Favorite Managerial Experience: Improving Lives

One of my favorite managerial experiences is to improve the lives of the people I work with using what little power and influence I have.

My material payoff to improving coworkers’ lives is zilch - the company gets the benefit of a better/happier/healthier coworker, the coworker gets material benefits of better pay and/or title.

I get the intrinsic satisfaction of knowing a person is in a better place because of me. I coached team members or peers in their job so well that they get a promotion.

This feeling is indescribable and I love it.

Conversely, some improvements such as title change take additional work with your manager or even peers to complete. As a manager, you must exert influence on them to make the change happen for your coworker.

Also, there is a delay between action/effort of improving lives and the result. The length can be so long that I wonder if anything is happening at all (or there’s failure somewhere else).

When the concrete result comes in, say a promotion, a title change, a pay raise, etc. and the acknowledgment that I contributed to the result is a feeling I treasure.

For me, this makes being a manager worth it.