7. Doing For Others

Life is not about ego building; it is about doing something for others.

All action starts from needs and purpose: something is needed and it must be done. Let's get people together to take action.

Things often go wrong when we organize them. The original need and driving purpose are forgotten at the point when goals are set and tasks are assigned to people. This is called management.

Actually, management means creating a hierarchy and a bureaucracy, where people are harnessed to take a narrow role. Their actions are monitored and the results are evaluated using indicators that are not made to help the people who do the work, nor the people they work for, the customers. They are for the leaders.

As a result, purpose dies out and the organization becomes an end in itself. The system makes itself important and takes the right to subjugate workers and customers in order to realize its own goals, set by the leaders of the organization.

This creates a chain of command, which is seemingly run by commands "from above". The frustrated employees follow orders without passion.

Leadership scholars saw this pattern a long time ago, but generations have had to change for the new lessons to be absorbed. The transition was hastened by the fact that organizations that genuinely value people and understand their purpose, were successful, leaving their rigid partners in the dust.

It is gradually being realised that organisations have no intrinsic value. They don't exist for themselves, but for people who need them. This has led to a redefinition of goals. However, change has taken place excessively slowly, and it will take a while to reach the finish line.

The goal will not be reached until every human being understands, that all the good in life is done for others.

Seven Reasons to Work

We have to realise that we cannot shove purpose inside people. Each person has to internalise it themselves. This requires an end to the subjugation of people and their genuine involvement in the planning and implementation.

This is often not the case. It is not difficult to find organisations where people are not listened to. They are forced to follow instructions that serve no one's interests and reduce people to mechanical performers.

Valuing people is mentioned in the value statements of almost all organisations, yet the value that people feel is extremely low.

The experience of being undervalued means that people are reluctant to give their best to an organisation whose goals they cannot genuinely subscribe to.

Over-management leads to underperformance. When people are reduced to a cog in the wheel, they either settle for their share or do their best in defiance of management because they feel responsible for their work.

Our relationship with work has a huge impact on the whole of our life. The emotions we experience at work do not stay in the workplace but travel home with us, in our bodies. People who hate their jobs vent their bad feelings on their loved ones. They are innocent victims here.

There is a simple way to change the situation: clarify the purpose of our work. Write down seven reasons why we work. In addition to the salary, we need to find six others. Two of them are related to our next thesis.