A Remarkable Workplace Begins With Unlearning

Good business is simple: happy and honest staff meeting or exceeding the known wants and needs of customers in ways, and for a price, that such customers perceive is valuable and memorable.

As I begin my 32nd year as a business person I am convinced about one thing in particular; we have massively overcomplicated what it takes to be successful in business. Despite the incredible advances of the so called industrial, information and technology revolutions, say 200 years of opportunity to become wise, common sense is still the most uncommon thing in the majority of workplaces. Real leaders have a primary focus: recruiting and retaining happy and honest staff. This is common sense of course. Fake leaders still play with other things, bottom lines, shareholder wealth, reengineering, and a whole bunch of stuff that takes care of itself when people are happy and therefore creative, innovative and productive.

A remarkable workplace begins with unlearning and the first thing many of us have to unlearn is about happy people. I ask many leaders why morale is down and people are unhappy. A typical response is “In my day we just did as we were told and everyone got on fine. These days people want, want, want and we just can’t afford it.” “What do your people want?” I ask. The fake leader doesn’t know the answers, usually because they have never asked the question. Real leaders ask the question. Here are just some of the responses they get.

We would be happy if we were

• Kept in the loop about change and involved in the process
  
• Recognized and valued for the job we do
  
• Permitted to make the decisions we can make
  
• Treated with respect
  
• Felt our work was thought by our bosses to be meaningful

To do these things doesn’t cost anything except maybe a little time and energy!

Possible Action
Ask the people you work with what it is you are not doing that if you were would mean greater happiness. Act on the answers.

The second thing we need to unlearn is about success.

What is success? One of my mentors Peter Marshman gave me the following formula: Success = happiness, we are happy when we have a healthy self image and we feel good about ourselves when we are achieving in areas that are important to us.

Remarkable workplaces focus on helping people achieve in areas that are important to them.

Possible Action
Ask the people you work with what is important to them and then help them achieve those things

The third thing we need to unlearn is about empowerment. Firstly why did we ever spell empowerment with an e when i would make more sense?

Control is the aim of the fake leader / manager. Empowering others is the aim of the real leader / manager.

Possible Action
Arrive at a shared view of problem solving, decision making, responsibility and accountability with the people you work with, then let go. That’s right, let go. Give people control of their destiny.

Warning: Real responsibility and accountability scares most people, so be patient.

Further, some people don’t really want the power to make decisions etc. There is a place for all in the remarkable workplace.

Take the actions described above and you will be well on the way to having in place the 3 essentials for building a remarkable workplace; happiness, freedom and peace of mind.

In addition you may like to go through the following checklist and see how you score.

1. We focus on recruiting and retaining people who live our values and fulfill their roles with passion and enthusiasm
Yes	No
2.We are continually asking our staff / employees and clients / customers what is important to them and providing it
Yes	No
3. We focus on recruiting and retaining people who live our values and fulfill their roles with passion and enthusiasm
Yes	No
4. We are always aware of and committed to best practice
Yes	No
5. We know the gaps between our current performance and possible performance and have agreed objectives and key actions to close the gaps
Yes	No
6. We accept that strategy is the framework within which we make decisions and determine future directions
Yes	No
7.There is a shared view of our strategy amongst all stakeholders
Yes	No
8. We understand the difference between information sharing and communication
Yes	No
9. We follow agreed problem solving and decision making processes
Yes	No
10. We are spending less on advertising and more on marketing to those we have permission to do so
Yes	No
11.All of our systems fully support people in being the best they can be
Yes	No
12.Our operating structure is based on decision making at key client / customer contact points
Yes	No
13.We understand that leadership is an art and management a science and we are forever endeavouring to maintain harmony between the two
Yes	No

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Buy Ian Berry's Audio Seminar CD from the Resource Centre:

What Real Leaders Do And Fake Ones Don't 

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