Building it for you and me: Part 1

When people ask me what I’ve been working on, I always stop to think first. Sometimes I say, building a slackbot to help us be mindful, and sometimes I say a bot to keep track of how you’re feeling. I purposely change the reply to gauge interest and sometimes I’m successful and sometimes I’m not. It still doesn’t feel like I have the right description down yet. To flex that muscle, I thought I’d write down my discovery path.

Exploring the landscape

My exploration started with and continues to be full of books on employee engagement. I wanted to know what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to happy and engaged teams. It’s a bit of a selfish endeavor; I wanted to know what would make me happy and what I could have done better to take care of my past teams. Time is the most precious thing and I didn’t want to repeat past mistakes. In my heart I believe that work has a tremendous impact on how we live our lives. Happy work can translate to a happy home and if I could help even 1% of that, it is a worthwhile endeavor.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. — T. S. Eliot

Learning the path

Here are some ideas that have resonated with me when it comes to finding engagement and satisfaction in a workplace. Overall I believe Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is quite relevant when it comes to finding happiness at work.

Security

Personal and financial security is paramount; without it nothing else matters. Rabid dogs and great white sharks at work are a no-no. Job security is needed as the foundation for higher goals and it is very much in the same vein as the first & second level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We all need our security blankets.

Fairness

This is what fights office politics. You must have goals/objectives and measurable results which translate to explicit rewards and recognition. This process needs to be clear and transparent; if exceptions are made, you are opening a can of worms that you will always have to catch up and control. You can’t please everyone but if there’s a process in place that applies to everyone, it will be easier to digest and can be considered fair.

Leaders in a workplace can magnify the extent of fairness; they can be a positive influence by implementing fair policies and avoiding favoritism. Unfair leaders (intentional or not) can be quite detrimental to the workplace culture.

Community

People feel the need to belong and are biologically hardwired to be social. Workplaces have to provide a sense of community and this is where companies well known for culture do very well. They provide social events and gatherings to facilitate sharing of experiences and to bring people together. With Community comes the feeling of support; this is when people can express who they really are.

I’ve read a lot of articles on bringing the authentic self to work; it’s supposed to contribute to workplace happiness. While working at Zappos this seemed perfectly natural but post-Zappos I’ve realized that it’s actually an unnatural concept to a lot of people. There seems to be a distrust of employers that is quite prevalent and a clear separation of who you are at work and outside of work seems to be the norm. Further digging revealed that a lot of these workplaces are lacking in Security and Community. People just didn’t feel safe enough to express who they really are. The good news is that this is within the complete control of the employer; if you want engaged employees the first step is to provide Security and Community.

Growth and Accomplishment

According to Jennifer Berger’s Changing on the Job, one can view learning and growing in two ways: informational and transformational. Companies and individuals tend to focus on the path of informational knowledge learning (e.g. a new skill, a new language) since it’s a lot easier to measure and acknowledge. This growth may actually satisfy most people since it’s something we’re all used to since primary school.

Transformational learning and growth is being able to gain new perspectives and patterns of existing ideas. Simply put it’s seeing things in a new light. Evolving different ways of thinking for the same context can be very hard. Effective leaders and coaches are gateways that can provide transformational growth through guidance and support. I do think this is essential for long-term growth and can overcome boredom that you might start seeing when focusing only on informational growth.

Purpose

The search for a purpose greater than oneself is a recurring theme in life and it is reflected in the workplace also. When all other needs have been met, the question of Purpose often will arise. Personally this was the last question asked early in my career but now it is the first question I ask. A shared purpose can elevate and inspire people’s thoughts and actions. Strong leaders can be the catalyst but the entire organization has to holistically believe in the Purpose.

Applying

The path to obtaining happiness in the workplace seems simple and complex at the same time. Everything I read seemed to make sense; some methods seem more proven with studies while some were more theoretical. Nevertheless they did illuminate my past experiences with better insights, allowing me to comprehend the reasons behind both fulfillment and frustration feelings I’ve felt.

When caught up in the daily hurried nature of work, it’s hard to be mindful about the reasons that might make one be happy and engaged versus dissatisfied and unfulfilled. It also requires the hardest task of all: being able to step back and examine oneself. We’re all trained to think more about external factors yet the reasoning necessary to truly understand is within ourselves.

There’s also a lot of material out there about HOW to be productive and in turn be successful: check lists, sleeping enough hours, being an early riser, meditating regularly, being thankful and reflective, and following your passion. I believe it depends on the context, meaning the person involved. What works for one person might not necessarily work for another. The WHAT or the HOW are secondary; the WHY might be more relevant. Identifying what it is that you feel lacking can help you test out the methods that people prescribe. The difficult part is actually the identification of the WHY since a lot of times it involves introspection and learning of oneself.

In the next part, I’ll go into detail on how I’m taking these learnings and trying to build a tool to help both you and me be more mindful. As always you can reach me here and here.