A global conference in Jersey last month heard about a recent survey into people’s attitudes to work. 61% of workers hate their jobs, the audience were told.
So perhaps the other 39% just hate their boss!
Simon Nash, Group Managing Director of Law at Work, examines how leadership shapes people’s relationship with their work – and why a compelling sense of purpose is key to unlocking motivation, engagement, and performance.
Dodgy stats aside, leadership is more important than ever before in making the difference on how people feel about their work. And the way people feel about their work is no trivial matter.
People who love their work produce better business results; they delight your customers and clients; they are better colleagues to their co-workers; they stay in employment for longer and they make a bigger positive impact on bottom line success measures. If you don’t want any of those business outcomes then maybe this article isn’t for you.
But if you’re a leader, this is important. Most leaders in Jersey have heard the three ingredients to motivate people to do their best work. According to Dan Pink, these are purpose, autonomy and mastery.
But knowing that these are what people need is only half the battle.
The real challenge is ‘how?’
How do you instil a sense of purpose in your team? How do you give just the right level of autonomy so that people can do the right things in the right way? How do you ensure that people are operating close to the edge of their levels of mastery? Answering these three questions is what the best leaders do, day after day. The good news for leaders is that you can progressively get better at this.
In Pink’s list ‘purpose’ comes first. Or as Simon Sinek put it; you have to start with ‘why?’
There is a logical reason and a psychological reason why this is the case. Logically, it makes sense to understand the bigger picture and the context before you get to the detail on the specifics. Psychologically, we have evolved to interpret the world through stories. From our earliest days as children, we made sense of the world in narrative. And as a species we evolved language to tell each other stories that explained the world to each other, so stories resonate deeply within us. Once you know the story that you’re a part of it’s much easier to play your part faithfully and to write the next chapter with confidence.
So, if you’re a leader in business then you need to know the story of your company. This might be a story about products and customers, or about clients and professional services, or about technological innovation, or about persistence against the odds. Whether it’s a business that you founded yourself, or one which you came to as a recruit, you still need to know the story. And whether you serve that business as its CEO, or in a more junior managerial or supervisory role, you need to be a part of the story that your company is telling the world through its actions.
That story will comprise a few key features. There will be an origin narrative; how did it start and why does this company need to exist? There will be a growth and development narrative; how did it become what it is today? There will be a narrative of challenges overcome and setbacks which have been surmounted.
This narrative will make sense of who your customers or clients are, and why they have chosen your business to help them fulfil their own goals.
If you know this story, you will be able to tell it in numerous ways. Sometimes it might take a whole evening over dinner and drinks to tell the whole story. Other times you’ll be able to express the essence of your company’s story in less time than it takes for the lift to reach the ground floor. You might tell the story in a different way to an old client or to a young new starter in your business, but it’s the same story. If you really know your story, you will be continually telling it without words – through every interaction with colleagues and clients.
The story of your business will most likely contain four key themes.
First of all, it will be a story about craft. Craft is a way of talking about the work that is done.
When you are working with a sense of craftsmanship you might experience high levels of creativity and high levels of absorption. You might even feel your sense of time disappears, and you experience the distinction between the worker and the product dissolving into one experience of artistry. This can be the case whether you are making a quilted blanket, a piece of complex legal advice or a set of financial statements. Nearly every business can describe ne instances of craft.
Secondly, it’ll be a story about care. Whether you’re working for customers or clients or patients or pupils; all business is essentially about serving human beings. That act of service does have a transactional element, but more fundamentally it is an interaction between two people, and as such it can be a moment of care.
Thirdly, it will be a story about comradeship. Unless your business only has yourself in it, there will be moments in which the people in your team experience the bond that comes from people coming together to do tough things, for each other, in the service of a great goal.
And fourthly, it will be a story about contribution, or what some people still refer to as a sense of calling. Contribution speaks to the conviction that most of us have, that the world could be better. If you have a vision of the world as it could be, then through your work you could make the world a better place. As Noam Chomsky said: “Unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so.”
So, the story of your business is a story of craft, and care, and comradeship, and contribution. If your people can relate to that story, then it can change their internal relationship to the work they do every day – both what they think of it and how they feel about it. They might have more of those moments of creative absorption in the work itself.
They might have more instances of meaningful human interaction with your customers and clients. They might have a growing sense of comradeship with the people they work with.
And they might glimpse the sense that the world can be made better through the work that they do.
As a leader you can foster this sense of purpose in your team. And it starts by fostering it in your own practice of leadership, and that’s a whole other story.
Simon Nash is an experienced leader, speaker, and writer with over 30 years dedicated to examining the intersection of people and ethics in the workplace. Renowned for his innovative and disruptive perspectives on the dynamics of people and work, Simon has garnered numerous accolades throughout his career. His approach blends deep ethical considerations with practical strategies, enabling businesses to address growth challenges effectively and sustainably.
One way Simon fosters leadership growth is through board offsites, as they provide leaders with the opportunity to step away from the daily tasks and engage in open dialogue. This environment promotes the exchange of ideas, enhances coaching relationships, and underscores the organisation’s commitment to developing its leaders.
Law At Work plays an essential role in providing expert guidance to businesses, particularly in areas such as leadership development, coaching and mentoring, and organisational culture. With a focus on clear, commercial advice, Law At Work’s multidisciplinary team has extensive experience in all areas of people, safety, data, and leadership development, enabling businesses to propel forward.
