“Reinvention” may be as simple as doing the right thing.

It doesn’t have to be for an entire organization or company.

It may just mean doing the right thing for you. Indulge yourself, your own wants and natural tendencies, and become a twenty percenter.

Because it is such a favorite word of mine lately, and I’m saying it so often, I’m finding out that the notion of reinvention is pretty intimidating to a lot of people. When I start to say, “I believe it is high time we reinvent the workplace, and work itself ”” in a speech, training or coaching session, people start to squirm and look uncomfortable, even though the reinvented workplace I start to describe to them is something they want very badly.

Ultimately, as far as they can see, seeking reinvention means opening the door wide to change, and embracing it wholeheartedly. In fact, it’s worse: most people assume that when you reinvent something, it means you can never go back to what was.

Well, do you want to?

Perhaps it would be easier to think of change (and thus reinvention) in a different light: When it comes to the work you do, what would you change if you wanted to, if you could, and if it were totally up to you to do so?

Surely you can’t be satisfied with everything exactly the way it is — unless you’re a twenty percenter.

I finished Marcus Buckingham’s new book yesterday, and in it, he again talks about this 20% statistic, familiar to those of you who read as far as the very first chapter of Now, Discover Your Strengths:

“” according to Gallup research only twenty percent of people report that they are in a role where they have a chance to do what they do best every day.”

Does this bother you as much as it bothers me?

Imagine: a staggering eight out of every ten people in the workplace feel somewhat miscast in their role. Stop and think about the sad state of customer service today, and you’ll think, “oh, no wonder.” Eight out of every ten. Eighty percent. What an incredible waste.

However, optimist that I am, I look at this as an absolutely golden opportunity. Can you imagine how much reinvention would naturally happen simply if people were in the job that was right for them? If they capitalized on their strengths, and followed the calling of their personal values, the fulfillment they naturally seek out would bring about reinvention that boggles my mind.

It is illuminating — and terribly exciting — to think of the global reinvention that would occur if we could just swing the percentages from 20% to 40%, or 50%, then to 60% ” slowly but surely ” I wonder what our tipping point would be?

If the Gallup statistic is accurate, managers have got 80% of the world to get engaged, reshuffling them into jobs they love, because those jobs are a match for their strengths and their values. This is the heady stuff that awaits great managers, and this is why I get so excited about the potential of coaching and training them with the values-centered philosophy of managing with aloha.

Lucky me, I am definitely a twenty percenter: Coaching new supervisors and managers to “rearrange roles, responsibilities, and expectations so that they can capitalize on the uniqueness (Marcus Buckingham quote)” of those in their ‘ohana in business is my job made in heaven. There is nothing I love more than seeing talents become exceptional performance, and that word I’ve been using — reinvention — is as straightforward as that.

However I also believe that effective strengths management is not enough: you must add value-matching so that your personal integrity finds fulfillment, and that’s where Managing with Aloha comes into play.

By the way, you can be a twenty percenter too. Choose your job wisely, and reinvent work by recasting yourself. Why wait for a manager to do that for you?

Related Posts:
–Optimism: don’t leave home without it. About Marcus Buckingham’s new book, The One Thing You Need to Know.
-Our March Ho‘ohana: Visible Reinvention in Action

Tags: Reinvention. Marcus_Buckingham. Values.