I explained in a previous article (Prostitution and Executive Coaching) how the meaning that we give to our work activity can determine how we consider our work and ourselves exercising it: whether as valuable and, consequently, valuable ourselves, or conversely, worthless and demotivating.
One of the consequences of the modern world pointed out years ago by social researchers and that most of us already experience, is that of an environment of stiff competition where companies demonstrate the impossibility of committing to workers. Complexity, flexibility and uncertainty rule.
JF Tezanos synthesizes world dynamics and its effect on people in one sentence: The World changes more quickly than people can assimilate.
The manager or director is required, as always, to improve the results. The novelty now is the emphasis on reducing resources. In a situation like this where a team leader with fewer people must achieve better results, team motivation is essential. However, it is also new that some of the classic motivational tools are no longer available: salary increases; permanent contract; career plan.
One can imagine the bewilderment of who is being asked to do more with less and who, in addition, is stripped of the tools to do it!
The modern business environment has robbed many of the actions and resources with which managers were familiar and helped define what they understood to be a manager. It has contributed to emptying of content what for many meant directing.
How to respond to what is demanded of you? What does leading mean now?
In response to the demand for greater results, in the absence of the “classic” tools used to motivate the team and himself, and without finishing knowing how to adjust his role to new circumstances, the manager resorts to the only thing that, he supposes, It will show the rest of the organization, and him / herself, that you are strongly committed to your work: it floods your time for action.
"Doing things" is highly visible and gives his role the meaning that he believes is consistent with what he and his environment expect. The action becomes action generating meaning and the value as a manager becomes measured in time dedicated to the action.
However, targeting action has at least two problematic consequences.
One is that it does not have to be effective. More things are done but they don't have to be the ones that best contribute to the organization's objectives.
The second is that for the manager it turns out to be a path doomed to failure. Every time he spends more time working. With difficulties in getting the necessary involvement from your team, you will have to invest more and more time if you need to cover the incessant demand to improve results. You will come home later, eventually shorten your weekend, during your vacation you will need to stay “mobilized” (“mobile”), connected to your office, working.
The emptiness of meaning caused by the mismatch between a way of directing and the demands of the modern world, and the attempt to correct it through action, can lead the manager to a state of labor unrest, demotivation, undervaluation of himself and depressing imbalance between personal and work life.
By the time the manager becomes interested in something like executive coaching, he or she has already found that self-help books, well-meaning advice, or master classes in management courses have been of little use. You need someone to help you update what it means to lead today in your company and from the position you occupy, giving your actions a meaning, value and efficiency that promote self-esteem and are a source of motivation.
Footnotes
- José Félix Tezanos, «Great trends of the XXI century. Challenges and uncertainties of the XXI century »in José Félix Tezanos (ed.), Uncertainties, challenges and potentials of the XXI century: Great international trends, Editorial Sistema, Madrid, 2010, chapter 6, pp. 33-78.The executive coaching category admits a bewildering variety of working methods and conceptual tools. The one I'm talking about here, the one that helps update the meaning of directing, is one of them.
