|
Domino effect of happiness John Pollack Performance Self-awareness is vital to both a satisfying career and a successful business
Though this concept is usually more closely associated with spirituality than business, the Atlantic Canadian-based author says self-awareness can help guide people on a career path they'll want to be on. "About 94 per cent of people aren't doing the job they really want to be doing," Holmes says. "Once they are in an organization and they get sucked into the organizational politics then that's what tends to fuel a lot of the dysfunction." Holmes, who moved from the United Kingdom to Halifax last fall to be general manager for Nova Scotia technology firm Ambir, has written two books: The Resonance Principle: Understanding YOUR Life Path and The Rightwork System: How to find YOUR Ideal Job. He is currently working on The Rightway Process: How to Build Authentic Organizations. Holmes will be running a private workshop for the leadership organization 21inc next month. "The individual has to understand what resonates more with you in terms of a job or a career and to have the courage to go follow that," he says. These people are far more likely to be productive and hard working for their employers because they are passionate about what they're doing, Holmes says, and younger generations are more likely to strive for this. "They're much more vocal about what they want to do, when they want to do it, how they want to do it, where they want to do it, how much of it they want to do," he says. "If you want to win the war for talent you have to be able to provide infrastructure that creates and promotes and facilitates authenticity. "It's that feeling you have when you're not quite sure what it is about a person or a place or a thing, but you just feel that you have to go there, you have to do it." Diane Allain, president of Evolution Consulting Group, a professional coaching and human resources firm, agrees self-awareness is vital to both a satisfying career and successful business. "Every now and then businesses must take a step back and look at their business from a strategic planning point of view," she says adding people need to the same for their careers "I think self-awareness is probably 75 of the path of finding the next career choice," she says. This increases the likelihood of someone being engaged in his or her job, she says. "It's usually very obvious when people are engaged in what they do because they're at their best," Allain says. "If you're engaged you do your best work, you make decisions like it was your own business, you care about the client, you care about your teammates because you're in it for the longer haul. According to a study by Gallup, an organization that studies human behavior, companies with engaged employees have 38 per cent higher customer satisfaction, 22 per cent higher productivity and 27 per cent higher profits. While this will benefit companies, both Holmes and Allain agree people will likely be happier overall if they are happier at work. But for people with kids, a mortgage and an uncertain retirements savings, leaving an unfulfilling job isn't easy. "That's the kind of issue that most people have," Holmes says. "That's why it takes courage." "The question is do you want to spend the next 10, 15, 20 years doing something you hate," he says. Allain, a former vice-president of human resources for the Atlantic Lottery Corp., knows what it's like to leave a high-paying job in pursuit of a more satisfying career path. "Life is short," she says. "Really being clear on what the priorities are - and it might mean sacrificing in the short term - but you can't buy happiness, you can't buy that with the salary. |
Self-aware employees can help improve a company's performance, says Phil Holmes.