How to Help Your People Achieve Their Dreams

Helping your employees achieve their dreams creates greater engagement, energy, and enjoyment at work. That is good for everyone in your company, says Matthew Kelly in his book, The Dream Manager.

CEOs Should Be Dream Enablers

Business management author Tom Peters wholeheartedly agrees:

Start by Learning Your People's Dreams

How do you get started? Perhaps this will help. Here is an email I sent to every person in our firm:

All:

One of our core values is attorney and staff satisfaction. Let's talk about pursuing that directly for you. There are some common ways to pursue this, but every person is different. This means, to begin, it could help to learn more about you.

At our last staff meeting, I shared Latitude's core belief: purpose elevates talent. That is, working for a personal purpose greater than money elevates our interest, energy, and enjoyment in our work. 

Your Purpose
To achieve your satisfaction in work, we can work together to understand your unique purpose better. Identifying one's purpose can feel overwhelming, so here are some more practical questions to spark ideas:

• What do you live for?
• For you, what gives life meaning?
• What motivates you to get out of bed each day?
• In your life, what does it mean to really live?
• Money is merely a means to an end. What are those "ends" for you?

Your Favorite Productive Activities
Here are a couple other questions to help you flesh this out:

• What productive activities cause you to lose track of time? That is, when you have a day that flies by, and you felt deeply satisfied by it, what were you doing?
• What activities align both your strengths and interests (your "sweet spot")? 
• Conversely, what activities are part of your job that feel outside your sweet spot? 

Once you figure these out about yourself, you can design your life and career around them: eliminate distractions and seek changes that better align your work to your sweet spots and core purpose.

Your Dreams
Here is another practical exercise you may find helpful: What are your personal dreams (e.g. "bucket list")? The term "dreams" is better than "goals" because it sets the tone around what you love rather than traditional pressures to do or be something. Here are some example categories—what are your dreams for each?

• Learning
• Adventure
• Family
• Volunteer
• Financial
• Life Goals
• Physical
• Career

It's my hope that each person here can start answering these questions, and then our firm can help you make the changes you seek to have greater happiness and fulfillment in your work and life.

If you are open to discussing your answers, please let me know when you have finished. I would like discuss ways to help you begin aligning your work around your purpose, do more of your favorite productive activities, and achieve your dreams.

Aaron

Enrich Your People and You Enrich Your Company Culture

Why do your employee's dreams matter? Matthew Kelly explains in this video:

To learn more, check out Matthew Kelly's book, The Dream Manager.