3 Simple Ways an Organization Can Make a Difference in its Employees' Lives Here's why it's very essential that organizations deliver their roles as the main support system for their co-workers
By Sudipto Das
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Every organization strives to be the best. They hire the "best" people. They have the "best" management. They want to do everything that can make a difference. But alas, that differentiator can always elude the organization, because "what" we do can be always bettered by someone.
Though this thought is a bit philosophical it is still the very essence of everything we do in our lives and the same is true for organizations. So, the question remains: what can the organization do to be different?
The answer to be put simplistically, is not in doing anything different, but in doing things differently. This has now become a cliched and overused saying. Everyone says, "Do things differently". But we falter when it comes to the very basics of doing things differently. Delving a little deep into how any organization should ideally work, or be managed, it would be clear that striving for that "ideal" way itself is perhaps the closest to being different, as very few do even that.
1. Think of the organization as a Garden, and the CEO a Gardener
The Upanishads says, "Shrinvantu vishve, amritasya putrah," Listen, O world, you're the children of the immortal bliss. Immortality in our current context is symbolic of infinite potential, infinite perfection.
Each of us is born with this immortal bliss. But then, why is that someone is more successful, and someone less? Success and failure is not a function of our potential or talent. It's the function of how much we can manifest the perfection and potential already within us.
The key differentiating factor for any organization is how much it strives to manifest the perfection and realize the fullest potential of its co-workers. A true manager is one who does only that. If the team is performing at its fullest potential, the manager's success is just a trivial by-product.
An organization is like a rose garden, whose success lies in how the gardener nourishes and nurtures each rose, allowing it to blossom with all its beauty and grandeur and spread its fragrance. The garden doesn't have any glory of its own. It's the individual glory of each of the beautiful roses that makes the garden glorious. If every rose in the garden can't blossom to its fullest potential, the gardener and the garden both are just but sad failures.
No wonder, Subroto Bagchi, a co-founder of Mindtree, calls himself the Chief Gardener of Mindtree.
2. Help co-workers think what they want to become
The Buddha said, "You become what you think." It's perhaps the most significant thought behind making an organization successful. The moment every co-worker starts believing in this simple doctrine, nothing can hold them back from realizing their potential.
Success and failure lie in what we think. If we think we will fail, we will fail, come what may. If we think we will succeed, we will succeed, come what may. An organization can make the difference only if it creates a culture where its co-workers see beauty in everything around, don't blame each other, don't harbour negative thoughts and above all, spread positivity in everything.
3. Help co-workers realize the purpose in life
Organizations play a big role in helping their co-workers realize the purpose of their lives. The very assurance that doing what they love to do would someday fetch the purpose of their lives may be enough at times. But the challenge lies in really giving them the opportunity to do things they love.
The psychological dependency of the co-workers on offices have increased significantly as the other support systems like families and native communities, have disintegrated across the world in the past many decades.
Most people have become lonely as they are in alien lands away from their extended families and communities. Often, the only people one can turn to are work colleagues. Hence, the office often becomes the only support system in people's lives. That's why it's very essential that organizations deliver their roles as the main support system for their co-workers, telling them the purpose in their lives, being one of the main deliverables.
