WHAT DO I WANT TO CHANGE?

My Manifesto Pamela HackettIt’s time to innovate management!

1For years I’ve 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. And 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! It’s costing businesses billions in low productivity and lost

opportunity, and people their health and happiness.

SO, WHY ARE WE UNDER-ENGAGED?2I speculate that much of the reasons we are under-engaged at

work centers around the way work gets managed & done in

organizations today. We built our businesses around

production management & military commands, where we

followed our leaders without question; they were brighter,

better or they were simply, the boss. This doesn’t work

anymore. Businesses 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 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. And while we’ve focused on creating smart,

productive organizations, we’ve forgotten to focus equal

attention creating healthy, fit organizations. Organizations that

are fit for human consumption. It’s time to create businesses

that work for people, and focus on management approaches

that help people do remarkable things.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?3

WHAT IS A BUSINESS FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION? 4A 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 highly engaged leadership team 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. This is a

different way of managing. It’s time to focus on our

management models not just our business models.

MANAGEMENT MODELS? 5For years we’ve run our businesses in a similar fashion, no

real changes to the way we manage the business. We select,

train, organize, lead, reward, recognize, develop and grow our

people principally, the same way we did decades ago. We

motivate, connect, manage, 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. This is the underlying

way we run the business; command and control through to

explore and discover. Businesses need to rethink their

management models, and in so doing will become more

productive and consume less profit!

It means management innovation is as important as product,

process of service innovation. 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 our people. 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 their, management innovation,

is the battleground of the future, if you really want to stick with a

military analogy. But beyond that, military style organizations,

should be history.

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.com

pamela@pamelahackett.com

Author: getGruntled!

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