For leaders and organisation development professionals

In our atomised society it is our separateness and our individuality that tend to be emphasised. And we live in an economic system, where, even for progressive politicians, this uniqueness is reduced to the choices we make, with these choices seen as being made on the basis of self interest. Our sense of community is reduced to a form of aggregated self interest.

There are many reasons for this (we can see how notions of the self have transformed over millennia as man comes to terms with himself in the universe) but for those of us with responsibilities for leading organisations or for supporting those who do, we need to create organisations that thrive as organisations as such AND with people living in those organisations who thrive on their terms too.

Much management theory talks about managing the culture in organisations and the importance of achieving alignment of staff through engaging them in the purposes and values of the company. This is essential but it is only half of the story. As Personal Job Alignment makes clear, we each have our individual work to do to make sense of our lives at work.

This diagram sets out, in simplified form, what is required.

Leaders, who wish their organisations to thrive, need to pay attention to BOTH aspects of thriving personal as well as organisational for all staff. We need to answer the question for the company, How can this company thrive in its market? AND support staff in answering the question, How can I thrive in my life at work?

But beware, when we do this we may find we almost certainly will find that we have to change the way the organisation is, in response to how our people are. Don’t start this unless you really want to manage the consequences but do start if you want to realise the potentially huge benefits.

If we pay attention to both aspects of life at work we can play a small but important part in addressing the isolating and anxiety creating aspects of life as too many people experience it.

Any thoughts on this? Want to join in the debate? Contact me or subscribe to the Newsletter