Who you serve vs. Why you work

I just finished reading my umpteenth business article on the so-called “mystery” of nonexistent employee engagement.

At the risk of sounding crass, the only mystery to me is that this is still considered a mystery at all.

Like many of you I have served at numerous companies in the last decade that myopically buried themselves in the holy practice of  “employee satisfaction surveys.” In a distended case of  “forest for the leaves,” incredible amounts of effort were put forth by a number of high-ranking individuals to craft just the right questions delivered in just the right format at just the right time in the hopes of getting just the right answers.

And all of this effort is put on display. The misguided expectation, of course, is that the open display of altruism will somehow rally the troops and endear them to the mission of the company — and its captains of industry.

It's sad, isn't it? I mean truly, genuinely sad.

Bob Dylan was absolutely right

No matter how you try to mask it or redefine it or package it, ultimately, work is service to other people.

This is a critical and fundamental truth that must not be misunderstood, or worse…ignored.

Every action taken in the workplace is done for another person.

The key is which person, exactly.

Ultimately, the efforts of an organization must benefit the life of an end customer. If this benefit is not easily seen or understood, then the further removed the worker is from that end benefit, the more challenging it will be for that worker to bring “emotional content” as Bruce Lee so memorably put it.

Without emotional content, which more and more companies and surveys and articles have termed “engagement,” the employee simply seeks their next task to perform. Seeking tasks or checking boxes off a list of tasks given to them by a so-called superior is completely unfulfilling. Enjoying the freedom of using your own intelligence, experience, and personal passions and drives on the other hand, all to directly improve an end customers’s situation is highly fulfilling.

Why is this? Because fundamentally work is service.

The workplace shifted from task completion as an objective long ago as this excellent article points out. Tasks turned into projects. Projects turned into  processes and “best practices" to adhere to. We have gotten further and further away from the fundamental purpose of work as we have attempted to be more efficient.

Not why but who

In the communications industry it is common for creative people to complain that the company they currently work for is “client focused.”

Many of you who are stymied by the mystery of engagement may seize this creative complaint as another reason why managing creative professionals is like “herding cats.” If you are one of those people I may have some insight for you that may help to dispel the mystery.

Creative people perhaps more than other personality types are intensely customer focused. They see most clients — rightly or wrongly — as a stepping stone or an impediment to reaching the customer. If you ask them why they are so emotionally tied to the ideas they generate, they will tell you that they are thinking as the customer.

In order for creative people of all disciplines — visual, written, interactive design, and more — to be effective they must intimately understand the intellectual, environmental, and emotional moment in which an engagement or transaction with the client's brand takes place. Everything else is clutter.

So the key question isn’t why do you work, it is who do you ultimately serve? At the very end of the pipeline or twisting set of best practices, who is the beneficiary? Can you clearly and succinctly articulate how that end-user is benefited? How has all of your planning, strategy, budgeting, and decision-making made their lives specifically better?

Leadership's crucial engagement

If management does not understand this, they cannot articulate it. If management can't articulate it, a trust gap will form between management and those who have their hands to the plows.

I should add… Articulation will get you a long way but it won't complete the journey. Ownership and management must be able to communicate their desire to serve the end customer on an emotional level that is compelling.

That is the foundation of a successful company culture. And that is the not so secret sauce behind attracting employees who will bring —  enthusiastically and consistently —  their best ideas and their tireless efforts to an organization.

Sam Lowe is founder and Chief Creative Officer of BaudelaireSextonBlake, a marketing communications company dedicated to companies and brands that empower individuals to take control of their own well being.