An Ikigai Approach to Management
-By Divyansh Kaul
What is exactly the Ikigai concept ?
Before commencing with this article let us first briefly discuss about the ‘Ikigai’ concept. This is an age-old Japanese ideology which originated in Okinawa, a remote island to the southwest of Japan. The people who live here are different from others because they live a healthier life than others, longer life than others, happier life than others and they also have a better immune system than others. This is because they have discovered their ‘Ikigai’. So what this ‘Ikigai’ theory means.
‘Ikigai’ is something that describes the significance of our life, the purpose of our life. That one thing which excites us to wake up in the morning and jump out of our bed and go to our work. That one work which we want to do for the rest of our life. It is basically a combination of two Japanese words ‘Iki’ meaning life and ‘gai’ meaning the value of our life.
How to find our Ikigai?
There are actually four questions or elements that we need to answer to find our ‘Ikigai’. Those are as follows:
1. What do we love or what are we passionate about?
2. What are we good or what are our skills?
3. For what work can we get paid?
4. What the world needs from us?
Once we answer all these questions then definitely we will find our Ikigai
How is it related to Management?
As we all have heard that it is very necessary to keep a work-life balance which means that our personal life should be separate from our professional life, so this equilibrium needs to be maintained in our organizations as well. Since we are spending a lot of time and energy in a company and if we are investing our crucial hours in carrying out a particular task, it becomes very important to continue this balance at our workplace also. Like for example, a balance between the work we are doing and deriving pleasure out of it, a balance between the chores we are performing and maintaining meaningful connections with our co-workers. All of this can be achieved if we inculcate this approach in corporations. Now I’ll explain this in detail.
The needs of both organization and employee go hand in hand- We have studied that the organizational goals and individual goals coincide with each other and it is very important to satisfy both of them. Consider an employee who is not enjoying his work and he remains dissatisfied and unhappy because of his job, so he will not work at his full potential and his productivity will remain low. This will lead to the downfall of the firm because the efficiency of the employee is directly related to the growth of the company. On the other hand, consider an employee who appreciates his work and is satisfied with it then he’ll remain self-motivated and nobody needs to waste his time in encouraging him and he’ll work at his optimum level. This will lead to the advancement of the institution.
Building a strong workplace community- We all know that organization is nothing but a collection of people working together. If the workforce of the institution is pleased with their work and are excited about it then they will keep good and positive relations with their colleagues and this will bound to increase the sense of belongingness and teamwork among the people of the company and this will again help the management to develop.
Some methods to attain this
The employer can conduct various interactive sessions, several games, and fun activities as this can increase the team bonding of the workers.
They can also provide numerous incentives and rewards whether monetary or non-monetary as this can give recognition to their work. For example, there is a software company named ‘Engagedly’ who provide Guru badges to those employees who perform well in their training and development sessions, ‘Google’ provides employee stock option plan to their people as it creates a sense of ownership among them, recently ‘Zomato’ came up with the period leave policy for their female workers.
Also at the time of recruitment or hiring process, the recruiter can ask some questions from the person who is applying for the job such as ‘What are our strengths?’ ‘What are we good at?’ ‘Do we know what the company needs from us?’ By answering all these questions the interviewer will understand the psychology of the person as he will be able to read his mind and this can help in making good decisions. For example, if the company wants a person who has good technical skills but the person who is applying for the job is not good at it. He is just applying for the sake of it and the employer also agrees to this. The idea is that first the person needs to understand the basics of that skill and then he’ll need to master it or get proficiency in it. If he realizes that he is not suitable for this job, he might get irritated with his work and ultimately regretting his decision. In order to avoid such situations both the administration as well as the individual should apply this approach otherwise, we will end up at the wrong place.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, this approach is very vital for both the management as well as the individual. Speaking from an organizational point of view ‘Ikigai’ approach is significant for the growth of the firm and to keep employees motivated, connected and recognized. From a personal point of view this approach is very valuable if we want to become successful in our life and along with that we also want a job and career satisfaction. So we certainly need to find our Ikigai!
