Activities, whether private or professional, will be experienced as meaningful
and fulfilling if they are compatible and consistent with these two basic needs. The
need for community and the emergence of an “us feeling” can be satisfied by
companies through the establishment of small units (departments, work groups
and teams), decentralized decision-making, and mentoring programs. The need for
knowledge and confirmation can be supported at all levels by coaching, seminars,
staff meetings and a corporate culture that promotes experimentation and inno-
vation, initiative and ideas and communicates that errors are not strictly penalized,
but are accepted as part of the learning process.
According to Reinhard K. Sprenger people will consider their work meaningful
and satisfying if planning and implementing go together and if they can creatively
shape their environment, if the activity is productive and purposeful, i.e., useful for
someone, and if it is interactive and provides a variety of social contacts and
exchange opportunities (see Sprenger 1999, p. 231 ff.).
Given the great importance of the meaning of work, it is all the more important
for a company to provide a collective value system. Manfred Kets de Vries
summarizes how the corporation can provide meaning in five points (see de Vries
2002, pp. 253–254):
The business purpose has to make sense for the employees, and visions and goals
must be clearly articulated. By advertising these visions the leadership creates
a strong sense of togetherness and important group identity under the slogan
“We’re all pulling on the same rope and we can move a lot by joining forces.”
The management has to provide the employees with a sense of self-determination.
They are not small cogs in the gearbox, but major engines.
An employee has to have the opportunity not only to passively do the work
others assign him or her, but also to be involved in the company as a personality.
The manager needs to support the skills of employees and ensure that each
individual can develop in keeping with their abilities, expanding their strengths and
perhaps even discovering new talents. Lifelong learning is the motto. Only this can
satisfy human curiosity, preserving creativity.
The company’s top must anchor strong common values by embodying them and
living accordingly. The fundamental values of each organization should include:
teamwork, openness, respect, customer focus, motivation, entrepreneurship, fun,
reliability, continuous learning, change, empowerment and trust.
Organizations that meet these basic human needs will shape the future. Kets de
Vries refers to them as “authentizotic organizations” (de Vries 2002, p. 245). This
term is composed of the Greek adjectivesauthentekos(authentic, credible), and
zoteekos(vital). In the business contextzoteekosstands for the energy that a person
gains from their work. In the twenty-first century, the demand for enterprise
authenticity (a terrible term that nonetheless aptly describes the facts) is becoming
increasingly felt.
Authentizotic companies offer their employees work with a sense of wholeness
and balance, which meets their needs for knowledge, cognition and learning, but
also for social interaction and satisfaction. The employees manage their work and
their own time, their interests and ideas, and experience their work as effective and
3.2 Leading with Your Head and Heart 173