Meaningful Interaction

A few days back, as I was revising my Organizational Behavior Module.

I came across the term "Meaningful Interaction". I know what it is but apparently there's something more.

For this to work, participants must have close and frequent interaction working toward a shared goal where they need to rely on each other. (that is to co-operate rather than to compete)

An hour long socialization session between executives and frontline workers are definitely not meaningful interactions.

To the employees, the executives are just putting on a show, doing for the sake of doing in layman terms.

For true and sincere interaction to occur, executives have to go all the way, they have to come and work with the frontline employees, talk to them, observe them and create friendly exchanges that minimalise status differences.

When the frontline employees start to lower their barrier and resistance, they will open up to the executives and eventually start to share some pointers with the executives.

This is a win-win situation between the executives will be able to gain the employees trust and on top of that, they get valuable information about what's happening at the frontline and the policies they create later on will be so much more effective in that it looks after the employees' welfare.

In fact, this is what I aspire to be like in the future. I hope to gain experience in various departments, moving around the company and get to know people sincerely rather than just bossing them around just because they are of a lower rank than you are.