Do you give your staff the chance to develop their skills?

The lucky baker

I love holidaying in France.  One of my guilty pleasures is the boulangerie or baker’s shop.  It is not that I am a pig — though I have been known to knock back more than my fair share of croissants — the thing that I love is the shop itself, the window display, the ovens, the baker working away creating the most amazing things.

I am jealous of him, I wish I had his skill and place in the world.

Foreign words

There are a couple of foreign words I’ve learnt:

• Dharma is a Sanskrit word, it has lots of meanings but one of them is “the essential function or nature of a thing” or “life’s purpose”
• Gheeno is a Japanese word, it translates as “skill or technique”.

The words and the boulanger come from different cultures, but they are intertwined; as you develop your gheeno your dharma shows itself.  It is easy to understand how the baker I am so jealous of could enjoy his work.

But what if you work in a call centre?

Or a factory, or on a dustbin lorry, what chance do you have of developing your gheeno and finding your dharma?  I guess that depends on what is expected of you, and the opportunities you take:

• Do you just sit there answering the phone?
• Do you take pride in understanding the customer’s issues and resolving the situation?
• Do you dig deeper and change the system, fixing the problems so they don’t happen in the first place?

Who owns your dharma?  Where do you find your gheeno?

We own our own lives…

But, as a manager, who do you want working for you, a craftsman or a labourer?

• Do you give your staff the chance to develop their skills?
• Can they see the fruits of their labour?
• Do they have the tools they need?
• Do they understand the inherent value in what they are doing?

Are they mastering their work, or simply showing up for the money?

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word — excellence

To know how to do something well is to enjoy it ~ Pearl Buck

Image by Nelson Minar