True Engagement is a Company's Most Potent Competitive Advantage

Everyone craves a sense of mission and purpose. And high-value employees look for careers that help them put their purpose into action. When companies are able to connect their mission critical objectives with their employees' personal mission critical drives, magic happens. A culture of true engagement ignites and sustains your employees' passion in a perpetual motion. Once it's started, it takes on a life of its own. Suddenly you see a whole new level of creativity, endurance, and commitment to your company's most important goals.

• Companies need employees who are motivated by their own sense of personal purpose. These are the people with endless resources of creative energy and resilience and who are willing to invest it inside the organization — even during uncertain times.
• Organizations need a cadre of employees who are just as much fueled by the prospects of long-term result as they are motivated by their bi-weekly paycheck.
• Organizations need a community of employees who feel safe and respected enough to take the risks necessary to exercise essential innovation.
• Organizations need people who are constantly seeking new opportunities and avenues for growth.
• And organizations need employees who have a strong sense of their own career paths.

In the two decades I've dedicated to studying leadership trends and work in America, these principles of true engagement have emerged:

True engagement happens when employees see how their company's mission speaks to their own personal sense of purpose. And when they are given the chance to talk about it in their own words!

All too often, employers use satisfaction surveys to gain insight into what motivates their employees. Those surveys reveal only a small fraction of the picture. Everyone has an amazing story of their own to tell. A story of survival, of hope, of a vision for a better future. No survey writer could possibly anticipate and capture these passions. Not only is it important for the employer to know what those points of engagement are, the very experience of telling those stories is in and of itself an engagement process.

High value talent demands work that recognizes their dedication to purpose and mission.

We've seen a spate of very successful books out there that promise to help individuals find their passion and then find jobs to fulfill that passion. Consequently, there is a much higher level of awareness about who they are and what they care about. The smart employers have recognized this swelling of demand and desire among individuals who are looking to plan their careers wisely.

There's no such thing as a perfect job, but there is perfect work. The deep rich colors of intrinsic value will never wear off.

True engagement comes from helping employees find ultimate value in the work they do. It's not about big bonuses, high-end furnishing, fancy trips, lavish incentive plans. It's about knowing how their efforts contribute to truly making a difference in the world. We are satisfied at one level when we receive an increase in pay, but a deeper satisfaction comes from knowing our hard work benefits others and that our place in the world comes from making the world a better place.

Leaders must be willing to speak from their own personal perspectives.

We are all savvy information consumers these days — especially when it comes to pre-packaged messaging. When organizational leaders are encouraged to put aside pre-planned notes and scripts and are allowed to be masterfully guided in an in-depth interview that's unique, they are able to speak with a much stronger sense of authenticity that rings true throughout their audiences.

Work is one of the greatest adventures of our time.

Most of us grew up thrilling to the high-adventure stories in which heroes faced insurmountable challenges, and emerged victorious. But for very good reason, most of those stories were set in days gone by — the "once upon a time" era. In terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, most of us — at least in the United States are well above the basic survival levels. But that doesn't mean our inner hero doesn't have anything to do. All those heroic strengths so necessary in days of old are absolutely essential in today's work world: Courage, faith, patience, endurance, the support of the community, even a little bit of deus ex machina now and then. When it comes to achieving the amazing, we can all honestly say, "I gave at the office."

Copyright Martha I. Finney, 2005, all rights reserved