Alive and Working
There is a growing awareness that, whereas those in undeveloped countries suffer from material poverty, people in the developed world increasingly suffer from time and quality of life poverty. Perhaps even more disturbing is that busy-people’s growing need (addiction) to remain busy and ‘connected’ is replacing any sense of a greater and more meaningful purpose in life.
This phenomenon is social and has huge impact on the overall health of society and families. Equally important it is a business issue, one that impacts employee retention, productivity and even more importantly creativity.
People thrive when they can bring all of themselves’ to their work; in order to do that they must be at work as a whole-healthy-person. Wholeness includes the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual elements of who we are.
Spiritual health can be defined as a belief in or relationship to something that is greater than the mere satisfying of our needs and wants – something that provides a meaning, a context and a purpose to our lives.
Organizations and institutions committed to an ethos and environment that supports wholeness tend to have great employee retention, high levels of creativity and to regularly produce exceptional results.
Creating a great place to come alive at work
A simple truth, often overlooked, is that people already have a pretty good idea of what kinds of things would support them to live and function in greater wholeness. They won’t have all the answers and they probably need support to tease those answers out but ultimately they do know what they need.
Given support to examine their lives and consider what is and isn’t working, people will quickly point to the areas where the greatest positive impact can be achieved in the shortest possible time.
In any organization people are their own greatest resource and often what serves them best is to see how they can connect to each other in mutually supportive and non-traditional ways.
Alive and working is an engagement that allows individuals within organizations and institutions, from the CEO and on throughout the organization, to explore, discover and name what works to make life better and what makes it more difficult. Most importantly, these individuals discover that they are both ‘them’ and ‘us’ and that they have the power to make positive change within their organization and within their own lives.
What works for most organizations is to begin with a confidential survey, including executives and staff, to identify the level of work-life satisfaction. These surveys also provide indicators of where the greatest stress arises and often highlight where to begin the larger engagement.
I like to utilize left and right brain approaches in the enquiry into what is and isn’t working and what are the most elegant and efficient solutions. These can include dialogue sessions, small café-style meetings, theatre, music and educational components.
It is important to remember that all of the ways that people choose to gather (including work) are living systems. There isn’t any serum that once injected into the organization will provide immunity from the ‘stuff’ of life.
For this reason it is essential in any engagement to identify the people and resources within the organization that can and will continue to support and promote internal wholeness and well-being, and through that achieve a real measure of continuous improvement for the organization and for the lives of all of those individuals who are the organization.
