The traditional American workplace has often placed strict boundaries on what we can and cannot bring to work. We should bring our talents, efforts and best selves. We design talent and performance systems around the assumption that we just need to tell people what is expected and they will do it. In this system, failure is due to lack of direction, capacity or motivation. In this system, we should not bring our struggles, our worries, or any of aspects of humanity that are less than our best.

The problem with this system is that it drives perfectionism and a separation of “productivity” from self. It treats people as objects rather than people.

As leaders, you may have asked yourself “What would happen if I allowed people to bring all of themselves to work? Wouldn’t it distract us from what needs to be done?”

Let me ask you a different question –

When have you felt most fulfilled at work? In those moments, were you bringing more or less of yourself to work?

Historically, organizations have felt that it was their role to dictate to people what their purpose is. They then expected people to show up and perform that purpose. With the slowdown of the pandemic, all of the changes in boundaries between work and home, with increases in employee power and leverage with the need for talent, individuals are increasingly looking for jobs that help them fulfill the purposes that they have recently identified or refined for their own lives. And organizations who figure out how to partner with employees in their purpose, rather than attempting to dictate and hold all the power in the relationship, will find themselves a step ahead in the competition for talent.

So how can organizations partner in their employee’s purposes while still accomplishing their own?

  1. Recognize that your people have their own purpose, their own hopes and dreams. And many of them are looking for use work as a tool to fulfill these. About 70% of people may define their purpose through work. What that means is that people want to feel that the time spent at work really, really matters.
  2. Commit to seeing people as people. Leaders can impact the feeling of purpose simply by treating their teams as people. (for more on this, learn about leadership and self-deception here) This means recognizing their strengths, talking about their hopes, creating space and support for them to manage struggles. This doesn’t mean that you need to be a therapist, just a leader who treats people as people not robots. Give space for grace and growth.
  3. Align talent and performance systems with a partnership model. Are employees objects or people within your people systems? Do your systems drive partnership that produces engagement, purpose, diversity, innovation and belonging or do they drive fear or perfectionism? Sometimes we are afraid of letting go of perfectionism because we fear performance will suffer. A 2018 from the Harvard Business Review states “we found no link between perfectionism and performance . . . striving to be perfect is not overly beneficial for employees and has significant costs for employees and organizations”.

“Nearly seven out of ten employees are reflecting on their purpose because of COVID-19. Those employees who say that they live their purpose at work are six and a half times more likely to report higher resilience.”

Naina Dhingra, partner, Mckinsey & Co, New York office, The McKinsey Podcast

Brené Brown writes that “wholehearted living is engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating courage, connection and worthiness”. This wholehearted living does not mean we spend all day talking about feelings. What it does mean is that we create teams where people feel valued for all of who they are. It means that people are allowed to partner with their employer in living out their values and purposes, which will result in employees bringing more of their talents, creativity and commitment to work. When work is meaningful, both employees and the organization benefit from the partnership more.