Using Astronomy to Understand Your Employees
Just as there are many types of entities in the universe, there are also many types corporate employee types. By recognizing these types of employees you can design your employee engagement and development can help them navigate to become stellar members of your enterprise.
First, let’s investigate our galactic employee types.
Stars, Proto-stars, Novas and Black Holes.
In this post, we examined what kind of employee types are often present in corporate settings. We used the names: stars, performers, politicians and survivors. But did you know that astronomy can give us additional insight into company culture and how to prevent corporate politics to overpower performance. Have a look below.
The importance of Stars
In the Universe, stars are the catalysts for life and its main source of energy. Similarly in companies, high performer Star Employees are important assets. They drive innovation and they are also your internal and external brand ambassadors. Without Stars for your staff to follow, the main result will be mediocracy.
Proto-stars: almost there
Before they become stars, high performers are Proto-stars. They have all the elements in them to shine and become shining examples for the rest of the company, but they need the right circumstances to do so. In the Universe, the only thing they need to become stars is a lot of (positive) energy. If the energy is intensive enough, Proto-stars will turn into stars. In companies, we need to give Proto-stars skills and management training so that they can channel their hidden energy in a way so that they can shine.
The Black Hole: suck you dry
A Black Hole is a burned out (proto)star. It sucks all matter around it in itself and nothing escapes its negative gravitational pull. The corporate equivalent of the astronomical Black Hole is the corporate leech that plays corporate political games and sucks all energy from the company and its staff .
It sucks energy mainly from Performers and Stars (the ones with the highest energy in the company). If encouraged, it can lead to virtual collapse of innovation and performance in the enterprise
Nova: if only I…
Nova’s are burned out (proto)stars that will most likely never shine again. They just hang on to survive in their current low energy mode. They are neither good nor bad, they just sit and survive. In companies, many non-performers take this role. They are not good enough to be Proto-stars, and so they take the road of least resistance. In the Universe, Nova’s can turn into Black Holes if the negative environment is strong.
Similarly, in companies, if Nova’s are under the influence of Black Holes, they run the risk of turning into Back Holes themselves, thereby severely damaging the reproductive energy of the company. Less innovation, less performance, and more politics are the results. No good!
Designing your Universe
If you want to safeguard your corporate universe from collapse into a constellation with many black holes, you need to apply the right institutional HR design. This means that negative corporate political games need to be discouraged, while high performance gets publicly praised.
Designing an engaging work environment for people is a key challenge for even the very best organizations. However, such design goes well beyond giving extra bonuses to performers and scolding corporate players during appraisals. By applying Octalysis human focused design you ensure that your corporate universe healthy will remain balanced and sustainable.
Sounds complex? Don’t worry, The Octalysis Group can help. We have been supporting companies across the globe to create high performance employee engagement. The expected results? Less political games, more innovation and higher performance.
To learn how we can assist your firm in creating long-term employee engagement and get a stronger market position, get in touch with Joris Beerdaright now.
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Leading Octalysis Expert, International Keynote Speaker, Behavioral Scientist and Managing Director of The Octalysis Group.
