Merry Christmas everybody!
It is an absolute privilege and an honour to be working for you!
I very much believe that as the Managing Director my role is to serve you and work for the good of the Company.
And that is at the core of our company’s values; the Director is working for the management, the management is serving the team leaders, and they are working for the front line staff who are serving our clients.
So we are all working for one another. Yes we’re striving for the good of our clients, but we also come to work because it contributes to our own good, and it is also is for the good of one another too!
I’ve recently read Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind”; he is an American social psychologist, and in it he says “we are 90% chimp, and 10% bee”.
Now what is remarkable about this finding is that at the core of what makes us human and binds us together in cohesive groups is this Chimpanzee like nature to act in our own interests. It might be labelled as “selfish”, but it is just a simple fact of the way in which our groups, our “companies” need to work; we need to be doing things that are looking after you, that are in your interests, that benefit you. It is only good that you look after number one. Why would you even come to work if we didn’t pay you, and if you weren’t better off for it in other ways too?!
At the same time, we are 10% bee. The honey bee is different; they are colonial, and achieve far, far more. Their colonies are working together constructively from an amazing, altruistic, self-sacrificial motivation, whereby each member is ultimately willing to give their own lives to protect the hive. And there is an aspect of human nature and society that can and ultimately wants to be like that too. Not always, and for everybody, but we get a real “buzz” from forming ‘companies’ where the whole group is doing something greater than the ‘self’; we forget about our selves and we work towards higher goals and achieve remarkable things as a collective mind and body.
And that really highlights one of the amazing things about what is happening more and more in our company. We have such an amazing staff culture. There is a real “buzz” about what we are achieving together. And we can see that the improvements as well as the growth, that we’re all contributing towards, is actually benefitting each and every one of us as individuals – in our wellbeing and wellness in the workplace (through the increased level of support and structures and resources) – *as well as* benefitting the company as a whole, by building our reputation for quality and excellence in the community.
So *thank you*. Thanks to each and every one of you. Thanks for coming to work, thanks for what you do every day in your role, and thank you for striving for excellence, and contributing towards the ‘buzz’.
I trust that you as an individual are benefitting from being part of our wonderful, cohesive staff culture. And I know that collectively we are area seeing amazing benefits for the good of the entire group as a Company, as we serve the community – enabling more and more Tasmanians to live well at home.
Have a wonderful and I pray richly joyous festive season this year, and a fantastic start to 2019!
Enjoy!