In one to one discussion with the member, I discovered few things about the work that became a big learning experience for me. The job was routine and monotonous. The teams was interacting with the machines; they were responding the request of the machines, completing the tasks and producing reports. The teams in other words were behaving like machines. The people were expected to work like machines, and they were bad machines.

The team was not in touch with the lives of people they were actually affecting. On my initiative, we discussed with the client and started interacting with the patients directly. We took critical cases and started assisting the patient’s proactively. The team developed empathy towards the end customers. I found instances when team members work on war footage to help some patients in critical need. The teams took pride in their work and were very satisfied with their job. The teams became involved in patients life and literally celebrate in India when the patient in US goes home healthy. The team felt they are really doing something worthwhile with their lives. They were not responding to the system requests. They were responding to human needs, the HIS system was just a tool.

Need not say, the customer satisfaction improved drastically. The team made many innovations that improve our operation. The employee attrition and unplanned leaves reduced to almost zero. To the disbelief of the QA the defect dropped to zero. The experience gave an insight into people’s mind that helped me in my motivational workshops.

Good human, but bad machines

In the absence of human touch people tends to behave like bad machines. The human touch is the only motivating factor for human being to producing extraordinary result. The strength of human being lies in being human, not being machine. Operating as a human being a man operates thousand times more accurately and efficiently than working mere mechanically.

In the presence of human touch people tends to appreciate the process and realize the importance of it. People not only follow process but also contribute a lot to improve it to meet the human need. During Second World War, women were working in ammunition factory. Though working extended hours they were always careful with each ammunition, knowing the fact that anything they produce could be a matter of life or death for their brother, husband or son in the war front.

Something worthy of life

Every human being wants to do something worthy, something that they will be proud of. In the beginning of the career, young professional tends to fall for money and benefit. But eventually all tends to look for worth of their life in their work. Work defines every human being. The greatest satisfaction people get in their work when they see it causes happiness in others life.

In the modern complex industrial work structure, it is very difficult to arive at human value in every work directly. Sometime the work has complex result that the benefits to society are not obvious. Many organizations encourage people to develop alternate interest or hobby, something that is worthwhile and tends to give meaning of life. In my opinion, it is a very wrong approach. Such approach is always counterproductive not only to the work but also to the employee in question. I know many of my readers might disagree with me on that, please send your opinion on that to me.

No work is small And no work is bad

From a spiritual point of view, no work on this earth is inferior compared to other. “Everything happening on this earth depends on everything else that is happening”. Even the smallest of the work is a vital link in making everything else work. This profound knowledge brings an extraordinary dedication in whatever a human does, and removes all kind of self-doubt.

The senior management must endorse this view. Small achievements at the shop floor must be celebrated, small work and workers on the shop floor must be given equal attention and respect.

Many a time the employee are to put to work without proper induction about the work and importance of it in making the final end user of the product or the service happy. This vital link is necessary for each work. I suggest this statement must be there in every job or task description.

Work of Motivational Speaker

Many motivational speakers make mistake of focus on the feel good factor by taking the participants away from the job in hand. The entire feel good approach works like a recreation for the team and produce only short term improve in productivity for couple of days.

I have conducted motivational workshop for project teams with heterogeneous group. I have always taken the discussion back to the project in hand and bring fourth aspects of the job that touches heart of the employees. The employees get connected to each other and to the job in hand with their heart. This has always worked and given long-term result in increasing productivity and improving quality.

Recommended further reading: appreciation and criticism