"Our employees should identify with the values of the company and its products!" That's what every company, every leader most employees want. Easy to say. Hard to achieve. One thing is clear: identification releases additional energy for everyday life and for achieving goals. Those who show solidarity with the world's poor organize aid transports or demonstrations in front of the UN. Those who love motorsports build a soapbox car with their son, even without an engine. Those who consider themselves inventors sit in their basements and tinker away at a world sensation amid a lot of nonsense. Identification is therefore extremely important.
Some people in the company identify primarily with their status. They may want to be the most innovative engineer, the most successful salesperson, or the fastest clerk. Others derive their creativity from identifying with the company or the leader who place their trust and appreciation in them. The key question is: How exactly does this sense of belonging develop? Does the company have to impose itself on its employees in such a way that identification can even become contagious without their involvement? Or is it the employee's responsibility? Something like: Be happy and grateful that you have a job... One thing is certain: identification is an emotional bond that companies enable their employees to form and that they must also accept. 50-50! Not easy to implement, but very crucial. Because every company wants employees who feel connected to and committed to their workplace, management, products, customers, and the company's purpose. How astonishing that hardly any organization systematically addresses this issue.
Identification: obligation to collect or deliver
A look at a blended family makes the responsibility picking up and dropping off clear. How do I learn to love (identify with) a child who does not share my genes? The answer is as simple as it is logical: by spending time with the child. The more I open up to them and devote myself to them honestly, the more I grow fond of them. But if the child does not engage with me, nothing will come of it. The will of both parties is always necessary. Applied to business life, this means that both sides must make an effort. The company values and goals provide orientation, and the leader them and exemplifies them. The employees leader the leader offer and engage with the shared values and goals.
The question arises: How does this work for you as leader? Give your employees space and time to engage with new ideas, products, and changes. But also demand that they engage. It's interesting to note that some leadership teams retreat to Mount Sinai at the end of a discovery phase to commit themselves to change. When they return from the mountain, the employees are expected to immediately go along with the change, even though they were denied the important time to engage with it. It is obvious that this will lead to resistance. Giving yourself time, but not others: how is that supposed to work? Surely only if the employees are treated like immature slaves. Half of the budgets for change management could be saved if employees were given enough time to engage with new topics.
leader a source of identification
Identification with a person arises according to a clear system: engage with your employees and value everyone in the team. Bosses who only want to motivate their staff by focusing on goals without wanting to be a role model themselves will find that their employees love the time clock more than their work tools. Be consistent! With your strengths and your weaknesses. You will be respected for your strengths and loved for your weaknesses! But please, stand by your honest weaknesses, not weaknesses that are supposed to be disguised strengths – such as impatience. Only when you show who you really are can your employees find out for themselves what they find admirable about you. Today, people don't need a superman who serves a false idealism for guidance. In fact, that tends to scare many people off. They need honesty that is based on healthy realism. This is how you build an emotional bond – the prerequisite for your employees to be able to identify with you.
Let them have a say and help shape things without letting them interfere in everything. This will create space for identification. However, employees must also be willing to take the opportunity offered to them. Make this clear and ensure that it happens! Also convey that actively striving for identification is a sign of intelligence. This allows everyone to create their own source of motivation and makes them less dependent on external factors.
A company's products must also offer sources of identification. Oversized "featureitis" does not achieve this. When implemented correctly, everyday items trigger a desire in employees to use them themselves. An old Opel employee who drives a Golf is always a bad sign. Smart employees, on the other hand, don't just learn what they need to know to sell the product. They look for reasons to be enthusiastic about it. In the end, they know the product inside and out. When they sell it, the prospective customer doesn't buy because of the data they receive, but because of the sparkle in the salesperson's eyes.
Corporate purpose – the greatest basis for identification
Does Pirelli simply manufacture good car tires, or does it produce products that make traffic more energy-efficient and safer? The company's purpose is the greatest basis for identification there is. It does not consist of earning as much money as possible with any products, but rather of making the world a little better and achieving a deserved profit in return. The company must reach the hearts and minds of its employees with this higher purpose. And again, they must also be open and willing to identify with the higher purpose of their company.
Identification is a powerful emotion and an enormous source of strength. Only those who can engage more deeply with tasks, ideas, and values experience fulfillment and mature happiness—both privately and professionally. This is not about total overlap, but rather a suitable, harmonious intersection. leader provide the space for this, and employees should gratefully accept this invitation. That is wise and smart. On the other hand, it is foolish to demand too much from the company or too much from the employee. Easy to say. Difficult to implement. Only when both sides constantly responsibility on this responsibility will a high degree of identification be achieved, creating a self-sustaining source of strength.
Allow me to conclude with two Developing Questions: How much space do you allow for identification every day? And how much do you show yourself?
That's why you're not really happy.
Why success and fulfillment have nothing to do with each other.
