Comments on: Meaningful work by Jim Keane

By: Creating a culture of learning – Uromi Voice

Creating a culture of learning – Uromi Voice — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 12:19:15 +0000

[…] Jim Keane sat down with strategy+business at Steelcase headquarters in Grand Rapids, Mich., in May 2019. We met in a glass-walled conference room in the company’s learning center — which is also where the Steelcase executive team works — and began by discussing the effect of technology on jobs, a topic he frequently addresses. […]

By: sueoss

sueoss — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 17:47:02 +0000

Very inspiring – a good reminder to re-evaluate and check in with yourself, making sure you are still engaged and are doing everything you can to make sure this shows in your work. But even when leaders offer flexible hours, wellness perks, comfortable, creative environments, and actual, meaningful work; I believe it’s also up to the individual employees to care… to be at the point in their career that they care about meaningful work; not just a paycheck or title; care about being thoughtful, care to own their projects and accomplishments. They are responsible for their happiness and seeking out meaningful work. There are so many amazing places to work, doing amazing things, allowing people to break the rules… it is the responsibility of the employee to engage themselves in it.

By: Joe Kyoshi

Joe Kyoshi — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 17:09:55 +0000

Hello Jim,

I am a contract employee at one of your manufacturing plants. Help me to understand how I can find meaning in my work when I am not even an employee of your company. Saving money on employee benefits and simplifying the job of your HR department in telling me to leave if I am no longer needed seems to be a much higher priority than engagement.

By: Michael Kanoza

Michael Kanoza — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 13:31:23 +0000

What a tremendous challenge for managers of people to balance “efficient, repeatable, scalable business processes” with a “construct” around those needed processes, while enabling people to engage and find meaningful work in them. I believe good attitudes toward change and things like LEAN are built over time when people feel they are a part of the decisions being made that effect their engagement. Once understanding of meaningful changes are established, attitudes change and people engage and can find some joy in their efforts. I believe when people managers get their hands dirty in the run the business grind, they set an example and the folks they manage want to engage and attitudes change. All this can help develop a construct for a win-win.

By: Tom Bestrom

Tom Bestrom — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 12:26:15 +0000

…interesting topic for sure…I’ve just started reading a book, H3 Leadership:Be Humble, Stay Hungry, Always Hustle by Brad Lomenick, the first chapter is about self-discovery…which seems to be a contributor to employee engagement…here’s a couple of quotes/questions of the first chapter…

…Influencers should lead from the inside out so that their identity shapes their leadership rather than the other way around…

…Unless one is rooted in his identity, he can never become a change maker….

…know who you is the foundation for being great….

…What do you prioritize? What energizes you? What grounds you in a sense of purpose?…

…Your identity is not what you do. It’s who you are. And identity always comes before activity.

The point here is don’t start by looking to the company to improve your engagement, start first with knowing your identity….it’s not about what you’re doing, but who you are and who you’re becoming….

By: Monika Gutscher

Monika Gutscher — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 10:55:33 +0000

Hi Jim.
thank you for laying out these important link between engagement and meaning and the predominantly leadership task to engage.

When we understand “engaging people” as a action, where we have to push them in a certain direction, also known as to motivate them, to get them in motion, it can get pretty exhausting over time. No wonder, that not too many corporate organism are here to excel and drive over a longer period, as Satya Nadella states.

When we see the task of engaging though not so much as an action towards people, but much more a tending the collective organism of people, things are changing.

Meaning is said to be the art of self-discovery. That’s one reason why little children do not have an engagement issue, they are from dawn till dusk discovering, self, others and the world around them. They are living in a meaningful cosmos.

As leaders we have the opportunity to tend the cosmos of people in our care in such a way, that what they do, becomes meaningful to them.

Generate meaning then, is not mainly a task of providing content and motivating, but much more of laying out a framework in which people can discover themselves (wow, thats what I’m able to bring foreard), each other (well, have to admit, we came to this solution together) and the world (real communication, with customers for example). Discovery comes along with research, hearing, listen, play, create, innovate, collaborate, choosing and even with ownership and resposibility. Its potentially abundant. When we can act out of our own ability to create and co-create, engagement will not be an issue.

Leaders have the challenge and privilege to create such a situation for others, given he or she is acting in a cosmos of meaning him- or herself. If thats not the case at all, I would suggest to go back to field own for a while: self-discovery. 😉