Meaning Is Linked To Your “Raison d’Etre”
In my last video, I talked about the importance of trust to build ownership. I developed on how the notion of ownership can empower people, increasing both value perceived and work meaning.
Meaning is most often an underestimated factor to productivity, efficiency, and most importantly well-being. People aren’t robots, emotionless, or simply driven by rationality.
Many salespeople know it. We do not buy what you do, we buy why you do it.
To build enthusiasm, movement, adhesion, we need to speak – at the bare minimum – at the emotional level. The best is to engage at the identity level, meaning who the person believes to be or wishes to be.
Everyone has core values and beliefs that if infringed will create dissonance and will prevent creating and sustaining engagement.
Employees are no different. In the absence of meaning, they won’t be engaged. This has tremendous impacts such as greater absenteeism, lower retention rate, and lower productivity.
Consequently, as for prospects or customers, companies should develop their vision, their mission, their “raison d’etre”. Leaders should share and explain it so employees could buy into it. this will create a meaningful drive, give an additional reason to get up than a paycheck, which creates a massive difference with your competition.
Learn More About Meaning and Engagement
If you want to know more about the search of your meaning, I cannot recommend you more to read the excellent book: “Start With Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action” by Simon Sinek.
A key notion from Simon that I really enjoyed was his “Golden Circles”. He explained that in every organization there are 3 circles, which are the “What”, “How” and “Why”.
Most companies advertise themselves with their “What”, then “How” and rarely “Why”. This could be translated by: “We are doing motorbikes”, and “We are doing them with great care” and forgetting about why the company decided to manufacture motorbikes in the first place.
Consumers are not engaged at an emotional level, not an identity level, with such an approach. Instead, they are left with rational elements, such as price, warranty, build quality, etc.
Great companies engage at the identity level to create a connection with the values and beliefs of the customers (and indirectly with the employees). To do so, they start by stating their “Why”, their “raison d’etre”. For instance, we love freedom, which, for us, is symbolized by long rides with the sunset in our back. And this is why we make motorbikes.
Suddenly, we gave a reason for individuals to connect emotionally with our brand, with our activities. We gave a reason to care, to engage, to follow. We create envy to connect.
If you want to know more about this book: “Start With Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action”, use this link https://amzn.to/30VDtdl
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