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Several concepts have been put forward on how to achieve sustainable business success in these very difficult times. Some of these concepts are: team building, alignment and synergy; focused strategies on customer-centric goals; differentiating design-strategy; balanced scorecard; adaptability, accountability and ownership.
All these concepts underscore the commitment of business leaders to unleash team potentials in order to optimise workplace performance, rev-up productivity and be profitable in a sustainable way.
Leaders hold employees accountable. Employees must do the right things and do them right. They must consistently add value to organisation’s goals at all levels: strategic, tactical and operational. They must also give regular feedbacks. Responsibilities are measured, evaluated and commended. There is recognition and reward for those who excel and consequences for those who fall below expectations.
Catherine Janssen, the renowned Silicon Valley strategist, pointed out that “to reach and achieve goals, organisations must incorporate the human factor as a distinguishing context to data and figures”.
Accountability by employees plays a double role. It grows and accomplishes organisation’s goals and at the same time, engenders employee’s personal development. Susan Juris said: “Accountability is critical to company’s success and employee’s personal growth”.
Unlike accountability, ownership, with its impressive attributes, cannot be “assigned”. An employee must willingly choose to be an “owner”. It is more on the intrinsic side of things. It is innate and flows naturally from the employee. Extrinsic or things outside the employee can only encourage or discourage it.
Creating a workplace environment in which individual and group engagement, transparency, openness, integrity, communication and collaboration thrive, will surely enable ownership.
The employee must have clarity on organisation’s goals, imbibe and also have a buy-in on them. He must enjoy varying levels of autonomy to carry out his roles. The environment must be safe for experimentation and taking occasional risks. He, definitely, has a clear definition and possesses relevant abilities for the actualization of agreed purpose. Status quo can be challenged and creativity as well as innovation, dictate the degrees of adaptation.
Steve Lowitz explained that “great leaders create an environment where team members want to take ownership of their roles because you cannot assign ownership”. He added that employees must be empowered to take it because you cannot force it. Leaders must create an exciting and happy workplace where employees because of “innate vigour”, willingly, and readily choose to give their best. The employee regularly displays a commitment that has force of mind or intuition.
Let us now take a deep dive on ownership. Do you know that neuroscience teaches us that the brain controls man’s biochemistry and therefore, actions and the outcomes can be managed?
When visions, dreams and goals are clarified in specific terms, ownership can be achieved. But good and value-delivering relationship must be the icing on the cake. Anything or action that erodes excellent relationship in the workplace erodes performance.
John Maxwell’s formula on relationship states that when rules and regulations are stringently enforced without diluting it with good relationship, the result will be “rejection and rebellion by employees (R+R-R=R+R). Man’s very powerful asset, the mind, embodies mental qualities such as focus, judgments, opinions and views, desire as well as inclinations and intentions.
The workplace must promote self-education, self-development and self-transformation, with performance enhancement in mind. A negative environment and atmosphere produces negative thoughts and emotions which are harbingers of negative energy. Note that energy is the impetus behind the capacity to work. Energy impels or stimulates motions and activities.
Leaders must synchronise the employee’s self-esteem and self-identity with efforts to make him achieve organisation’s purpose and also accomplish the goals. Bullying and blaming, for instance, negatively impact self-esteem.
Professor Abraham Maslow was an American Humanistic Psychologist who did a special study on two outstanding people namely; Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt. The result of his findings is the theory on the psychology of human motivation popularly known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
The take outs from Maslow’s pyramid of needs are: (a) Employee productivity can be enhanced through job security, safe working environment, health insurance and other basic or physiological needs. (b) Interpersonal relationships and mutual respect in the workplace will promote self-actualization. (c) Respect from peers will also guarantee self-confidence and motivation to perform as well as be involved in healthy performance competition. (d) When employees have a sense of belonging, they will stand out and excel. Learning, education and brainstorming will also be enhanced. (e) Ambition for self-actualization will encourage creativity and innovation.
Maslow’s theory is honed on the concept that “human actions are motivated by their desire to meet specific needs”. No wonder, he focused on the needs of employees in the workplace.
He identified five types of needs to be fulfilled for the employee to achieve or reach his full potential. He also arranged them in a particular order and concluded that it is only when one set of needs was satisfied would you think about meeting the next. These needs that are constantly changing, can be modified to two: deficiency needs and growth needs. But the fact is that “satisfying these needs is vital to avoid unpleasant feelings”.
The five needs (from the bottom of the pyramid) are Physiological or basic needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs.
A recent publication by Forbes quoted an author, Harvard-trained medical expert, who warned about a “bizarre paradox” or negative evolution in the science of human motivation for ownership.
The employee that is striving very hard for “ownership” must not deprive himself of “play and relaxation”. Taking a break and “resting” is not a symbol of laziness. Also, chasing your “passion and purpose and being too busy”, is not a symbol of importance.
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