Relationship Performance (aka: RP) is science for thriving in the challenging and complex realities of today's work. RP is applicable to all organizations of any size and to workers and candidates of any profession, age or career path. Whoever you may be, you can leverage this empowering information to better understand workplace dynamics to reliably gain what you seek from work, thus bettering work and life. As you begin your usage of rpPaq™ and the practice of RP, you'll benefit by knowing its foundational principles. This Quick Start series is intended to provide entry-level literacy of forces that apply to everyone universally in today's workplaces, although they are often unknown or not leveraged for benefit. These principles are presented in a manner that is intended to be (relatively) easy to consume (even though the underlying topics can be rather complex). Each of the four parts of this series focus upon one central RP theme:
Part 1. The differences between people and organizations Part 2. The nature of the relationship and the importance of agreement Part 3. The fusion of performance, happiness, security and durability Part 4. The synthesis: The Universal Work Role Framework™
Part 1: The Principle of Differences
Overview: Organizations and people are significantly different, so much so that neither tend to realize these extreme dissimilarities, thus fail to appreciate the vast work, workplace and career implications. This becomes even more true related to respective specific needs and what each sees as value or benefit related to work. Each party finds it is easier to produce expectations than to extend attentive empathy and understanding of the other. Each party must remain alert, informed and vigilant attending to the other's needs, motivators and viewpoints. This requires disciplined diligence and attention, largely due to the fact that it will seldom be the obvious or most natural thing to do. However, being accurately responsive to the other parties needs is advantageous and reliably provides the powerful leverage either requires to best gain what they seek.
1) Organizations are rational, legal structures (with many being financially-oriented or profit-driven) designed to serve a relatively narrow purpose. Organizations seek maximum outcomes or gains with minimized risks from minimal investments of “resources," such as money, time, facilities, tools, machinery and so forth. The primary forces that drive organizations are categorized in the framework known as the Organizational Triangle™.
As a general rule, organizations can seem quite severe as they pursue their purposes with the greatest possible efficiency. Efficiency will typically be paramount to any organization, since minimizing resources, expenditures, time and risks while gaining maximum output are usually vital for organizational survival, success and competitiveness. The overwhelming majority of organizations are not intentionally seeking to harm or exploit anyone, indeed quite the opposite, for most seek to generate benefits by what they do and offer in products and services.
It is important to keep in mind that most organizations “serve many masters.” Examples are investors, analysts, bankers, customers, suppliers, workers, regulators, contributors and other stakeholders. Typically, most are simultaneously fighting competitive battles in their marketplaces. This makes for challenging circumstances and usually includes change, tough compromises and occasional surprises.
Though people form, work and direct within organizations, people themselves are not organizations. Indeed, people are extremely different from organizations, severely so. Few workers understand just how different they and their organizations are, since organizational differences and the many implications are sometimes hidden or very confusing. These differences are sometimes not even fully realized by an organization's management and leadership, for they too are people, and they too are workers.
One reason for this messy confusion is that organizations form and represent themselves through select people, such as by using people in roles of founders, investors, leaders, executives, managers, supervisors, directors, HR, and attorneys. Many others serve as advocates or "voices" for the organization from time to time such as PR firms, ad agencies, consultants, etc. This leads us to believe that as we work with an organization that we're affiliating with people and human factors. To some degree we are, but always keep in mind that anyone who represents the organization is held accountable to serve the purpose of the organization including to protect and to create value for the organization.
You might now argue: "Exceptions are persons such as a business owner of a small, 4-person neighborhood business, or an entrepreneur in a loft-based enterprise with just a few people alongside. Surely these persons are the "same" as the organization. Right?"
Answer: No, this is still not true. The organization and these persons are distinctly and severely different. These folks are significantly influenced by, and act to a large degree, on behalf of separate forces of the organization, whether dancing to customers' or bankers' demands, responding to tax laws, managing capital and suppliers, allocating resources and avoiding risks in both tactical and strategic compromise, creating equity wealth or simply ensuring survival. It can be very risky for any person to believe otherwise.
If the differences exist when a single passionate, friendly person "owns" and "runs" the small, intimate organization, then how much greater might be the organizational forces and dictates acting upon supervisors and leaders of larger organizations that are owned by unknown, distant, demanding investors? (For again, these supervisors and leaders are workers themselves who serve the hungry organization's needs, like you.)
Thus a savvy worker will diligently attempt to "x-ray the organization through its representatives," never forgetting that it is the organization that their works are ultimately serving. One way to approach this opportunity is doing all one can to learn what that representative's objectives are and help carry out their responsibilities for the organization.
Remember: emotions, politics, greed, lethargy, indecisiveness, ambivalence, moral deficits, insecurities or other human foibles and frailties you may sometimes observe by those who may speak or decide for an organization are actually aspects of those people's personal weaknesses and their own flawed work performance, not the characteristics or motives of "the organization" per se. So you can readily appreciate, there's many reasons that relations can sometimes be messy, frustrating and confusing.
Any worker who fails to appreciate differences that are inherent in organizations or be responsive to the nature of organizational forces, influences, challenges and purpose will inevitably suffer unresponsiveness from management to personal needs, losses of personal opportunity, advancements and rewards, or as many learn painfully, often with surprise, and the loss of work. Conversely, there’s no greater leverage that any individual can possess than being able to know and accurately respond to present and future organizational needs and initiatives. A worker who performs precisely as the organization needs is seen as an angel possessing the power to cause the organization to dance for them and their reasonable needs. A key to work success, security and leverage for any worker or candidate is to provide outstanding, competitive "Worker ROI™". That is, the best possible organizational returns for all the organizational investments made in the worker.
2) On the other hand, every working person is a "life-in-progress." Work is only one part of a complicated, ever-changing human life, although perhaps a large and important portion of that life. And a single life is more complicated and expansive than any given work assignment (it can be argued a single life can be far more complicated, less understood and houses more potential than any organization). Since people are different from, and more complex than organizations, the possible combinations of personal needs can be infinitely varied. However, all personal work needs, whatever they may be, generally fall into three categories of satisfaction: functional, social and life effects. These categories are known as the Personal Triangle™ (and you likely already know that these needs are entirely different than the Organizational Triangle).
As you may well appreciate, any organization that fails to be accurately attentive and responsive to the Personal Triangle needs of qualified workers may suffer many problems, wastes and unnecessary risks, including loss of peak personal work role performance, repelling desirable candidates, exits of desirable workers and collective bargaining. Equally, if an organization consistently and accurately attends to all three corners of the Personal Triangle, and does so better than other entities who are competing for the qualified worker’s attention, they will be a strong magnet to the workers and human performance that they seek to have within their community.
At this point, I encourage you to download and thoughtfully review the "differences list" from Career Fulcrum. You might debate some of these, and you might know of others that need to be added, but generally this list can amplify your understanding and imprint the Difference Principle into your memory.
Download: Differences Orgs vs People
Neither party can believe they are "entitled" to being chosen by, having expectations of, or remaining with the other. Both parties must be constantly "earning" being together by being and remaining attractive to the other. The secret of earning is appreciating and responding to the differences of the other party:
• Organizations don’t seek what workers seek.
• Workers don’t pursue what organizations pursue.
Fortunately these distinct and extreme differences provide outstanding opportunities to both parties. That is, IF:
... the Difference Principle is well understood
... and work situations are approached in an informed, creative, responsive, reasonable and accurate manner by each party.
Getting technical:
This model of affiliation based upon "complimentary differences" is known as “symbiotic.” This is a well known dynamic in biology producing great results for eons. There are many examples of symbiotic situations throughout nature, including many within and outside our physical bodies that we depend upon for our health.
The Principle of Difference addresses and responds to existing workplace realities as they are; but in doing so, adds and enjoys symbiotic power. By leveraging and enjoying differences between workers and organizations each party can put in motion, set the conditions and offer dependable paths for both parties to have their needs optimally satisfied through cooperation, collaboration and compromise with each other.
The key: remaining vigilant in precisely serving the other party’s needs. Stated another way from either party's vantage ...
I best serve "me"
by knowing, thinking and attending to
"we!"
To learn more about differences or to advance understanding, the reader is strongly encouraged to read and refer to the following Career Fulcrum Illuminations:
Introduction
#111 Flow
#112 The Personal Triangle
# 121 The Organizational Triangle
# 131 Bringing It All Together
# 231 The Eight Dimensions
03-31-11 PMe
