I am currently advising two significantly different organizations; a nonprofit school and a for-profit PR agency. While they are quite different in purpose, they do share a similar opportunity-- to create a workplace that motivates, focuses, and supports their employees do their best work.

Exceptional organizations create a workplace where employees say “yes” when asked the following questions:

❑ Do I know what is expected of me at work?

❑ Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

❑ At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

❑ In the last seven days, did I receive recognition or praise for doing good work?

❑ Is there someone at work that encourages my development?

❑ Do my opinions seem to count?

❑ Does the mission/purpose of the company make me feel my job is important?

❑ Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?

❑ Do I have a good friend at work?

❑ In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?

❑ This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

If you strip an organization of its human dimension (its humanity, in my mind), the work becomes unconscious activity, where success and failure depends exclusively on the management of mindless things.

When we add the human dimension, we see that a healthy organizational life depends on an ability to create a community that works in solidarity, trust and respect.

The goal is to build a network of collaborative relationships where people feel included, respected, and enabled to contribute their best.

Let’s face it, in order to give ourselves fully to any organization, we want to feel accepted, respected, supported, acknowledged and challenged. Salaries and bonuses alone cannot accomplish this. Even if we are volunteering for an organization, these requirements are true.

So for those of us who are in a position to shape the workplace; owners, managers, advisors and others, we are served to consider the check-list above and ask whether our staff or volunteers enjoy coming to work and giving their best to us.

Thank you Fred Kofman and his book Conscious Business for the ideas behind this article!