person’s potential to excel.

The Right Questions Lead to Viable Answers

Coaches help clients develop their capacities primarily by asking directed questions. To illustrate, consider the popular sports dictum: “Always keep your eye on the ball.” How can a baseball coach use this advice to help a player grow? Asking “Are you watching the ball?” will put a player on the defensive. “Why aren’t you watching the ball?” will increase that defensiveness. Now consider these alternatives: “Which way is the ball spinning as it comes toward you?” “Does it spin faster or slower after it bounces?” “How far is it from your opponent when you first see which way it is spinning?” Answering such coaching questions forces a ballplayer to focus on the ball. Useful queries are not judgmental; they are structured so that answering them creates a valuable “feedback loop” the coach can use to build the player’s accomplishments.

“Coaches are increasingly replacing or, at least, enhancing their old instructional style by focusing more on the person than the technique, on the potential rather than on the mistake.”

Coaches in the business world can use parallel probing questions: “What is the most difficult business situation for you?” “How will the price increase affect customers?” “What is your team’s biggest challenge?” Specific questions prompt specific responses. The coach doesn’t need the information in the answers. To the coach, the important thing about such questions is that they make respondents think about issues that matter, so that they become more aware and responsible. When you are coaching someone, form your questions around the words “what, when, who, how much” and “how many.” Ask about areas that interest the person you’re coaching. Heed the answers closely. Avoid leading questions, like, “Why on Earth did you do that?” As you coach, govern your tone of voice and body language. Focus on “listening, hearing, watching and understanding.”

The “GROW Formula”

Make your initial questions broad and then zero in on details. Think of looking at something normally, and then seeing it through a magnifying glass, and then through a microscope, gaining greater definition with each view. Coaching is the same. The coach must probe intently, using such questions as, “What would the consequences be?” “What criteria are you using?” “Imagine having a dialogue with the wisest person you know. What would he or she tell you to do?” Or, “What advice would you give a colleague in your situation?”

“We tend to get what we focus on. If we fear failure, we are focused on failure and that is what we get.”

To put your questions in the right sequence, use the GROWformula:

  • “Goal setting” – “What do you hope to accomplish?” is a typical goal-directed query. Contrast between “end goals,” like “I want to be sales director,” and “performance goals,” such as “I want to sell 100 widgets.” A person can control a performance goal, but not an end goal. Make goals “SMART” (“specific, measurable, agreed, realistic” and “time-phased”); “PURE” (“positively stated, understood, relevant” and “ethical”); and “CLEAR” (“challenging, legal, environmentally sound, appropriate” and “recorded”).
  • “Reality checking” – Goals that ignore present situations are unrealistic. People must be objective about what they want to accomplish. To provide a worthwhile reality-check, ask, “How much of this situation…is within your control?” Or, “What action have you taken?” Follow up by asking, “What were the effects of the action?” Many times, such probing questions can lead a person to a “Eureka!” moment.
  • “Options” – Explore many potential tactics. Don’t let people arbitrarily limit their choices. Have them create lists of options and examine the pros and cons of each one.
  • “What is to be done?” – This question, along with “When?” and “By whom?” as well as, “Do you have the will to do it?” comes up in the final stage of coaching, when the coach and subject “convert a discussion into a decision.” As coach, you might ask, “What are you going to do?” But, don’t ask, “What could you do?” That is too indecisive. Other good questions at this stage include: “When are you going to do it?” “Will this action meet your goal?” “What obstacles might you encounter?” And, “what other considerations exist?” The point is to have people commit to action. Ask them to rate, from “one to 10,” their degree of certitude about implementing the needed step. Expect inaction regarding any ratings below eight.

“Emotional intelligence is twice as important as mental acuity for success in the workplace.”

The “What is to be done?” step concludes the “coaching cycle.” Do not set performance bars for your coaching subjects. That is their job. The standards they set on their own invariably will be more ambitious than the standards you might suggest.

Effective coaching will raise people’s awareness, and help them learn, enjoy their achievements, and build responsibility and a drive to improve. Learning and enjoyment are essential components of higher accomplishment.

“The worst feedback is personal and judgmental; the most effective is subjective and descriptive.”

Active learning may also involve establishing “conscious competence,” where a coach provides continuous, nonjudgmental monitoring of a person’s actions. This creates an “input-feedback loop” to foster learning and self-actualization. For example, a manager might provide useful interrogatory feedback about an employee’s report by asking: “What is the essential purpose of your report?” “To what extent do you think this draft achieves that?” And, “what are the other points you feel need to be emphasized?” Such questions prompt people to be self-reliant and to review their own work objectively and meaningfully.

“Praise…tends to be sparingly offered and hungrily received in the workplace, where criticism abounds.”

Coaches also help people prepare for challenges. Using a kind of “anticipatory” planning called “feedforward,” a baseball pitching coach might tell a young player, “On the next pitch, I am going to ask you which part of the pitching movement feels the least comfortable to you.” This approach helps the trainee heed specific aspects of a future event and, thus, learn more from it. A business coach’s feedforward questions could include “What do you think the obstacles might be to achieving your goal?” or “Which element of this task bothers you the most?”

“As we become more self-aware, we are able to be more aware of others.”

You can extend these one-on-one coaching methods to work with teams of employees. First, a team must establish clear goals, ground rules and meeting schedules. Having the team members spend social or recreational time together, perhaps participating in sporting activities, can also help. Develop “buddy systems” so individuals can resolve minor issues outside of team meetings.

Barriers and Benefits

Some people do not like anything different, new or nontraditional, such as coaching. Indeed, many coaches’ most common concern is, “How do I coach resistant people?”

“Blame evokes defensiveness – defensiveness reduces awareness.”

As an advocate for coaching in your company, you might encounter these objections – and use these responses:

  • “Our company culture is against this kind of approach” – The traditionalist’s lament: “We never had coaching here before. Why should we need it now?” Well, until the 1980s, employees never had personal computers either. Organizations that culturally resist change cannot survive; change is today’s most pressing business constant.
  • “It’s just a new management gimmick” – Explain that anything that really optimizes performance is not a gimmick.
  • “I don’t have time to coach” – If you are so pressed for time, your direct reports aren’t giving you the support you need. Coach them so they can do more in the future.
  • “Our people want to be told what to do” – If so, your employees are in a dangerous rut. Coaching can help pull them out of it.
  • “People here will think I have gone nuts” – This will stop once performance improves.
  • “I won’t know what questions to ask” – Use the GROW formula, it will help.
  • “Why should I change things?” – Don’t you want better performance?

“So often it is when we let go of the need for control that we gain control.”

Coaching offers numerous organizational advantages, including these benefits:

  • “Improved performance and staff development” – Help people reach their goals.
  • “Improved learning” – Coaching puts learning into overdrive.
  • “Improved quality of life for individuals” – People who perform better are happier.
  • “More time for managers” – Coached employees will accept more responsibility.
  • “Better use of people, skills and resources” – Coaching will reveal just how capable your people are.
  • “Faster and more effective emergency response” – People who are afraid to accept responsibility tend to sit on their hands during crises, but responsible people act.
  • “Increased adaptability to change” – Companies with a “listening, learning, coaching culture” will be able to adapt best to changing business circumstances.
  • “Greater motivated staff” – Companies are now moving away from the old command-and-control paradigm to a new coaching style of management. The carrot-and-stick approach doesn’t work with today’s employees. Coaching motivates people to achieve more and helps prepare new leaders.
  • “Valuable life skill” – As coaching becomes more accepted, employers will increasingly recruit executives who can coach others effectively.

“You can make a man run, but you can’t make him run fast.”

Coaching has a bright future. Expect to see a greater emphasis on “transpersonal coaching,” which involves the spiritual side of life and subconscious, psychological fulfillment. This addresses modern life’s challenges, since the daily routine can seem to lack meaning and purpose. Coaches with compassion and emotional intelligence can help people adapt to stress. Indeed, coaches are “midwives at the birth of a new social order.” Coaches don’t have all the answers, by any means, but they fill an important role by helping individuals discover answers that work for them.

About the Author

John Whitmore is a legendary coach. His classic book on coaching has sold more than half a million copies in 22 languages. Whitmore started out as a professional racecar driver. His racing team won numerous prestigious championships in the 1960s.

Take Aways

  • Coaches help people improve their professional performance and their lives.
  • Those who receive coaching (“coachees”) experience self-actualization, which develops their skills and talents.
  • Coaching builds awareness and helps people become more responsible.
  • Effective coaches do not have to be specialists in the business fields where they coach. However, they do need to be expert coaches.
  • Managers must adopt nontraditional relationship styles when they coach their team.
  • Coach your employees when you have time, when they need to learn and when quality results are critical to your work.
  • Coaches do not teach. They help others learn through probing questions.
  • Coaches who ask such questions are not searching for information they can use to solve others’ problems; instead, they are urging respondents to think about issues.
  • Structure your questions to follow the “GROW formula” – inquire about “Goals,” check “Reality,” list “Options” and ask, “What is to be done, When [and] by Whom?”
  • As coaching becomes increasingly common, it will focus more on spiritual issues.