You attain satisfaction when personal, work goals are in harmony

The very first task in management is taking charge of yourself. This means managing your expectations in life as well as your work expectations.

It boils down to managing your happiness and other people’s influence upon you. After that, you are able to soundly manage whatever else that may be entrusted unto you.  

The biggest segment of our lives is spent in our workplace. This, therefore, needs to be very effectively managed, if we are to find fulfilment in life. The first and most important focus here is to discover the greater purpose of our work. No matter what your job is, there exists a reason for it.  

It is therefore very important for you to know that reason. You must fully understand how your efforts make the organisation a better place for you and for someone else and indeed for the world. It is only then that you can say that you have found your job’s purpose. When you get here, you will be happier, more engaged, innovative and creative.  

Your next step is to connect your personal goals to organisational goals. The organisation you work with should be your partner in your pursuit of happiness. It should not be drudgery. If you find your work to be a torture, you certainly need to find out why, or even to look elsewhere for something else to do.  

It is very easy to do very well for the organisation only for you to be left unfulfilled in your dreams and aspirations whereas it is equally unfair to pursue your dreams and aspirations at the expense of the organisation you work for, even if it is your own. It will reject being misused. The most harmonious coexistence is the alignment of both objectives.  

David McClelland, an American psychologist, identified three categories of personal work objectives or motivation. There are people whose greatest drive is high achievement. For others, the motivation to work is from the desire to be affiliated to others. And yet for some others the drive comes from a desire to gain power. You do well to understand yourself and your work.  

GENUINE ACHIEVEMENT

People with a high need for achievement seek to excel and thus tend to avoid both low-risk and high-risk situations. Achievers avoid low-risk situations because they are easily attained and therefore success is not a genuine achievement.

In high-risk projects, achievers see the outcome as a matter of chance rather than effort. High need for achievement individuals prefer work that has a moderate probability of success, ideally a 50 per cent chance. Achievers need regular feedback in order to monitor their progress. They prefer either to work with other high achievers, or alone.  

Then there are those with a high need for affiliation. They value harmonious relationships with other people and need to feel accepted. They tend to conform to the norms of their work group.

High-need-for-affiliation individuals prefer work that provides significant personal interaction. They perform well in customer service and client interaction situations.

 You could be the person fulfilled by power. A person whose need is power can be one of the two types, either personal or institutional. Those who need personal power want to direct others, and this need is often perceived as undesirable. It can be suffocating and ego-driven.

Persons who need institutional power – also known as social power – want to organize the efforts of others to further the goals of the organization. Managers with a high need for institutional power tend to be more effective than those with a high need for personal power. They manage themselves and others with the eye on institutional objectives.

The management by objectives approach will link everyone’s personal goals to those of the organisation.  This alignment is important for a positive work environment.

A healthy, positive working environment brings out the best in everyone. It gives people more autonomy over their work, and provides learning and career development opportunities.

 A positive work environment also promotes such values as integrity, honesty, and humility – all in the knowledge that we are different. It will even help you to make a dignified exit if you realize that your personal objectives are not being met.

That does not make the organisation bad or the individual bad. They are simply not aligned and not everyone can be accommodated everywhere.

Dr Muturi is the executive director, Kenya Institute of Management.