In recent months, I had the privilege of reading two books that are creating the map that we will use to navigate the new world of work, how we work and even who we work for.
Yes, I’ve said it. The world of “work” is not the same and will never be the same, no matter how badly people want to cling to the old ideas of job security, pensions, paid vacations and “company loyalty.” By the same token, the ways companies are run will never be the same, and, really nor should they be. The past is over. Deal with it. The industrial revolution is far behind us, and thus, our thinking needs to adjust accordingly.
In Chip Conley’s groundbreaking work Peak: How Companies get their Mojo from Maslow, he makes the compelling argument that companies who want to function at the highest possible levels need to focus on what he calls their customer’s “aspirational needs” as opposed to their basic needs. To use an example from Conley’s hotel company Joie De Vivre, this means, “helping customers feel renewed and refreshed, as though the hotel helped reconnect you with who you are or aspire to be.” As opposed to simply providing you a room with a bed, aka your most basic need. He brilliantly applies Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to running his business and life.
Conley extends this aim for self-actualization to his employees. He bucks the trend of focusing only on short-term performance and rewards and looks at the bigger picture. He says, “successful companies create a culture of capability in which people are well prepared to be empowered.” He openly acknowledges the reality, which is ignored by most companies, that money is NOT a primary motivator for performance.
Conley acknowledges that people spend a great deal of time at work, and this has replaced some of the other social structures people used to create connection and meaning in their lives. “Today, people see their workplace as a playground for who they are and what they can become,” Conley writes. He sets up his business structure so that the employees who truly step up reap the rewards.
This belief dovetails nicely into the ideas shipped by Seth Godin in his new book Linchpin. But where Conley lays the foundation for companies to be more self-actualized and create conditions for their employees to be more self-actualized, Godin puts forth that it is our job to make ourselves valuable, to make “art that matters”, to, in short, “be a linchpin.” Conley writes about recession proofing your business. Godin writes about recession proofing yourself. Which to me, makes these two books the perfect compliment to one another.
In Linchpin, Seth Godin says out loud what most people do not want to admit: people want to be told what to do at work and not have to think. For years, you could get by this way. Companies told you what to do and in exchange, you got a nice salary, benefits, job security and a pension. Those days are over and we need to stop clinging to them.
Godin notes that nowadays, wages are stagnant, stress is on the rise and job security is a “fading memory.” White-collar work has become factory work: planned, controlled and measured. In other words, white-collar workers are now easily replaced because the work has become so automated. Godin’s argument is that you can stop whining about this and accept that “the factory job”, as we know it is dead. And it is our responsibility to make ourselves outstanding and valuable and worth having around.
Personally, I find this liberating. For years I worked in a factory (a for-profit hospital) and yes, we were treated like cogs in a machine even thought we were all licensed psychotherapists, with advanced degrees and specialized training, so-called “white collar workers”.
The “job” was about: you must see a minimum of X number of patients, write X number of notes….too few patients today? Take a day off without pay! A friend’s job was cut on one hour’s notice and she got a whole two-weeks severance pay. These conditions rendered the services we provided tedious and unbearable, at least to me.
I am glad I went through it though. The whole experience forced me to learn how to take care of myself, think for myself and not expect a corporation to take care of me. Godin describes it best when he says, “Finding security in mediocrity is exhausting.”
Godin makes many points worth noting in Linchpin, from dealing with resistance, aka our “lizard brain” and the importance of giving gifts. To me, the greatest point he makes in the book is that the trait that will help you more than any other is that of non-attachment. At first the concept sounds new-agey and “zen” but it is spot on. When we “attach” ourselves to pre-determined outcomes, that is when we set ourselves up to not deal with change, to not “see the world as it really is”, as opposed to how we want it to be.
That’s sage advice for relationships as well as work. The example Godin cites in his book is that of the record company executives. For years, their business model worked, they fell in love with it and the lifestyle it provided them. When the record business model began to change radically, they denied it and tried to control it and failed.
So what Godin says to do about it, is precisely what Conley is doing about it with his brilliant Joie De Vivre brand: “draw a map and lead…Stand out…”
Godin notes that the only way to be indispensable is to be different, to stand out. In his book, he also quotes Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter: “What do I want? What do I want to get in the world? Create that.” It doesn’t get more simple or more real than that.
And oh yeah, “ship!”.
Jackie with Chip Conley
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