What's important to YOUR work?

Link: Most Workers Still Seeking Dream Job - Money.

Salary was one of the least important factors in determining a dream job. Money ranked third (12 percent) compared to having fun at work (39 percent) which topped the list, followed by making a difference in society (17 percent). Rounding out the bottom three attributes were traveling and seeing the world (5 percent) and being creative within a position (5 percent).

I'm working with some organizations attempting to do more...with less. Their milestones include broad, sweeping outcomes like "improve team morale" and "increase individual effectiveness."

I developed and facilitated a seminar on Workplace Communication for senior managers this year. The content was driven toward the yearly review/performance review processes. During the workshop, however, a common theme showed up over the 6 days I presented the material:

"What do we do to engage employees that do not seem to be performing? When we know they're not reaching their potential, how do we encourage them to grow?"

So, I have been thinking/reading/writing about this more lately. After getting TWO recommendations within about 36 hours for Dweck's book MINDSET, I picked one up at Border's on Broadway in NYC.

I've already picked up a few ideas. For this post, I'll connect an interpretation I had while reading Dweck's book with the first sentence of the quote above.

It seems to me that people are engaged when they are taking action. And I believe action is required in a learning and developing organization. Where learning and growth is encouraged and people are developing their interests, talents and skills, active engagement ensues. Sure, there are a lot of ways to get people moving, and taking action, in an organization (just look above: make it fun, make it seem employees are making a difference, give them a travel budget). However, in my experience if you give someone more tools they can use (processes, structures, and strategies) to improve their Workplace Performance, they'll engage at higher and higher levels.