Improving Your Job Satisfaction

Managing Diversity – Information for People Managing a Diverse Workforce
By Vincent M. Cramer
Published: 10/1/2005

Improving Your Job Satisfaction
How Your Ideas and Opinions Affect Your Spirit

You are one of the very fortunate people in today’s workforce. You have a good job with a well-respected company that has a good product or service. You have the opportunity to improve your skills and capabilities through a comprehensive training curriculum. Your contemporaries and superiors are professional and respectful of each other… and of you. Your company is an award-winning leader in its commitment to diversity. It couldn’t be better. Then, why do you feel frustrated, unfulfilled and disenchanted?

····

You feel that you are one of the company’s most enthusiastic employees, but something doesn’t feel quite right. You feel frustrated. If you could speak candidly with others in your company you would discover their unspoken frustration. Most likely your frustrations boil down to two troublesome questions:

1. Why doesn’t anyone value my opinions?
2. Is anyone really interested in my ideas?

As in sport, people want to valued and be "impact players." These questions limit your ability to be one. You do not need self-help books to know that the only way to personal improvement is through personal initiative. The frustrations are yours, so the corrective action must be yours. But, how does one individual change a corporate environment that appears to be the source of the frustration?

There is strength in numbers. Surveys show that many corporate workers, at all levels, have the same frustrations.

Change the things that we can

Reinhold Niebuhr provided us with the formula for prudent and positive action. He instructed us to accept the things we cannot change, to change the things that we can and to know the difference between the two. Applying his words to the questions above, the answers would be:

1. Why doesn’t anyone value my opinions? Stop expressing them.
2. Is anyone interested in my ideas? Share your insights, not your ideas.

The answers may appear to be rather harsh, and possibly glib. I will agree that the answers are harsh but they are not glib. On the contrary, they are pragmatic and effective.

Expecting others in the company to value your opinions is not realistic and it is not in your power to change that. Expecting others to be interested in your ideas is also an unrealizable objective. Niebuhr’s wisdom would indicate that you should not expect anything to change on these points. That is very difficult guidance to accept because your opinions and ideas are very personal to you. It is for that reason that you feel frustrated and unfulfilled when our opinions and ideas are not given the consideration that you feel they deserve.

When working in a group, you know that your ideas were heard because they were written on the board in a sea of other ideas. Your frustration actually begins the moment you enter the room. You already know that your ideas will never be given serious consideration. They never are. Be wise to know that you cannot change this reality.

Since opinions and ideas are personal, it means that their acceptance and value are linked to the person who proposes them. Ideas and opinions are not viewed objectively. It is not fair and it is not professional, but it is human nature. From the time we were kindergarteners, to the day we graduated and got a job, we have witnessed this phenomenon. Ideas and opinions from some individuals are more readily accepted and valued than those from others. Why do our ideas and opinions even need to be aired? It is because corporations solicit them, which "throws fuel on the flames" of our frustrations."

Philip C. McGraw Ph.D., a.k.a. Dr. Phil, has said: "Never allow someone else to define you based on how they perceive you." How does this revelation help anyone? What you need is a change in perspective. You feel the way you do, because you have seen that the acceptance or rejection of your ideas and opinions are directly linked to how you are perceived in the organization. This is most evident when you are a member of a team or workgroup and you feel that you are not given the opportunity to contribute to the level of your capabilities.

The source of your frustration is the operating environment. The remedy is a workgroup environment that does not encourage opinions or focus on ideas. You can be truly productive and fulfilled in a workgroup that is collaboratively democratic and objective-focused. Such an environment can utilize everyone’s insights, not ideas. Decisions can be made only after every member has had the opportunity to contribute to the limits of his or her cognitive capabilities. Frustrations are eliminated and job satisfaction soars when people collaboratively make team decisions that utilize the richness of insights that all individuals possess.

Encourage your company, and your organization, to reexamine its collaborative decision-making methods and enlighten them to the shortcomings of methodologies built upon ideas and opinions. If you can influence your company to adopt methods of communication, collaboration and decision-making based on insights, you will not only help to improve corporate performance, you will increase your self-worth and job satisfaction. Don’t consider this a good idea; it’s a valuable insight!

---

Vincent M. Cramer is the author of Cramer's Cube. He is also the founder of Winchester Consulting Group, an Organizational Development and Training Company specializing in the principles of Cramer's Cube and its application to Leadership, Innovation and Diversity Asset Management™.