Factors for creating nurturing social environments in everything from organizations to families, with reference to the Human Relations (HR) aspect of company management.
Why We (Shouldn't) Hate HR
Bill Taylor - Harvard Business Review
You can't be special, distinctive, compelling in the marketplace [or, one might say, on the stage of society] unless you create something special, distinctive, compelling in the workplace [i.e., in the internal workings of the organization]. Your strategy is your culture; your culture is your strategy. The most successful companies I know understand that the most important business [or strategy-wise] decisions they make are not what new products they launch or what new markets they enter. What really matters is what new people they let in the door — who they hire — and how they create an environment in which everyone in the organization can share ideas, solve problems, and develop a psychological and emotional stake in the enterprise.
For example, business strategists rave about Cirque du Soleil... But Cirque is every bit as serious about the performers themselves as it is about the logic of the performances. It has developed the most creative and rigorous methodology for recruiting and evaluating new talent I have ever seen, and it is obsessed with making sure its talented recruits understand and embrace how Cirque works. It makes an explicit connection between the people it attracts and the product it delivers, between how it does business and who it invites to become part of the business.
Lyn Heward, Cirque's director of creation, explains it this way: "There are no stars here. The show is the star. That's why our evaluation goes deeper than a talent evaluation. We need to learn about the person behind the artist. How many somersaults you can do is not as important as an open-mindedness to our process, the tough-mindedness to get through the job, and what we call a 'fire to perform.' That's what we're looking for."
Or think about Pixar, the Hollywood hit factory.... "Most companies eventually come around to the idea that people are the most important thing," says Randy Nelson, [former] dean of Pixar University.
Or consider the experience of DaVita, the kidney-dialysis provider. This company's remarkable business turnaround was driven almost exclusively by a transformation of how it approached the people side of the business. Under CEO Kent Thiry, one of the core themes of the culture is that "Everything Speaks." That is, even the most trivial issues — what its treatment facilities look like, how colleagues communicate with one another, small gestures of individual kindness or selfishness — send huge signals about the health of the entire organization. Another theme is "No Brag, Just Fact."... [T]he only thing that matters at DaVita are the day-to-day realities of the quality of care it is delivering and the quality of the culture that delivers the care.
"Unless you figure out, together, how people should behave at work, and create the kind of language and rituals and systems you need to reinforce that behavior, you never get there," Thiry told me. "At DaVita, we do a lot to remind people that despite the crushing realities of their day-to-day professional lives, we want to treat each other differently. We want to care about each other with the same intensity that we care for our patients."
(Emphasis added. Read the full article here.)
Dicta (emphasizing the value of solidarity and togetherness):
One can hardly imagine what a great influence genuine love, truthfulness and purity of motives exert on the souls of men. But these traits cannot be acquired by any [person] unless he makes a daily effort to gain them...
(Shoghi Effendi, Living the Life #1267)
[W]hat pleasure can compare the pleasure of bringing joy and hope to other hearts. The more we make others happy the greater will be our own happiness and the deeper our sense of having served humanity...
(Shoghi Effendi through his secretary, Light (Vol. 1) 45)
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