Page 274 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE WHY OF WORK

organizations should also demonstrate social responsibility as
an end in itself, even if doing so ignores profitability. While
we admire the intent of this work, we believe it does not
reflect the reality of competitive organizations. Competitive
organizations that are socially responsible and make people
feel good but don’t serve customers and investors simply
will not (and should not) survive. Even not-for-profit orga-
nizations succeed and survive only by delivering value to
communities and constituents. But we don’t have to rely on
a social conscience to justify spending time building mean-
ing. Research (reviewed in Chapter 1) compellingly suggests
that meaning making for employees can be money making
for shareholders. Employees who find meaning in their work
have more positive attitudes, which in turn predict not only
employee retention but also customer attitudes and share-
holder confidence. If boards are serious about sustained
financial success, they will attend to the creation of mean-
ing. As shareholder representatives, boards often oversee
financial results, product innovations, strategic choices, and
customer satisfaction; we suggest boards also assess leader-
ship depth, talent processes . . . and employee meaning.
To track meaning, boards pay attention to both formal
indicators and informal observations. Retention of key tal-
ent, productivity indices about company outputs per unit of
employee input, or employee survey scores on the meaning
dimensions we reviewed in Chapter 2 each may be used to
assess the extent to which employees find meaning at work.
Board members may also use informal observations to track
a sense of employee meaning. They may observe:

• • How employees treat outsiders (customers, board mem-
bers, guests) who visit the company

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