Life is unpredictable in terms of the
opportunities and challenges it brings in one’s life. Life, apart from the
fundamental foundation of being a part of the family, is also being a part of
an organization. Such an organization could be anything, from the informal friends’
circle one develops in the childhood to the educational institutions that
prepare one for independent economic life. Once a person is fully qualified
educationally or vocationally, the firm or the agency that the person joins to
earn a livelihood by contributing his intellectual and physical capabilities
becomes the organization. Being
successful and happy as a part of the internal family organization and external
professional organization is a key objective of every person.
This blog post explores what could make a
person successful and happy in organizations. In doing so, it does not consider,
solely for the purpose of the post, the nexus between professional and family
success, and happiness; nor does it consider one outcome as the trigger of the
other. The author believes that both the aspects of life, family and
professional, are interrelated and can be optimized as a whole for superior success
and performance, provided certain basic triggers and drivers of success and
happiness in life are understood. However, given that the formal professional
organization is an established form of organization which runs on certain
principles, such organization, and individual in organization, is taken up to
explore the agenda of success and happiness in life.
Success and happiness
Success and happiness are highly contextual
and individualistic, defying easy and common definition. Not all successful
people are happy people and not all happy people are successful ones. Success
is seen to be a materialistic happening and happiness is seen to be a
philosophical experience; neither being wholly true. Success is seen to occur
within and as a result of certain consensual acknowledgement in an
organizational system while happiness is seen to spring from within the
individual; either being only partially true. Success is considered to be a measurable
and visible metric while happiness is understood to be an immeasurable,
embedded emotion; neither is unassailable as metrics and measurements may be
wrong as much as smiles and symbolism may be faked. Success takes time to build
and is sustainable (even in the face of failures) while happiness could be
ephemeral and transient (and unrelated to successes or failures). Clearly,
there are many gross and subtle definitions of success and happiness.
As there is no easy and universal definition
of success and happiness, a few baseline criteria would be relevant, combining
the context and the individual as well as the organization. Success is often
based on accomplishment against a set of organizational and individual goals,
in a manner that they are visible and measurable. Success is materialistic to
the extent of building value for the organization and influencing career for
the individual. Happiness is a sense of fulfillment that a person or a group of
persons experiences when the person or the group receives economic or non-economic
recognition, directly or indirectly linked to the person’s or the group’s
contributions. Happiness is individualistic, and is both materialistic and
philosophical, to the extent that depending on the philosophical and emotional
disposition of an individual he or she may choose to accentuate or attenuate the
happiness quotient. Be that as it may, it is important for individuals in an
organization to understand the means of deriving and sustaining success as well
as happiness.
Convergence within divergence
Success and happiness, though correlated with
success being independent variable and happiness being the dependent variable,
are not necessarily convergent phenomena. A baby instantly derives happiness
when the baby achieves the success of cuddle from the mother. A child derives
success when he or she accomplishes a mechanistic activity, seen to be beyond
reach, and in the process of performance also derives much happiness. However,
as the child grows into a student and as a student becomes an employee, what
determines success and how it influences happiness become divergent. The goal
of progressive organizations, not unnaturally, is to set up people for success
to make them happy and also to have happy people in the organization so that
the firm can be positioned for success.
It is up to the individuals to recognize that
it is important for their lives to seek convergence of success and happiness. It
is up to the organizations to facilitate a nexus between happiness and success
by celebrating success. However, it is important for both the individuals and
the organizations to build a culture of an organization that facilitates the
convergence of success and happiness even though divergent parameters define
and drive each outcome of success and happiness. This would be possible when
individuals and organizations understand two fundamental concepts of
integrating success and happiness. These are awareness management and
resilience management. These two concepts are grounded on the premise that
neither success nor happiness is absolute and there exists a large latitude to
achieve success even after failure and ensure happiness despite unhappiness.
Awareness management
When an individual or an organization is
asked as to what determines success in an organization the answer is likely to
be that a combination of competencies and attitudes determines the success. While
this is true, it is awareness that makes a fundamental difference in
influencing success or failure. Awareness itself has two facets, internal and
external. Internal or self awareness enables one to appreciate one’s
competencies and attitudes, delineating adequacies and inadequacies in each. In
an organizational context, it is unusual for employees to have varied
competencies and attitudes. Self-awareness enables an employee to play to his
or her strengths rather than follow stereotypes of performance or just stick to
assigned roles despite the alignment. Self-examination
is psychologically nuanced and requires that one honestly challenges one’s
beliefs and marshals the courage to act on that information which may lead to
fresh ways of thinking about one’s life, and what determines one’s successes
and happiness.
The theory of Argyris and Schon (1978) points
out to the value of learning through awareness approaches. When
an error is detected and corrected but permits the organization to carry on its
present policies or achieve its present objectives, then that
error-and-correction process is single-loop learning. Single-loop
learning is like a thermostat that learns when it is too hot or too cold and
turns the heat on or off. The thermostat can perform this task because it can
receive information (the temperature of the room) and take corrective action. Double-loop
learning occurs when an error is detected and corrected in ways that
involve the modification of an organization’s underlying norms, policies and
objectives. Employees who follow the double-loop learning process are able to
appreciate where and how their competencies and attitudes align with
organizational roles and responsibilities. Organizations which follow
double-loop learning are able to induct and develop talent that meets higher
aspirations. Clearly, organizations must also deploy double loop learning,
which together with employees’ own approach leads to synergistic results.
External
awareness deploys double loop learning with an additional strategic context. An
individual should not be content with one’s own awareness but should seek 360
degree feedback on what others perceive of him or her. He or she also should
resort to established psychological analytical tools to understand one’s own
self better. An organization must similarly look at successful organizations
and try to understand what makes them more successful or less successful and
more or less vibrant than itself; vibrancy setting the organizational tone of
happiness. While awareness of an individual is hampered by one’s relative ego
state or closed state of mind, awareness of an organization is limited by the
relative bureaucracy and ossification in its management. Managing for awareness,
both internal and external, is a key facet of an individual’s and organization’s
success factors. A cognitive approach that questions every aspect of
competencies and attitudes in relation to internal culture and external
environment is helpful for both individuals and organizations.
Resilience
management
Resilience
in terms of physics is the ability of a substance to return to its original
shape after it has been bent, stretched or pressed. In a people sense, it is
the ability of people or organizations to feel better quickly and recover
appropriately after anything unpleasant or unexpected, such as shock, injury etc.
Resilience is also an age related
phenomenon. As we know, toddlers, infants and youngsters have tremendous
resilience in their skeletal and muscular systems that inevitably decline over
age. Gymnasts and sports persons sustain or even improve resilience by exacting
training and skilful techniques, along with an openness to take risks. Organizations
also tend to display a lowering resilience with age. Startups and young firms typically
are able to have flexibility, adaptability and agility and return to growth
path despite setbacks quickly. Mature firms, in contrast, tend to be resilient.
Resilience
in an individual and organizational context has deeper import. Given the unpredictable
external environment and heightened competition on one hand and periodical
assessment of performance of employees by the managements and quarterly evaluation
of firm performance by investors on the other, performance shocks and unpleasant
feedback is commonplace. In respect of individuals, resilience is the ability
of an individual not to be put down by shocks, stabilize one’s mind and heart,
and reevaluate one’s competencies and attitudes in the perspective of a long
career of four decades. In respect of organizations, resilience is the ability
of a firm to take performance and competitive setbacks in its stride, update
strategy and tactics, reinforce and motivate the talent base and create a new
energy. Firms will do well to remember that unlike individuals they can be
ageless if only they are resilient (apart from being aware).
Importantly,
being resilient is different from being fatalistic. The outstanding example of resilience
is that of Japan, a country that has virtually risen from ashes after the World
War II to become the world’s leading technological and economic power. The resilience
of Japan has been a resultant of the brain power and work ethic of the people. Individuals
and firms need to marshal the hidden brain power and ignored work ethic to
develop customized hypothesis of resilience. For individuals as much as for
corporations, kneejerk or ad-hoc responses hamper rather than reinforce
resilience. Individuals may have
different response mechanisms and abilities to reinforce resilience; for
example, silence and pause could give mind and heart the chance to recoup innate
optimism and energy. Organizations may also have different response mechanisms
and abilities to reinforce resilience; for example, reviews, collaboration and
networking may help the firm to emerge stronger.
Arming
with ARM
The
foregoing brings out that awareness management and resilience management have a
major role to play in ensuring success and happiness of individuals as of
organizations. Certainly, talent and dedication (as well as luck) play crucial
roles in success but one needs to be aware of one’s own competencies and
attitudes in relation to what is required in the context of internal and
external requirements. Despite the right talent and attitudes, individuals and
organizations do face setbacks due to several internal and external
factors. Resilience with persistence
marks the difference between leaders and followers. Awareness and Resilience
Management (ARM) typically arms individuals and organizations to derive
sustained success and happiness, despite there being no universally applicable
benchmarks of success and happiness.
Posted
by Dr CB Rao on February 3, 2013
1 comment:
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