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where people’s influence is based on contribution and reputation, not position.
They put on a professional mask, conforming to expectations of the workplace. In most cases, it means showing a masculine resolve, displaying determination and strength, hiding doubts and vulnerability. The feminine aspects of the self—the caring, questioning, inviting—are often neglected or dismissed.
In most workplaces the emotional, intuitive, and spiritual parts of ourselves feel unwelcome, out of place.
Teal Organizations’ second breakthrough: to create a space that supports us in our journey to wholeness.
Karpman Drama Triangle model of Persecutor, Rescuer, Victim.
We all have personal histories and baggage we bring with us to the workplace. Perhaps the presence of others brings out a need to be liked. Or a desire to be perfect. Or to be seen as competent and successful. Or a need to dominate others. Or to be dominated.
All it takes to scare the soul away is to make a sarcastic comment or to roll the eyes in a meeting.
RHD, for instance, has developed over the years a beautiful and precisely worded Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for Employees and Consumers.
The premise is maintained that conflict is inevitable, but that hostile behaviors are not:
Morning Star has documents called Organizational Vision, Colleague Principles, and Statement of General Business Philosophy; FAVI has its fiches, and Holacracy its Constitution.
Values Day:
Values meeting:
Annual survey:
Many organizations researched for this book have set up a quiet room somewhere in the office, and others have put meditation and yoga classes in place. This practice opens up space for individual reflection and mindfulness in the middle of busy days.
Heiligenfeld
The company works with four external coaches who each have their domain of expertise (relationships, organizational development, system thinking, leadership).
“Intervisie,” a peer-coaching technique that originated in the Netherlands.
“Tell us about an elder who has been important in your life.” “Tell us about the first dollar you ever earned.”
But the fact that you can now juggle five balls is actually cool. And on a Friday afternoon, we want to sit back and have a glass of wine and watch you do this and acknowledge this part of you.” That is part of what I think makes people feel [that] the wholeness of who they are is actually welcome. Because we do welcome it, we want to see it.86
I find it interesting that neither the Art Salon nor Pajama Day were introduced by someone with a human resources role or by the CEO.
In an atmosphere where people feel safe enough to be themselves, it seems that rituals such as these emerge spontaneously, because we all have a longing, deep inside, to be heard and seen in all of our humanity, the funny and the quirky as much as the serious and the responsible, and to create human connection from all these places.
At check-in, participants are invited to share how they feel in the moment, as they enter the meeting.
The round of check-out, at the end of the meeting, allows acknowledgement of the unspoken emotions in the room—the gratitude, excitement, ambition, frustration, or concerns that the meeting brought out.
FAVI has kept another interesting practice around meetings. All upcoming meetings are listed on the intranet so that anybody can invite himself or herself into any meeting to share a concern or an idea. Everyone can be in the know of what happens around the company, so no one feels excluded.
At ESBZ, all teachers are trained in Nonviolent Communication, and so are the students.
What is the right thing to do? Only then follows the question, How can we do it in financially acceptable ways? Of
An important element of AES is its commitment to four major “shared” values [note: one of which is Social Responsibility, which triggered AES’ decision to plant trees]. If the company perceives a conflict between these values and profits, it will try to adhere to its values—even if doing so might result in diminished profits or foregone opportunities. Moreover, the Company seeks to adhere to these values not as a means to achieve economic success, but because adherence is a worthwhile goal in and of itself.
We think too much and feel too little.
It is often during recruitment, even before a person has taken his first steps in the organization, that the lying starts.
a candidate’s attitude is equally if not more important than her skills and experience.
There is this sense of authenticity; who we are when we are not at work is who we are when we are at work.
[A bad hire is] someone who is a chronic complainer, who is not happy, who blames others, who doesn’t take responsibility, who’s not honest, who doesn’t trust other people. A bad hire would be someone who needs specific direction and waits to be told what to do. A poor hire would be someone who wasn’t flexible and who says, “It’s not my job.”92
Zappos.com, an online shoe retailer, offers its new hires a $3,000 check if they have second thoughts and choose to quit during the four-week orientation.
Delivering Happiness,
The training often touches, in one way or another, on the three breakthroughs of self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose.
They have to learn to get things done without the blunt weapon of command and control.
estimates that close to 50 percent of people who formerly had senior positions in other organizations (VP levels or above) end up leaving the organization after a year or two “because they have a hard time adapting to a system where they can’t play God.”
New colleagues are also trained in the assumptions, ground rules, and values that allow people to show up more authentically.
All new hires at Heiligenfeld go through six training modules that include topics like “self-mastery” and “dealing with failure.”
What is it and where does it come from? New colleagues are invited to reflect on their personal calling and how it resonates with the broader organizational purpose.
Some organizations choose also to train everybody in frontline skills. At FAVI, the French automotive supplier, all engineers and administrative workers have been trained to operate at least one machine on the shop floor. The training is regularly put to good use: when orders must be rushed out, it happens that all hands get called on deck. White-collar workers come down from the office space on the first floor to man the machines for a few hours.
People at Sun believe it’s critical to build relationships with other employees across the company to understand it from all angles.
The more people you know, the more you understand the whole, the more you’ll be able to come up with new ideas and turn them into reality.
The biggest change in regard to training is, of course, that employees are in charge of their own learning;
Green Organizations in particular dedicate much time and money toward training to help new managers deal gracefully with power and delegate much of it to their subordinates.
training to establish a common culture, and personal development training.
purpose circles,
we like to know what is expected of us. The absence of a job title and job description forces us to search within ourselves for a personal, meaningful way to define who we are and what we can contribute.
With no job description, with no one telling us how to do a particular job, we might as well do it from our own selfhood, and infuse it with our unique personality and talents.
We work in corporate cultures that invite us to disown some of the things we care most about.
