The key challenge faced by HR* is to provide an environment in which meaning is created. According to Bains,
...creating meaning is about enabling people to connect their activities to things that matter to them...A key part in making this notion a reality is to create an environment where "people know where they stand". In other words providing a workplace where feedback is hardwired and where even the most difficult issue is addressed.
We are taught that "honesty is the best policy," but we also learn, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." So we don't. Research published by the Fast Company asked managers about their hesitation to provide critical feedback. Their explanations included the following,
I'm concerned about appearing arrogant or abrasive
It's my own personal discomfort
It just seems easier to give the positive side
I'm not sure
I'm 100% right
It's the defensiveness that I often get in response
We're a polite organization, it's just not our culture
I don't like to judge other people
By telling the truth (especially when giving feedback) you establish trust and leaders are most effective where they are open to changing their own behaviors as the result of a "truth". If you ASK for and take feedback from your colleagues seriously and show them that you are working on developing yourself, you are demonstrating the behaviors that you want to see in your employees and you can establish an environment where truth is welcome.
*taken from feedback received on my LinkedIn question- "Is there a better way to describe HR's role than that of being an HR Business Partner?"
4 comments:
I like it - a lot. If I create (find) meaning in the workplace an in what I do everyday, I bet I'd be a lot less frustrated at the end of some days
Going back to your headline quote for Einstein, I really wondered abot the necessity of meaning - "I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent". Do we know what we mean by "meaning"? Personally I subscribe to life being a series of random meaningless events that either I enjoy, get puzzled over, dislike, or decide to intervene. I appear to apply this equally in work-life and the rest of life. Where does this leave me on meaning? Well, initially I thought I meant I needed to seek some valuable purpose, but then after a coffee, I decided I was just here to have fun. Perhaps that is a good enough "meaning"? Although I don't know how HR can help make that happen.
I believe this has always been the criteria for success in any organisation. People have come together to make sense of the contexts and environments they exist in, and then made choices about what to do in the light of that sense-making. I think it is also moot point as to whether it should be 'HR' being reaponsible for 'creating' the environment in which meaning takes place. For me, that in itself is a chocie based on raft of prior assumptions concerning the nature of organisation and management, and suggests to me a leaning towards a managerialist 'recipe' for organisational success which I'm partially sceptical towards. Especially since it tends to be founded on Positivist notions of an objective ontology and epistemology. I favour the view that whilst there may be truth of fact, there are an infinite variety of truths of meaning. This doesn't mean that I favour an indecisive post-modernist relativism on managament issues, I certainly don't, but the F.I.F.O. management approach os one that restricts the true potential of the organsiation.
I certainly agree that one of the sources of deep conflict in organisations is the battle for 'meaning supremacy' and in hierarchically minded organisations there is the urge to a one 'truth' and that is 'my' truth situation.
My present work in and on organisations is directed towards and driven by Critical Theory, and I passionately believe that innovativing, communicating, strategising, and co-worker welfare can benefit from developing a critical questioning of 'given' organisational 'truths'. tehre is much work to be done in this field and it will need to confront some very deep and powerful extant organisational theories for success, such as 'trait' and 'contigency' leadership. I wonder if people and organisations have the capability at this time to cope with framing the environment as a 'wicked' problem and all that that entails. Maybe that is where HR staff have a role to play, and they have to become critcial of their own assumptions and practice too!
In conclusion, I wonder if, positing Alethic Plularity would ever be recieved and understood by the 'alpha' managers amongst us?
Totally agree. With Web 2.0 moving into the working environment, participation and feedback should become a fundamental part of the working world. Just waiting for organisations to take this on.
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