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Meaning at Work
People fill every situation with meaning. The challenge for companies and management is to make sure the meaning is positive.

I recently watched a new film, The Corporation. It is one of that emerging genre of "documentaries", combining fact and fiction, politics and entertainment. Among other personalities the film features Ray Anderson, founder and Chairman of the Board of Interface Inc, the world's largest producer of commercial floor coverings.

Interface has adopted a sustainability philosophy—minimizing the company's footprint on the environment. They strive to use no nonrenewable natural resources in their production processes, and to add no pollution to the environment. Ray Anderson describes this goal as like climbing an infinitely high mountain, the most difficult thing he has ever undertaken as a businessman. He is revolutionary and inspirational.

Values and Meanings Motivate
A week later I was talking with a friend of mine, David, who by chance is an Interface salesman. I asked him if he had seen the film and if Anderson's statements were for real. He replied, "Yes I have, and it's true. It's one of the reasons I work there." He continued, describing the company's sustainable business practices in some detail.

I told him that a friend of mine, whose company has just replaced five floors of Interface carpeting, saved several hundred square feet of the old carpet tiles for use in the company's daycare center. David told me he regularly gives his clients the names of nonprofit groups that will use the discarded but still good carpet. I was moved by the feelings David expressed as he described what he did, what the company's philosophy and practices mean to him.

"Work is a daily search for meaning . . ."
An article in the Management section of The Financial Times, Monday May 3, 2004, There Must Be More to Work Than This by Stephen Overell, quotes the American philosopher and historian Studs Terkel. "Work is about a daily search for meaning as well as daily bread; for recognition as well as cash; for astonishment rather than torpor; in short for a sort of life, rather than a Monday-to-Friday sort of dying."

The same article quotes a recent study* revealing that over 70 percent of managers seek more meaning in their work lives. "While the search for meaning might be ranked as a perennial human concern, the hope of finding it at work is more modern."

*In Search of Meaningful Work, by Linda Holbeche with Nigel Springett, Roffy Park Institute, see http://www.roffeyparkresearch.com/press/onerelease.php?record_id=62, "The research highlights that people want to work for organizations they admire, where there is a fit between their own personal values and those of the organization. They want challenging jobs, with clear goals, through which they can experience personal growth and in which their contribution is noticed and respected. They want an open, democratic form of leadership and they also want to balance their work with other aspects of their lives."

"By addressing some of these issues, organizations can provide a more meaningful experience for people at work," said Linda Holbeche. "It may be, morally, the right the thing to do. It can certainly have a bottom-line business impact as organizations can improve staff retention rates, enhance their ability to manage change and foster a more customer-focused culture."

This confirms my own experience. My monthly newsletters quote numerous managers and employees who found new meaning in their work life, sometimes as their company's work culture developed. Like Marion M., a production line employee who said, "I never used to talk about work at home. Now I talk about it all the time." Or George W. the company vice-president and plant manager, who explained why his plant consistently set new corporate production records, "My people wouldn't let it be any other way."

People Always Meet Their Needs and Create Meaning
The film The Corporation discusses the economics-based worldview influencing corporations to value only what can be owned. This applies to people. When you are hired your contract is that the company owns your paid time on the job. Ownership sometimes takes crude forms. Recall how immigrant laborers were treated last century by the railroads as they raced to span the continent. In terms of Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs", laborers in the 1860s got to Level 1—and sometimes just barely. Maslow's hierarchy, or levels, of human needs is:

The very basic needs of air, water, food, sleep, and shelter.

The need for a safe, stable, secure workplace.

The need to belong to a work group, to be accepted and needed by others.

The need for self-esteem, to experience mastery of a task and receive attention and recognition from others.

The need or desire to find personal meaning at work. To bring more of yourself to the job and do what you are capable of doing. To leave feeling tired but fulfilled.

Despite their harsh treatment by the railroad barons, the human spirit being what it is, no doubt those immigrant laborers found ways to meet their higher needs. The same is true today. No matter what the workplace conditions, people will find ways to be accepted by others, to feel they belong to a work group, and to give meaning to their work—positive or negative.

Meanings are Infinitely Diverse
During the thousands of employee interviews I have conducted, people revealed a wide range of meanings they gave to, or created in, their work. A selector in a warehouse described how he challenged himself to build perfect cubes and other geometric shapes on the pallets. A production line worker told me how she transformed work into dollars and dollars into home furnishing. The day I talked with her she was earning new curtains for the living room (I can still see them). A production manager told me how he made sure everything he did increased people's sense of ownership. He enjoyed creating a humane, caring, and responsible workplace, one that outperformed the other plants in the large production complex.

When management provides the opportunity for more meaningful work life, such as when they encourage broadly chartered problem solving teams, most employees will rise to the occasion, creatively tackling long-standing system-wide issues. At the other end of the scale, faced with a harsh supervisor, employees will still give meaning to their work, but it will be unconstructive. They will imagine, and sometimes act out, creative ways to "get even", or they will withhold their potential.

Set the Stage for the Right Meanings
There are many well-known and widely used management tools for creating a more engaging workplace where employees bring their creativity and energy. They include:

Problem solving work teams.

Corporate values statements—that are acted on.

More democratic decision-making processes involving the people affected.

Managers trained to understand and manage the effect their actions and decisions have on others (managing the culture).

A greater sensitivity to the wide range of needs people have around balancing work and family.

Spending time one-on-one with employees, understanding their personal needs and career goals and how these might be fulfilled at work.

Training programs based on employees needs and desires around the immediate task and their future career or life goals.

Information programs that help people know where they stand in the big picture.

Monitoring and survey processes that assess the state of the work culture, and are used by upper managers as feedback on, and guides to, their actions.

Link the Company to People's Drive for Meaning
When he changed Interface's approach to the environment, Ray Anderson managed to do well while doing good. Based on my friend David's response, this has changed the meaning of work for many Interface employees—it improved motivation, morale, and retention. This human drive to find meaning in life, outside and inside work, is powerful and universal. When management opens itself to this basic human need, the economic returns are large, but that is just the beginning.

Statistics—Mergers and Strategies are Rough Waters

This months Statistics are from Consultant News, May 2001, published by Kennedy Information, Surviving Perilous Times, Dr. Ray Manganelli, Strategic Decisions Group.

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