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With all the business focus on improving the bottom line, increasing sales and productivity metrics, the individual employee often struggles to keep focused on what is truly important to him or her. With the workplace productivity gains over the past few years, more and more employees have sacrificed their personal well being for the good of the organization. Sure, helping the organization to be a winning team has been immensely rewarding, but many casualties have occurred. Management abuses, lay-offs, and a general discontent have created a climate that ignores the needs of the individual.

But we cannot look to our organizations to save us. They are, after all, in business to promote the shareholder value. The systems and incentives are in place to ensure that managers can execute on the strategy. The organization functions for its own sake, not necessarily your happiness. The few truly mature organizations do effectively balance the needs of the customers, employees, and shareholders. But for a great deal of others, the time has come the employee to be alive again.

Remember who you are (if you don’t know, find out!!!)
When you started this journey, there were key principles and ideas you believed in. You had a dream of what you would become. But inevitably, no matter how successful you have been, you are a bit beat up. Do you still have those dreams? What did that person believe in? If you were to go back and meet an earlier version of you, would that person be impressed by what you turned out to be? What did you set out to be? Do you still want that? If yes, what is stopping you from getting to it? Rediscover and return to that pure self. Then, make a course correction as necessary.
Do what you love
It is easy to get caught in the trap of doing “jobs” instead of keeping your passions high. What thrills you? What would you be doing if no one were paying you? Why aren’t you doing that? (Check out Rubin’s book, Soloing- good stuff). Are you working with people who you love to be with, in a place you love to be, where people let you flourish, and all the while doing what you like?
You are not your performance appraisal
Deming said that 85% of performance issues are a management problem. However, this notion has trickled down to middle managers with the latest form from HR and is often poorly implemented. Frequently, these forms are loaded with metrics that treat human capital with about as much value as manufacturing equipment. Time and again decisions on your performance are not being made on your best interests, but instead the P & L of the organization.
Before you abandon your self-image to accommodate the feedback you get from those higher up on the ladder, consider the message and the work environment you are in. Where is it really coming from? Is it you? Do you buy into the organizational values enough to truly want to make that change? Are your best interests truly being represented? Remember that you are the only person who can define what success means to you.