The vice president of leadership at LinkedIn claims that the biggest
driver of motivation is the chance to serve a larger purpose beyond our
careers and ourselves, rather than salary, benefits, bonuses, or other
material incentives; companies that are able to successfully focus their
people, their teams, and their culture around meaning outperform their
competition.
Fred Kofman's approach to leadership has little to do with the standard
practices taught in business school and traditional books. Bringing
together economics and business theory, communications and conflict
resolution, family counseling and mindfulness mediation, Kofman argues
in The Meaning Revolution that our most deep-seated, unspoken, and
universal anxiety stems from our fear that our life is being
wasted--that the end of life will overtake us when our song is still
unsung. Material incentives--salary and benefits--account for perhaps 15
percent of employees' motivation at work. The other 85 percent is driven
by a need to belong, a feeling that what we do day in and day out makes
a difference, that how we spend our time on earth serves a larger
purpose beyond just ourselves.
Kofman claims that transcendental leaders, wherever they are in the
hierarchy, are able to put aside their self-interests and help others to
feel connected with others on a team or in an organization on a great
mission and part of an ennobling purpose. He argues that every
organization involved in work that is nonviolent and non addictive has
what he calls an "immortality project" at its core. And the challenge
for leaders is to identify and expand on that core, to inspire all
stakeholders to take part.
