Page 145 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE WHY OF WORK

Companies track employee attitudes, productivity, and reten-
tion to put numbers behind these gut impressions, but leader
and customer perceptions of a work environment are often
spot on. What exactly is it we are picking up on? Does it have
to do with the pictures on the walls? The looks on people’s
faces? The casual conversations in the halls?
We’ve learned from personal experience (ahem!) that
long-term weight loss is less about any particular diet and
more about changing our lifestyle, emotional patterns, and
relationship with food. Likewise, a work unit’s work envi-
ronment consists of the lifestyle, emotional patterns, and
relationships between the people and the work that goes on
there. Sometimes leaders sponsor events to try to shape how
work is done (a town hall meeting, training program, annual
bonus, new logo, poster and cards with vision statements,
etc.), but until events become patterns, the work environ-
ment remains unchanged. The work environment reflects
the organization’s consciously chosen identity, brand, or
culture (Chapter 3) but also shows up in the less conscious
and unwritten norms, expectations, and rules—the “muscle
memory” of how people think and act at work.
Most of us have personally experienced both a negative
and a positive work environment. A negative work environ-
ment comes with cynicism, frustration, and gossip. Employees
spend more time backbiting, protecting turf, resisting, or
blindly obeying than solving problems and helping the com-
pany add real value for customers. There is an assumption of
deficiency and not enough to go around of all the things that
matter: resources, respect, information, opportunity. People
dread work and look for excuses to be away.
In contrast a positive work environment inspires, invigo-
rates, and challenges. Employees have positive relationships

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