A few months ago I had lunch with Marcus Monk, an alumnus of
the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. Marcus played collegiate
football and basketball for the Arkansas Razorbacks and then played in
professional sports in the US and Europe.
Marcus grew up in Lepanto Arkansas -- a relatively less
developed part of Arkansas. Growing up where he did, he hadn’t seen the opportunities
the world offered and it was hard for him to develop high aspirations for
himself. But he had something going for
him – He was very good at basketball and football. His basketball talent was
spotted and he got to travel for competitions. He talked about how his visits to North West
Arkansas and Dallas impacted him. He saw a world that was full of opportunities.
One that he had not seen before. And these opportunities served as the
foundation for his aspirations. They motivated him and changed his life.
Marcus had a great college career in football and
basketball, had a short career in the NFL, and then played Basketball in
Europe. He then returned to the Walton College for his MBA and that’s when I
got to know him. While Marcus is known for his sports career I have been so
much more impressed with what he has done for the kids in Eastern Arkansas. He started
a basketball league for them – one in which they get an opportunity to play and
travel to various cities. As he put it, this league gave those kids a chance to
see the world, to see what was possible, and to change their lives by building
high aspirations (Details of Marcus’ work with the kids is a story for another
blog). At one point during our lunch I
asked Marcus whether being in an area with few opportunities made him
frustrated as a youth. His response stunned me for its simplicity, humility and
depth –“You know, in life, if all you’ve ever seen and eaten is rice, then
that’s your world – that’s all you think of eating. You don’t miss anything
else because you don’t know anything better exists.”
 |
Marcus Monk, while on an India Study
Abroad program during his MBA program
at the Sam Walton College of Business
(University of Arkansas).
|
I’ve thought many times about that conversation. And thought
about how we create high aspirations in ourselves, in our kids, and those we
work with. There is significant research in the management literature that high
aspirations lead to greater motivation and better outcomes for individuals who
have them. The amount of life exposures we or our kids experience is certainly
one of them. Our supportiveness to our kids and mentees when their aspirations
are forming is another. But our support can’t be automatic and blind either. I
remember a time when my daughter was in elementary school. She worked on
periodic projects for a particular class. She worked hard, but could have
worked harder. There were a few errors in her weekly projects for the class.
But her teacher was encouraging. And often she would give her an A+ ‘for effort’
anyway. It sounded great. Till one day when my daughter was working on her
project, and I spotted an error. I pointed it out. But she said no worries…she
would probably get an A anyway. It was a lesson I never forgot. Blind
encouragement can also lower aspirations for excellence.
And this leads to an interesting leadership challenge.
Organizational leaders today often create visions and aspirations for their
organizations. Such visions are designed to provide direction and unity to an
organization. But, especially in large organizations, this can be hard. For
instance, imagine a health care organization that aspires to be the best in the
world in geriatric care. A very noble aspiration. But that aspiration is
unlikely to connect to the organization’s internal auditor, who spends her days
going through financial transactions. She may have a very different set of
goals that can’t easily link to the organizational vision. In fact, several
research studies have shown that when organizations have such noble visions, if
their employees cannot link their work and associated short term goals with them,
it actually leads to reduced employee engagement.
A recent article published in the journal “Administrative
Science Quarterly” addresses some of these issues. The author, Andrew Carton,
performed an inductive analysis to determine how John F. Kennedy’s Vision for
NASA to land a man on the moon (within 10 years) was translated for NASA employees.
His research identified several actions that can be taken. One of the proposed
actions includes keeping the organization’s vision clear and simple. Too many
elements in the vision create confusion. A second factor is the need to
associate the vision with clear measurable objectives that help measure our
progress towards the realization of this vision. However, these measures should not solely be
distal measures that are to be accomplished over a long period of time. There have to be clear intermediate markers or
‘stepping stones’ that show the path the organization has to take to achieve
its vision over time.
Within the organization, the leaders and managers have to try
and link employee tasks and short term goals to these milestones. It is much
easier to create the linkages of specialized employee work to these
intermediate milestones than to the distal objectives embodied in the vision. When done successfully, it reaps huge
benefits as employees’ aspirations begin to align with those of the
organizations, giving their work so much more meaning. A successful effort that
uses organizational aspirations to impart meaningfulness to employee tasks, is
best summarized in the title of Andrew Crane’s paper. “I’m not mopping the floors, I’m putting a man
on the moon.”
