The Six Core Val­ues of a Hu­man­ist­ic Work­place

As a result of our team’s slight growth in number during the past six months, the following question gained more and more emphasis: How to grow and develop as a successful company along with humanistic values? My conviction is that it should be the leader’s conscious decision, whether they create an authoritarian or a self-organizing working environment. When the mere existence and survival of the company is at stake, even the loftiest principles can degrade into anxious trepidation in lack of a conscious, iterative construction along with the designated values.

Below, I will elaborate on the six core values of organizational development by the article on Marguiles and Raia’s book. I believe that these six points define what principles to focus on when we aim to create a humanistic workplace.

1. Make it possible for your co-workers to function as human beings instead of human resources.

The way managers refer to their colleagues tells much about a firm. The term ‘my man’ is often used, especially when expressing proud appreciation. Nevertheless, this wording refers to the manager’s opinion that the ‘man’ was acting on his behalf, thus entitling him to reap the reward.

During regular performance reviews, the (team)leader must praise every co-worker’s labor. It is practical to highlight the achievements in front of the group, whereas criticism is better to be given in private, thus providing collective positive feedback while preventing personal humiliation.

2. Make it possible for your co-workers to develop to their full potential.

Although job descriptions may define the operational framework quite well, they can often hinder unfolding and evolvement. Consequently, it is practical also to set individual development goals for everyone. The management can facilitate the realization of these goals in harmony with daily labor and the training plan. In knowledge-based companies, this can be a crucial factor in sustaining motivation. For such enterprises, individual competence and personal development goals provide the thrust; therefore, these must influence the formulation of their business strategy.

3. Increase the organization’s efficiency via adherence to formulated goals.

It is worthwhile to retire every year for a couple of days to discuss strategy with co-workers. Making them feel their involvement in corporate strategy is an essential element in commitment induction. Building the company on a clear-cut system of values attracts people of similar persuasion. During recruitment, we examine the candidates’ world-view to have a deeper understanding of his believes and attitudes.

One of my favorite quotes of relevance remains the following from the book The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber:

“IBM is what it is today for three special reasons. The first reason is that, at the very beginning, I had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done. You might say I had a model in my mind of what it would look like when the dream — my vision — was in place.

The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company which looked like that would have to act. I then created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done.

The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there.

In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.

From the very outset, IBM was fashioned after the template of my vision. And each and every day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be, and, at the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference. (Thomas J Watson)” (Gerber, 1995)

4. Create an environment enabling your people to experience their work as exciting and challenging.

The emphasis is on positive feedback: in the long run, no-one will be satisfied without it. I used to work for a company where the appraisal of developers’ achievements had no regularity or consistency. Without regard to the actual development phase, having the deadlines kept was the most significant and only concern of the project manager. No matter how well or poorly the team performed, the developers had to take the stress stemming from customer communication. In the constant anxiety, people tried to defend themselves by working spectacularly. Overtime became the norm, with a shadow of suspicion over those not playing along. Pizza and Pepsi were consumed at large, but so was good humor.

In a sizeable organization, it is important to have motivating key persons (scrum masters, product owners, project managers, lead developers) who also pay attention to providing positive feedback to team members in public after delivery.

5. Make it possible for your co-workers to influence the development, operation, and environment of the organization. Make them feel that the success of the company and the quality of the work experience depends on them.

It is worthwhile to read The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey on how the manifestation of trust can be increased at individual, group, organization, market, and society level. Formulating this trust must indeed be the first step to establish empowerment culture. In the absence of confidence, no corporate strategy can lead to success. Without it, there is no positive work atmosphere and no prosperity.

Before you make a decision that has a fundamental influence on the further operation of your company, make sure you inquire into your co-workers’ opinion. Listening to them is not only essential to endow you with their pertinent judgment, but also to ensure their involvement.

In enterprises with a couple of colleagues, it may work easily. Still, at large companies, where people are grouped into business units, divisions, and workgroups, there is no opportunity for the CEO to converse with each employee. Still, I believe that a forum must be provided, allowing employees to express their opinion, regardless of their position in the hierarchy. Personally or anonymously, if need be.

6. Keep in mind that each human being has a unique set of needs. Thus personalization is always a more important factor of job satisfaction than setting and following standards.

The bigger the firm, the more difficult it is to practice individualization. What should you standardize at the corporate level? Too many regulations act as paralyzing, whereas also few create insecurity. Are you standardizing infrastructure? Make sure you consider how much space you leave to individual preferences when you build configurations, as the quality of the hardware is often on par with the remuneration system when it comes to motivation. In the long run, it costs the company less while being a similar satisfaction generator.

But do you have a real overview of your co-workers’ individual preferences and ideas? What are your tools to extract them?

You realize that your colleague is unsatisfied with the company phone, but that is the one included in the prerequisite package. What will you do? Will you explain that it is the regulation, full stop, or will you instead find out where you can cut on the package and reallocate the savings to acquire the gadget of desire?

Summary

To create humanistic working conditions, it is expedient to dig into the specialized literature dealing with empowerment, organizational development, and humanistic psychology. The framework here, which I have drawn up around six principles, may act as a guideline on what topics to consider regularly to create empowerment culture. Naturally, the list is infinite, and if you have an idea not mentioned here, please share it in a comment.

Works consulted:

1. Organizational development – Wikipedia article
   Marguiles and Raia (1972) principles gave the focus of the current article. As it is a comprehensive summary of what one needs to know about organizational development, I highly recommend reading the whole article.
2. Empowerment – Wikipedia article.
3. Blanchard, Kenneth H., John P. Carlos, and Alan Randolph. Empowerment Takes More than a Minute. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1996.
   The authors highlight three factors worthy of attention when aiming at empowerment formulation: sharing knowledge in the organization, creating autonomy in a given framework, and replacing the hierarchical structure with self-organizing teams.
4. Covey, Stephen M. R. The Speed of Trust. New York: Free Press, 2008.
   A practical guide on how to increase trust in business and workplace environment (too).