Sense and Sensibility at Work

Karl Marx had once said – “Work is the tool which enables us to influence the world around us, and seek meaning.” Profound words and I have always believed them to be absolutely true. No wonder in the ancient days, that one of the forms of punishment was to assign a meaningless task (say cleaning of 1 flagstone in the Roman empire) to a person for the duration of his punishment. In today’s era however, the financial gains derived from work tend to outshadow all the other benefits it provides such as a chance to engage with other human beings, to derive self-esteem and respect and most importantly to influence the world around.

A lot of work today in the corporate sector is monotonous and repetitive. This in itself is not really too bad a fact, after all our ancestors did get along cultivating a single piece of land through the same tools for their entire lives. However, what gave meaning to their work was the context which was stark and real – till the land or starve to death! It also helped that the fruits of their labours could be immediately enjoyed by them. In office cubicles however, the exact fruit of the efforts of hitting keys with fingers all day long is often unclear in the bigger scheme of things.

Leaders are increasingly realising that the key to successful engagement is to create meaning for all employees towards their work, to enable them to understand why their efforts matter. The only glitch, this creation of meaning is best communicated face to face. Now the last time we checked, the most important goal for any organisation was to have ever multiplying growth numbers. With a growing economy, this also translates into exponential attrition numbers. Combine these two factors, and the chances of having any meaning being communicated either directly by the leader or through the managers are less than a blue moon shining in the sky.

Begin to reflect on your office conversations and you will realise how frequent are the use of sentences starting with – “I simply don’t get why blah blah needs to be done”, “What on earth is the point of having bluh bluh bluh”, or “Does anyone around here know why blim blim is happening now”. Between the parent country and the satellite countries, between the headquarters and the region, between the layers of the grade structure in each organisation, meaning gets lost. Or to be more accurate, the meaning of most things to be done loses context and thus becomes meaningless!

One of the deadliest tools all working professionals possess is a strong tendency for rationalisation and blatant denial of any cognitive dissonance. Seemingly idiotic statements and actions get explained away through the use of language and power. However, this is more dangerous than it appears. Any distortion of reality is one of the potent weapons we can conjure to inflict self-harm with severe duress to our mental health. After a lifetime of inflicting such harm, can it really be intelligent to seek more fulfilling opportunities and plan your early retirement with hobbies at 40?

The moral of the story is simple – self disillusion is dangerous and to be avoided at any cost. If things do not make sense pointing it out is important, not for reasons of altruism but simply because it restores our sense of reality, and gives back meaning to what we do at work all day, all year round.

The Unspoken Contract

As I spend more time settling into the corporate sector, I get amazed by a number of happenings which seem so unnatural when transposed into the otherwise stable ecosystem of life. For instance there are many favours and expectations between a manager and a reportee which may be unarticulated in the conversations with other knobs of the organisational system. Often it is an unspoken contract, of favours bestowed and favours received, which may or may not necessarily be in line with existing policies.

I have always believed that it is foolhardy to expect words on a page to effectively drive human conduct. Human nature will invariably devise methods of thwarting the written guidelines, and the mechanisms of enforcing such dictates is often time and resource consuming. A much more effective way of guiding behaviour is through culture, by setting examples, and sharing stories. The tragedy of such a system is that it is most effective with a stable group, when members are familiar with each other and have personal stakes in belonging to the group.

One might argue that yes indeed, the organisation is indeed such a group, where people are bound by a common objective. Thus the unwritten rules are applicable and depict a workable method of enforcing behaviour. The clinch is this – with too much mobility, comes the heavy price of not belonging to any one group or organisation for any medium term period. When the stakes to belong are so low, unwritten rules simply go for a toss.

I am sure that there are umpteen tales where the reportee has slogged day and night and yet the organisation has never really reciprocated through timely promotions or handsome hikes. In few cases, the employee might be pushed to his tolerance and simply move on, or she may bite the bullet and continue. But there are an equal number of unspoken tales, where the manager may have stretched beyond his limit to secure a favour for an employee. It may be a transfer that he or she was looking for, an extended period of leave to mitigate a crisis, approvals and sponsorships into meaty roles and trainings. And yet, no sooner is the favour bestowed that the employee chooses to move on to another company! There is little that the manager can do, be it legally, be it through company policy to redeem his misplaced efforts.

If work was merely a mercenary contract between the organisation and the employee, then the feelings of hurt, betrayal and anger at such a situation would be displaced. But alas, we humans may try all we might, but never really shake off our human need to connect with others, to be of use, to help and be helped. In today world of short term memory this incident may be quickly forgotten, or washed away with subsequent movements of the manager and his team. But I have seen that such incidents do leave a deep dent in people’s minds, where the unwritten word met the written code and lost. It is a fine balancing act, all my dear fellow colleagues and one which has the power to make or break one’s sense of justice and communion.

Inspired not motivated

Isn’t every management student and every manager is perpetually studying and worrying respectively about motivating teams? Who hasn’t gone through a series of motivational theories, each attempting to capture motivation in a scientific and precise manner. Unfortunately management sciences is yet to fully comprehend the difference between social sciences and physical ones, otherwise they would long have given up!
Truth be told, most activities can be successfully completed with minimal motivation (read complete disinterest). After all, organizations today are convinced that most of their employees are completely brainless and thus attempt to dissect work in a minimalistic fashion, step by step almost as if we were all kindergarten going toddlers. Is it an attempt to make work motivation proof, where the maximum can be accomplished with the least of discretionary effort, I wonder.

I have been working for around 2 years now, and I do realize that there are some things I am capable of doing and certain things that I am motivated to. Both might not be present with the same intensity in each activity I have to perform at the workplace. Sometimes I feel completely motivated and interested in my work, while on other days, I run through the usual motion of tasks to be performed, making quite a few mistakes in turn. When I feel interested, there is faster processing of information, faster responses and more activities done!

While there are so many motivators around, I think that I work best with context and novelty. I doubt whether it is very different for many others. Who would not want to work in an environment where one really finds meaning in their work, understand how it impacts at a broader level and has the experience of learning continuously by exploring newer stuff. What does vary across people is the level to which these things bring an enthralled smile to their faces. For some, it might be a very distant reality, and one is content to settle for the occasional hiccup rather than the everyday mountain. For others monotony is another word for death.

What I really feel convinced about is the fact that motivating anyone is not really possible. People are self- motivated, or not motivated at all. There is a bit of philosophy that I really won’t bore my readers with, but not everyone believes in the infallibility of cause and effect. There is also an equally strong belief, unpleasant to some that we are actually capable of manipulating (read effecting) very little. This is not to give up hope by proclaiming kay sera sera (what will be, will be). We are actually strongly capable of influencing and nurturing, but not really directly. The best part is that one never really knows what effect one will have. One can work towards an ideal, or a belief and structure tasks towards it bit by bit, conversation by conversation. It can so happen that people get motivated (read influenced) to converge to a similar idea. But the distinct difference is that it is never the focus of your efforts, just a by-product. When this happens, you inspire.

Think of all those people who you listen to. Did they ever coax with higher pocket money or gifts or treats, for you to be moved by what they said. It was simply this – something was shared which you intuitively knew to be true, not construed for any end, and it resonated. That is what managers need to aim for. Does it sound difficult? It can only be so, if the underlying belief is missing and then everything else is mere hocus focus. Of course this is not to say that if the belief is there, then everything else miraculously falls into place. Technique is still important, and that’s why we are constantly training our managers! Some fun and games, dinner and drinks always yield wonders.

So here are the simple steps to motivate: never motivate, introspect, check for your own beliefs, start living them, and lo – people are inspired. If there is no congruence, change your job / company! 