Skip to main content

How To Elevate The Human Experience In The Workplace

 

A recent Deloitte quantitative survey led by Amelia Dunlop of 6,000 people in the US revealed that 84% of respondents said they do their best work then they feel worthy. And nine out of 10 people surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that it matters to them to feel worthy. Yet, five out of 10 indicated that they sometimes, often, or always struggle to feel worthy. 

It’s this last finding in particular that presents a real challenge in the workplace. Dunlop, author of the new book, Elevating The Human Experience, explains that all too often, “Work is not only a place where we are missing inherent worth with systems that do not recognize the worthiness of all humans, but also a place that actively obscures our efforts to see ourselves as worthy because we are constantly reminded of, and competing, for our relative extrinsic worth in the form of praise, promotion, and raises.” 

Dunlop’s book is for anyone who knows what it is like to struggle to feel loved and worthy when showing up at work. She tells her authentic and personal story of what it means to discover her own sense of love and worth in her twenty-year career. 

She also reveals that: 

  • Workers who believe that their employer rates high in humanity, genuinely caring about their experience, are two and a half times more likely to be motivated at work, and one and a half times more likely to take on more responsibility than their peers. 
  • Her definition of love at work is the choice to extend yourself for the purpose of nurturing your own or another’s growth. 
  • You can have four types of allies, each of which can have powerful roles in your life: Friend, Mentor, Sponsor and Benefactor. She explains that you need a mix of each of these. 

Toward the back of the book, you’ll find dozens of reflection questions you can ask yourself before and/or after you read the book, including these: 

  • How has your work fulfilled or not fulfilled your need to feel loved and worthy? 
  • How does the workplace affect your ability to experience self-worth? 
  • Who are the people in your life who nourish you the most? 
  • Who are the people in your life who have served as allies along your journey? 
  • Are your words and actions aligned with the type of impact you would hope to have on those around you? 

Amelia Dunlop

Today, Dunlop shares these additional insights about her book: 

Question: Why did you write your book? 

Dunlop: Simply put, I wrote this book because I needed it. Ever since I was a little girl, I struggled to feel worthy of love. Physically, I was certainly less than whole, with a crooked pinky finger, near-sighted eyes, and near-deaf ears. I hoped that someday I would feel worthy of love if I just worked hard enough. Even as I grew from student to consultant to leader, with a loving husband and three beautiful children, I still felt as if feeling loved and worthy were just out of reach, especially when I showed up at work. I realized that my suffering made me normal and human, and that by learning to elevate the human experience—that is, by acknowledging my intrinsic worth and nurturing that worth through love, would lead to growth and love. I wrote this book to share my story and my journey so that others can be their real, authentic selves, especially at work. 

Question: What do you say to prospective readers to encourage them to read your book? 

Dunlop: If you’ve ever struggled to feel loved and worthy at work, or love and lead somebody who does, this book is for you. In our 6,000-person quantitative study of love and worth, we found that nine out of 10 say it matters to feel worthy, while only five out of 10 say they do feel worthy. And 84% of people say they do their best work when they feel worthy. 

I believe that feeling worthy begins with learning to love ourselves and seeing ourselves as worthy regardless of the daily obstacles we face at work. Many of us struggle with the idea of self-love, believing that it may be mistaken as selfishness or narcissism. I hope this book helps readers understand that by learning to love yourself, you can extend that love to another person, as well as to the communities that you work with. Together, we can elevate the human experience. 

Question: Thinking about the four types of allies one could have during their career journey, why do we hear most often about mentors and less frequently about friends, sponsors, and benefactors? Which of these four allies is most important to have and why? 

Dunlop: We need a mix of the different types of allies in our lives, including friends, mentors, sponsors, and benefactors. They are each necessary and play different roles depending upon where you are along your journey. There are times when we may think we need a mentor with wise counsel, when what actually we actually need is someone who is willing to serve as a sponsor to remove an obstacle in your path. Developing a friend, mentor, or sponsor into a lifelong benefactor who is a witness to your journey will be the most important and satisfying relationship in your career. 

Question: Would there be value to a reader reading the reflection questions at the end of the book both before and after reading the book, instead of reading them only at the end? 

Dunlop: Only if you’re the type of person who always reads the last page of the book first! Seriously, I think it would be interesting for some readers to read the questions before they begin reading, reflect on them while reading the book, then read them after and see how their responses may have changed. It is my hope that by joining on me on this journey along the three paths to love and worth, readers will have a deeper understanding of what it means to elevate the human experience and how to answer the question, “How do we make things better?”

Thank you to the book's publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Three Essential Parts Of A Mission Statement

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author  Peter F. Drucker  provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his,  The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization : Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability .  They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

6 Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear.  “Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the new book,  Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these  six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work . Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy 1.       Don’t forget to as k :  One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve. 2.       Make sure you listen :  Remember, getting feedback is about improving your performance, not turning it into a “you versus the

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership .  In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself.  It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust.  The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes.  In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter.  In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for

5 Tips For Generating Ideas From Employees

Your employees have lots of ideas.  So, be sure you provide the forums and mechanisms for your employees to share their ideas with you.  Hold at least a few brainstorming sessions each year, as well. And, when you are brainstorming with your employees, try these five tips: Encourage ALL ideas.  Don't evaluate or criticize ideas when they are first suggested. Ask for wild ideas.  Often, the craziest ideas end up being the most useful. Shoot for quantity not quality during brainstorming. Encourage everyone to offer new combinations and improvements of old ideas.

3 Things Your Mission Statement Must Have

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author Peter F. Drucker provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization :" Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

How To Survive And Then Reset To Ultimately Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the new book, Survive, Reset, Thrive .   “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries.   Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach :   Survive : Stabilizing your business when

3 Coaching And Mentoring Tips

Here are three great tips from the book, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book : Coaches do not motivate their employees; they inspire them to motivate themselves.  This is best accomplished by allowing employees to see clearly where they stand in the organization versus where they want to be in their careers.  That is, what are their self-interests versus what the company can offer them. A mentor always exercises the power of suggestion. That is, wise mentors offer up plenty of suggestions to their mentees. They pose alternatives.  But they refrain, as much as possible, from telling their mentees what to do. Mentoring is all about sharing experiences.  It is about mentors imparting the multiple lessons that they've learned to their mentees and helping them better navigate through their own careers.  By absorbing these lessons--of mentors' mistakes and successes--mentees are better prepared to move forward with knowledge and confidence.

Use A Board Of Advisors

David Burkus often provides valuable comments to my various Blog postings, and he's a person who effectively uses a board of advisors, instead of mentors, to help him achieve success. "I've found that in my life, it was easier and more effective to set up a board of advisors," said Burkus, the editor of LeaderLab . "This is a group of people, three to five, that have rotated into my life at various times and that speak into it and help me grow. I benefit from the variety of experience these people have." LeaderLab is an online community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. Its contributors include consultants and professors who present leadership theory in a practitioner-friendly format that provides easy-to-follow explanations on how to apply the best of leadership theory. Community users can download a variety of research reports and presentations about leadership and leadership versus management. For example, a pr

How To Avoid 8 Common Performance Evaluation Pitfalls

As the year comes to a close it's likely time for many business leaders to tackle the annual performance appraisal process. So, here is a good reminder from author Sharon Armstrong about how to avoid eight performance evaluation pitfalls .  These are in what I consider is the best chapter of the book The Essential HR Handbook , that she co-authored with Barbara Mitchell. 1.  Clustering everyone in the middle performance-rating categories 2.  Overlooking flaws or exaggerating the achievements of favored employees 3.  Excusing substandard performance or behavior because it is widespread 4.  Letting one characteristic - positive or negative - affect your overall assessment 5.  Rating someone based on the company he or she keeps 6.  Rating someone based on a grudge you are holding 7.  Rating someone based on a short time period instead of the entire evaluation period 8.  Rating everyone high, to make you look good There's other great information in this 250-page book th