You’ll most likely engage me to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity and I’ll do that and do it well. But in the end, I want to deliver “The Joy of Work”.
My typical client leads a small business. Many times they are the founder. But, founder or not, when they took the helm of the organization, in their head, they knew what they wanted the organization to look like, feel like, and perform like. They knew how they wanted it to impact employees, customers, and shareholders (even if the only shareholder was them). They had an idea of what kind of leader they wanted to be – a bold visionary sailing in a blue ocean or a skilled craftsman stealing market share from other competitors in a bloody red ocean. In extremely rare cases, things go just as planned. However, for most organizations, by the time they get to me, the business doesn’t look like what they envisioned and they don’t look like what they envisioned. To quote B.B. King, “The thrill is gone.”
It has been my privilege to join these leaders to diagnose and treat their organizations. We’ve made changes in people, products, processes, pricing, promotion, and much, much more. And fortunately, the changes have brought about the transformation they were after. But here’s the thing that’s maybe most important. When I was first engaged, work was not fun for my client. Work is not meant to be a perpetual barrel of laughs, but good work brings joy. Joy that comes from providing a product or service that makes life better for customers, providing meaningful employment for dedicated people who are providing for themselves and their families, and providing a desirable return for shareholders who have risked their capital to bankroll the enterprise.
In a lot of cases, we didn’t make massive changes to the client organization (But sometimes we did. I fired a client’s mother during one engagement). What we did do is put the leader back in control. We moved closer to the organization they envisioned at the beginning. We moved them closer to being the leader they envisioned – but even better, because they’ve now layered in years of experience on top of their original vision.
Lots of life is spent at work. And work is a noble endeavor. As we bring purpose, clarity, priority, and process, we build the joy of work.
