Occupational Intimacy - passion for work

HOW MANY PEOPLE IN YOUR COMPANY WOULD DESCRIBE themselves as 'intimate' with their jobs? Intimacy suggests a closeness and familiarity that most people don't normally associate with work. Picture the last championship game in your favorite sport. What happened when the last seconds ticked off the clock? Most likely, players and coaches jumped and down, hugged each other, cried unashamedly, and in general exhibited strong emotions of either joy or grief.

When is the last time you saw that kind of behavior at the office?

The workplace has been made into an arena without emotion, without closeness. Employees tend to hold each other at arm's length. The display of unabashed joy or sadness is frowned upon. Tongues cluck. Disapproving looks are exchanged. We want the outcome of passionate work, but we don't want employees to have emotions at work.

As we studied passionate work over the last couple of years it became clear to us that some people had a special relationship to their work. We coined the term "Occupational Intimacy" to describe that combination of passion for work and a supportive work environment.

We interviewed people from around New Mexico and asked them what Occupational Intimacy (OI) meant to them. They described OI as "Being one with your job. Having a zest, a drive, that instills in others the desire to succeed and enjoy what we are doing." "Being totally involved with my work and the goals of my organization." "Feeling completely connected with one's job and company. Having your values and mission in line with what you are doing and hopefully in line with the company you work with and for." "To feel a flow of who you are, with what you are paid to do." "Loving your job, caring about every aspect of your job, developing a 'relationship' with your job, trying to better yourself and your job situation so that you can have a long term relationship with your job."

Occupational Intimacy represents the closeness that passionate people feel with their work. People with Occupational Intimacy feel that their work cannot be separated from who they are. It is a part of them. They feel a sense of personal commitment to what they do. They are emotional about it, and they have strong feelings of dedication, care, support, and desire associated with it. Recognition and rewards often stimulate passion for work, but many times people are so in love with their work that they would do it for the pure joy of it. Integral to OI is the relationship one has with the people who work in the organization. Intimacy is high when the organization, the leaders, the managers, and coworkers truly care about each other and about how they do their work.

What are some qualities of intimacy that apply to work?

Intimate relationships involve interdependence. That means frequent, strong, emotional, and lasting connections based upon mutual and interlocking needs. People who are intimate with their work are fully engaged. They support their co-workers and their co-workers support them.

Intimacy requires vulnerability. Intimacy usually cannot proceed and grow without self-disclosure. Organizations with high Occupational Intimacy share information, leaders admit mistakes and misgivings along with the successes. In fact, passionate leaders often display a vulnerability that allows others to relate to them, and that creates an emotional commitment to their goals.

Intimate relationships involve mutual learning. Intimacy is dependent upon continuous growth, learning, and change. In fact, when interpersonal learning slows, so does intimacy. You can see it at work with a couple, and it's also true at work. When employee learning slows to a crawl, the individual becomes disengaged. When learning is vibrant, employees are engaged and close to the work at hand. OI cultures support organizational learning, and continuous learning requires sharing both successes and failures. Environments that encourage Occupational Intimacy support employees who are willing to open themselves to criticism by talking about areas of needed improvement.

Intimacy grows over time, as relationships are tested and proven sound and emotional attachment increases. Employees in an environment of high Occupational Intimacy are less likely to move from company to company to company, and more likely to develop a longer-term relationship with their company In a free-agent era, when talent flows to the organization which provides the highest employee value proposition, Occupational Intimacy is a competitive advantage in what McKinsey and Company calls "The War for Talent."

Relationships fill basic needs that people have. Those needs include the need for intimacy--closeness, the need for social integration -- sharing with others, the need to nurture -- taking care of others, the need for assistance -- receiving help from others, and the need for reassurance of our own worth. Though we don't often characterize it as such, people have a relationship with their work. It's good, bad, close, distant, dysfunctional, friendly, or passionate -- but it is a relationship. In the same way, work can fill a basic need for relationship that people have.

It is obvious that the type of intimacy that we are talking about has nothing to do with inappropriate, unprofessional, and often sexually related behavior. The workplace has come a long way in recent years by attempting to eradicate such actions, which are clearly improper and which actually reduce what we call Occupational Intimacy. We strongly oppose any workplace behavior that degrades any employee.

However, we make the case for Occupational Intimacy. For work which people love to do and workplaces that nurture and support people. We'll be talking more about Occupational Intimacy in future columns.

Steve Preskill, a professor at UNM, described Occupational Intimacy by saying, "The more you learn about a topic, how much more exciting the topic is, the more you get connected to it or if you'd like, intimate with it. It just snowballs, it just fascinates, at least it does for me in amazing ways... I think as trust builds and to me it's about people coming together and feeling like they connect, ... that you have the sense that your participation is making a difference. They're having an impact on how people think and what actually happens in the organization."

PATRICK BOVERIE IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO. SHE AND MICHAEL KROTH OWN BOVERIE, KROTH & ASSOCIATES. THEIR BOOK: TRANSFORMING WORK THE FIVE KEYS TO ACHIEVING AND SUSTAINING TRUST, COMMITMENT, AND PASSION IN THE WORKPLACE WILL BE PUBLISHED BY PERSEUS PUBLISHING IN DECEMBER 2001. IF YOU KNOW OF PASSIONATE EMPLOYEES, LEADERS, OR WORK ENVIRONMENT WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT IT.

EMAIL US AT PBOVERIE@UNM.EDU OR MKROTH@UNM.EDU.

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