Do You Have A "Success" Agreement At Work?

A Chartered Management Institute  study of 1,684 managers in the U.K. that explored the same question as the title of this post. Here's a snapshot of the results:

• "Nearly half of the managers polled said they judged success by the extent to which they developed their teams, yet only slightly more than a third believed their organizations felt the same way.

• 25% thought that 'achieving a flexible lifestyle' was an indicator of professional success. Only six per cent thought that their employers shared the same view.

• Just 13 per cent said they were concerned with 'ensuring the organization is market leader' – yet nearly two thirds thought their employers made this a priority.

• A similarly small percentage – 16 per cent – of managers believed securing 'sustainability' was important, yet more than half felt their organizations perceived this as a priority.

• Worryingly, fewer than half of the managers polled believed they had actually achieved their true potential.

• More optimistically, many planned to take action to change this, with more than a third planning to undertake development or further education courses during the coming 12 months."

Finally, a quote from a marketing and corporate affairs director:

"Managers should voice professional needs so their definition of success is known while the organization needs to create a clear understanding of its corporate objectives to ensure employees and future employees feel an alignment to the corporate culture."

Let's Analyze This

1. The statements talk about what the managers think the gap is between them and their employers.

2. It would be helpful to know how the "employers" responded to the same questions. We have no way of knowing what the actual gap is.

3. Is it unusual for any living human being to believe that he or she has achieved one's potential? The very definition of potential points toward possibilities.

4. Will managers expressing their definitions of success change the purpose and goals of an organization?

5. Will "feeling" an alignment to the corporate culture change one's personal definition of success?

The very best that I can glean from this is that managers don't think there is a lot of alignment with their employers on issues of personal importance. Drawing any other conclusions would really be a stretch.

What can we do with this?

Senior executives who see this study could use it as a starting point for a real conversation with their managers about what's important to organizational success; what's important to the managers; and how they can achieve as much of both as possible.

What else are you seeing? 

Comments

[Bay Jordan]

Steve,

As always, a thought provoking piece. However, I have a couple of issues with your analysis.

In point 2 you question the "employer" perspective. In doing so, you imply the existence of a single employer who could give a counter viewpoint. How valid is that? For a survey like this it is arguable whether the "employer" is the interviewee's manager or a more generic description of the interviewee's perception of the organisational structure. The former might confirm or contradict the interviewee's perspective, but their own opinion would still be shaped by their perception of their own manager. On the other hand, if you take the survey as portraying the corporate culture, you have a clearer picture of a distorted line-of-sight which conveys the reason for the lack of employee engagement and hence a lack of organisational integrity.

Remember too, that the survey deals with manager's perceptions. To validate the findings you really need to see whether their employees' perceptions agree with theirs. You just have to watch any talent show to recognise that self-awareness does not necessarily resemble reality.

That point leads nicely to the issue of potential. You are quite right that potential is always something that is "out there" and thus never attainable. That is why I prefer to use the term self-fulfilment. An employee does not necessarily have to achiev their potential to feel fulfilled. A sense of belonging, making a difference and a healthy dose of being appreciated go an awfully long way to creating the sense of fulfilment. Combine that with a sense of personal "continuous improvement" and you begin to approximate a sense of achieving one's potential. Managers who help their subordinates in this way will deliver better results and so be more likely to feel they are nearing their own potential.

I guess these points go some way towards answering your final point.

[Donald Brownlie Fleming]

Hi! This is such a great article and I am sure a lot of entrepreneurs are going to benefit from this. I have been giving advice like these to many up and coming business people and have been successful so far. I am Donald Brownlie Fleming, an Australian Entrepreneur, ebook author (Master Selling by Donald Brownlie Fleming) and a Philanthropist. If you have time, maybe you can visit me too.