I am Not your Product
Engagement matters. Engagement is a by-product of brave living and it never comes in the form we expect or the season we hoped for, or as a result of planning for it. I borrowed these words from Katherine Anne Porter, an American writer who uses them in the context of happiness and of carving out a life worth living. To me, happiness and engagement are one of the same. When we are engaged, we are happy and when we are happy, we are usually fully engaged.
Sometimes the inspiration for my articles comes from the oddest places. This inspiration, which then led to exploring related and pertinent-to-workplaces themes, came from an Ad campaign by a web browser company.
‘BRAVE. You are not a product. Why use a browser that treats you like one’?
This got me to thinking about engagement, on being human at work, being brave of course and of carving out happy work lives and happier lives generally. Ah, yes, engagement at work, the often-elusive thing that employers throw money and resources at in order to fix and to increase productivity and ultimately profits. It is a first world, 21st-century modern workplace problem.
On Being Human
My take on it? There is a direct correlation between engagement and the amount of ‘humanity’ in the workplace. In the middle of all of that, sits bravery. Kahn (1990) relates the concept of engagement to the notion of psychological presence. According to his definition, engagement refers to the state in which individuals express their entire self – physically, cognitively, emotionally in their role. Living fully, wholly, sustained connections to people, the world within and the world around them.
‘When I am not fully seen by another human being, or if I am treated like a product, I disengage’.
Have you noticed that workplaces full of humans are often not that human these days? When did we lose sight of the human element at work? How did we get to this place where humanity requires a reminder? When did we start sitting in front of people, but not really seeing them? These days we seem quick to judge, quick to ‘swipe left’, quick to project and quick to push our own agendas in order to keep our egos running the ship rather than our souls? No more is this more evident than in the world of recruitment.
Soul Shards on the Floor
At regular intervals, I work in the very privileged space of career transition. My clients bring me their horror stories and there are many. They recall things they have experienced either during the job application process or the interview process. When did we stop remembering that there is always a human on the other side of an advertised job? There are still many professionals out there protecting the human dignity of a job applicant, however, there are many who are unable to see past their own agendas. It can often feel like I am helping my clients at this vulnerable time, to pick up the pieces of their shattered souls from the floor of our meeting room. Encouraging my clients to re-engage with the process and with their belief in themselves becomes the main focus of my work.
Brave Up
I proudly support more human workplaces. I invite all of us to brave up.
‘Today we live in a world undergoing a rapid-fire transformation and the impact of the changes in motion are touching all our lives. If ever there was a time to confront our personal fears, it is now’. Carolyn Myss.
Be brave enough to get out of your own ‘stuff’. Be brave enough to leave your ego, your agenda, your projections at the door, to truly see the unique human beings sitting in front of you.
Be brave enough to not allow yourself to be ignored, devalued or treated like a product. The Brave, web browser campaign is priceless for bringing this point home. Without wanting to take this theme too far, because I am not suggesting for one moment that we treat each other like animals, it has similarities to the iconic quote from the 1980 film ‘The Elephant Man’. It was a study in human dignity with the protagonist, a severely deformed human, being cornered in a railway station by an angry mob, retaliating with ‘I am not an animal. I am a human being’.
‘I am not a product. I am a human being. Treat me like one and I will engage with you. Treat me like your product, or worse, do not see me at all and I will disengage. I will disengage from you, from work and maybe even from myself’. – Sincerely, your very human exceptional professional.