Men and their unique value proposition

In my role as executive coach, I’ve worked with several men in transition, both up the corporate ladder and off the ladder.  I have consistently found men who are interested in healthy, happy lives, and are quite willing to do what it takes to realize their full potential. 

I am intrigued by David Zinczenko’s  research  in Men, Love and Sex, the Complete User’s Guide for Women and very happy to see his results. His research shows that 35% of men in his survey say that a 50% raise beats out ‘losing 20 pounds’ (29%) and working less to spend more time with family (11%).  He suggests that men “risk being considered ‘success objects’—to others and themselves.”

I acknowledge his point that external, social culture emphasizes the ‘success’ push.  At Intrepreneur Coaching (IC), we are advocates for men envisioning their own personal, ‘unique value proposition’ (UVP)—what each is here to do on Earth planet.  Sometimes this can be as simple as ‘changing your job description.’  Instead of ‘XXX Manager’ a truer job description might be ‘guru, mentoring others in reaching their full self expression.’ 

Each person has a ‘UVP,’ and when expressed, it takes the look and feel of the ‘Who in Whosville’ in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  Remember the Who?   They sang without any presents at all.  Imagine life like that! 

At IC, we work with the hypothesis that the greater number of people in an organization working out of their own unique UVP, the greater their impact on corporate bottom line. This calls for new corporate structures, mentoring the whole person through an entire life cycle. 

The possibility before us is what Tom Malone in The Future of Work  sees as the ‘convergence of technological and economic factors—particularly the rapidly falling cost of communication”  that enables a change in business organization to realize both “the scale efficiencies of large organization and the human benefits of small ones: freedom, motivation and flexibility.”

I agree that our social inventions are evolving to meet the demands of our technological inventions and as new ‘freedoms’ allow us space for visioning and actualizing who we truly are, I suspect the culturally based ‘differences’ between men and women will also evolve. 

Aren’t we the luckiest people on the face of the earth at this time to actually frame how we want our work life to look and what we see as the possibilities of a global workplace, right from the comfort of our own homes.