Fast Company: Leaders don’t need to take a ton of time overhauling company culture to create workplaces where employees want to spend their time. Simple shifts and incremental changes can foster community, fuel purpose, boost productivity, and deliver meaning to every team member. Jobs that employees actually like are the ultimate capitalist business strategy.
3 comments:
I thought that this would be a good read considering work culture and the social environment is such an important part of theater, especially since theater has a really big “family” dynamic and trying to be someone who manages and creates that environment can be challenging. The 8 strategies that they listed in the article were hope, purpose, community, compassion, freedom, openness, belonding, recognition. I feel as though many of these are pretty rudimentary ideas especially considering that they only explained each one in about a paragraph. I did enjoy that in recognition they were saying that people enjoy to know how their work has made and impact and affected the team as a whole and makes them more willing to continue working with that group. Though, I feel like this part is really easy to accomplish with theater since everyone can tangibly make a production or body of work and display it for to be seen by all involved.
After reading this article, I am interested to read the full book by Jennifer Moss. Sometimes, I feel like articles or books about how to be a good leader can be very surface level, they'll say things like "reward your employees with a pizza party every now and again" or "lead by example". While rewarding your employees and leading by example are both important things, they aren't what make a great leader. Something like this which gets at a deeper level is very important. I especially liked the strategies of creating hope and purpose. We live in a very unstable time right now, and I believe that making art is very important currently. Knowing that your work has purpose and meaning helps people move forward, and make it through the day without hating their job. I feel like so many people, stage workers especially, seem like they just want to go home as soon as they get to work. A leader who can make people realize that they are creating art, and that that is fun, is a leader I think is pretty great.
As a manager a lot of our curriculum focuses on leadership and how to make the rehearsal room the best it can be. Although this article focuses a lot more on traditional work and leadership within American society today, I still think a lot of these principles can be applied to theatrical work. Working in a predominantly inclusive field it is easy to forget how the general, specifically blue collar jobs, work on the day to day. I think that the recognition bullet point made a lot of sense for all fields. People love to feel appreciated and like their work is valuable, so making sure the people you are working for feel appreciated will likely make their day. Not to mention, you can almost pavlov's dog people, when you receive compliments and recognition from someone you are likely to want to be around them more, or like them. So it is a good strategy for making people comfortable around you.
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