WHAT DO I WANT TO CHANGE?

My Manifesto Pamela HackettIt’s time to innovate management!

1 For years, I have studied the results of surveys the globe over, aimed at determining how happy, how satisfied or how engaged we are at work. For years, the results have not been a pretty picture. They speak of doom and gloom, a veritable ice age of dislike, disenfranchisement, disgruntlement, an epidemic of under-engagement. People in general, are not exactly chipper about showing up at work each day. Moreover, totally showing up they rarely do, often choosing to leave their heart and spirit at home while they drag themselves through their jobs, dreaming of a life that doesn’t require work! I believe, it is costing businesses billions in low productivity, lost profits and lost opportunity, what climate change is to the world, the under engaged and disengaged, are to the world of work, affecting our costs, our companies, our economies, our health and our happiness, and ultimately, our success as people, communities and as whole countries.

SO, WHY ARE WE UNDER-ENGAGED? 2 I believe much of the reasons we are under-engaged at work, centers on the way work is managed & is done in organizations today. People simply don’t enjoy the way we run our businesses today, they way work gets done. We built our businesses around production management & military commands, where we followed our leaders without question; perhaps in days gone by, we felt they were brighter or better but today, let’s face it, sometimes they are simply, the boss. This doesn’t work anymore. There is no monopoly on brainpower, creativity or ideas. But there are engaged or under engaged people.

Businesses condemned to the past, to old ways of working and managing will no longer find success easy, if they ever did. Companies that don’t recognize the need to engage their people in meaningful work, those that lack a true purpose, that don’t practice collaboration or help their people connect, and haven’t found a way of managing the organization to bring out the best in people, will surely fail, given they are, each day, slowly but surely, failing their people. These companies are perpetuating the myths of old style management.

We have spent more than a few lifetimes focused on business models and strategies, on functional expertise and operational excellence. While we’ve focused on creating smart, productive organizations, we’ve forgotten to focus equal attention to create fit organizations. Organizations fit for human consumption. The result is a crisis of millions of people the world over, who feel less than engaged at work. We continue to have a people crisis of the magnitude of the global economic crisis of 2008 and 2009. This crisis was with us a long time before the financial crisis hit! It was just a different kind of crisis. It was a silent crisis.

We can’t have the equivalent of whole populations walking the corridors and plant floors of their businesses, loathing work. These same people put us in the air each time we fly, they sell us our motor vehicles, they feed us, and they cloth us. It is time to create businesses that work for people, and not against them, businesses that focus on management approaches that remove the barriers to success naturally, not create them, and help people come to work and do remarkable things.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? 3

WHAT IS A BUSINESS FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION?4 Gone are the days of an orderly workplace where a productive and efficient workforce rules.

Productivity and efficiency are expected, both might help you keep the doors to your business open today, neither will be the winning factors of the future. Productive and efficient people are at the starting line, they are the table stakes. How engaged you are day to day will be your competitive

advantage in the workforce and the competitive advantage of your business now and into the future. Engaged people, are the people who will willingly lead their companies out of economic holes and into

the future. Engaged people will be at the finish line if there were such a place, they will be the winners of a happy and healthy life, and happy and healthy businesses.

A fit business is a workplace of teams powered by common sense & trust, energized with initiative at every level, who know what they’re aiming for and how to use their business infrastructure to its best. A

fit business has a highly engaged leadership team engaging people by providing a sense of purpose greater than profit and financial results; a business bubbling with opportunity for sales & people growth; and people who totally show-up for work each day! They feel known, cared about, helped, inspired, led

and moved, and they have the freedom to act on behalf of the organizations good. A fit business is characterised by a different way of managing, a different management model.

MANAGEMENT MODELS?5 Today’s world needs to be characterised by these fit businesses. Sadly, it is not. For years,

we’ve run our businesses in a similar fashion. We select, train, organize, lead, reward, recognize, develop and grow our people principally, the same way we did decades ago.

There has been no real change to the way we manage a business. We motivate, connect, compartmentalize, define our strategies, develop our objectives and make our decisions

in a similar way we did years ago. These things, when placed together, form a management model, an underlying way we run the business; command and control

through to explore and discover. Our management models fuel our people for better or for worse. So? These management models have limited our ability to engage people in

their work. People no longer want the same management style. They no longer want the same traditional approach used to manage them for the past 100 years or so. Businesses

need to rethink their management models, and when they do, they will re-engage their people. When you re-engage your people, your business it becomes fit for people. When

your business is fit for people it becomes more productive and naturally consumes less profit. It is time to focus on our management models not just our business models.

It means management innovation is as important as product, process or service innovation. It means we need to reinvent the principals, practices and processes we use to get the work

done in our business, to better connect with and engage others and ourselves. Until we really change the way we manage and lead our businesses, we’ll continue to fall short of the

results we could achieve, and our people will continue to be under-engaged in their work. Engagement and the vehicle to get there, management innovation, is the battleground of

the future, if you really want to stick with a military analogy. However, beyond that, military style organizations, should be history.

In our future, successful businesses will be true organizations; living, breathing organisms. Businesses not just fit for the future but also fit for people, today.

WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN?6

©Copyright 2010 Pamela Hackett www.pamelahackett.com

How come people will take to the streets for what they believe in, but find it hard to take to the street that takes

them to work?

Building businesses fit for human consumption with less profit consumption

www.pamelahackett.compamela@pamelahackett.com

Author: getGruntled!

Become a magnet for talent, ideas, innovation & growth!Create an organization of people with the spirit of volunteers.