Lessons on Successful Life Might Be Lessons for Successful Companies Too

At the recent NCEO/Beyster Institute Annual Conference, Dr. Laura Nash of Harvard Business School talked about her recent book, Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). Based on dozens of in-depth interviews with successful people, Nash and her colleague Howard Stevenson concluded that success comes from achieving "just enough" in four areas that often compete for a person's time and attention:

• Happiness (feelings of pleasure or contentment about your life);
• Achievement (accomplishments that compare favorably against similar goals others have strived for);
• Significance (the sense that you've made a positive impact on people you care about); and
• Legacy (a way to establish your values or accomplishments to help others find future success).

The balance among these elements shifts over time, so people need to re-evaluate them periodically. The same framework, Nash suggested, would work for employee ownership companies as well. Research has consistently shown, for instance, that employees are most engaged in companies where they say they enjoy their colleagues; can relate strongly to corporate values; believe that they have the opportunity, freedom, and resources to perform their own jobs at a high level; and can succeed in terms of work achievement, whether measured financially, substantively, or in some other way. So companies that provide training, opportunities for advancement, high-involvement decision making, have strong values they actually follow, and have opportunities for fun and celebration are more likely to have engaged work forces than ones with more singular focuses on making money alone, for instance.