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Employees respond positively and actively to a meaningful workplace As the company transforms the way it reaches out to their employees, their employees change the way they respond back to the company.  Employees eagerly engage in the work at hand, align with the company strategies, collaborate with one another and contribute their energy and skills. They confidently deal with peers, prospects, customers, partners and suppliers. They proudly tell their family and friends about the company they work for. And all the other people vital to the business’s success (customers, partners,...

Toward the meaningful workplace Meaningful workplaces are built by companies that aim to produce a more meaningful outcome from, and for, their people. To become meaningful, these companies adopt a new stance vis-à-vis their relationship with their employees. They strive to reduce the distance that’s been imposed through organization structures and prevailing attitudes. They seek stronger emotional connections up and down and across their enterprise. They see their task as making their company fit for the future by making it fit for humans. They create a meaningful workplace...

Understanding what makes something “meaningful” In the course of a day, our senses open us up to millions of stimuli, each of which presents itself and demands our attention. To cope with the avalanche of input, our system quickly decides which stimuli are significant enough to be acknowledged and, which are so significant that they must be remembered. In other words, what matters…and what doesn’t. The stimuli we remember can be significant in two ways. On a primal level, some of our memories help us survive against danger. On a higher-order level, some of our...

Introduction This blog series introduces the “meaningful workplace”, an idea which seeks to address many of the pain points businesses are feeling as they try to get their enterprises fit for the future. It will explain the notion of “meaningful” and what it means in the context of creating a meaningful workplace.  This series will set out the advantages of building a purposeful, values-driven workplace with a meaningful culture that better balances the needs of both the employer and the employee.  It will explore how businesses can reach out to their...

Photo by @drmeaningful According to a recent Gallup Poll, Denmark once again has achieved the highest sense of well-being of any country in the world. In a world where typically only 21 percent of people consider themselves to be “thriving”, 72 percent of Danish people feel they are. Why is this? And what could employers learn from the nature of the world’s “happiest” people? A recent article in The Atlantic pinpointed several behavioral imperatives that contribute to the “thriving” Danish character: Do not tolerate abusive behavior...

This spot from J&J demonstrates how a softly, softly approach to communications can be more effective than the anthem style advertising we so often see. The ad supports a meaningful J&J initiative called “The Campaign for Nursing’s Future” which seeks to draw people to the nursing vocation through information, inspiration and scholarships. Spotted...

We came across an interesting observation about the world we in which we live: “People are analog: As much as the world is going digital, people remain analog. We have emotion and we make decisions that are not entirely rational. We care about how we are perceived, we love our turf and we fear uncertainty. Unless one can understand the human needs and concerns when one is looking to deliver change it can get very difficult.” Do you understand the human needs and concerns that are bubbling up to the surface in this “digital age”? Do you recognize that decision making...