Choose a job you love, and you will never have
to work a day in your life. --Confucius
What Makes a Great Workplace?
--by Jill
Suttie, syndicated from Greater
Good, Apr 21, 2015
A
new book applies science to figuring out how to build a place where people
actually look forward to work.
Some
of Friedman’s suggestions may come as a surprise for those not familiar with the
science and can seem downright counterintuitive. For example, he suggests that
companies wanting to be successful and on the cutting edge of innovation need to
embrace failure in their employees. That’s right, failure. “Accepting failure
doesn’t just make risk-taking easier,” he writes. “In a surprising number of
instances, it’s the only reliable path to success.”
This
idea comes from research on creativity showing that creative solutions most
often come not from individual brilliance but from giving people the freedom try
many different solutions to see which one works best. But, who can be a creative
problem solver when stressed or when fearing retribution from a boss? We
literally drain our brains of needed cognitive resources when we are in an
anxiety-induced “fight or flight” mode. That’s why it behooves employers to give
their employees permission to fail and to learn from their mistakes: it’s the
path to innovation.
Friedman
makes several other provocative suggestions for employers wanting to get ahead.
For example, he suggests that they encourage employees to pursue outside
interests on company time or to take frequent rests or even short naps on the
job. Both of these have been shown help people to broaden their thinking and to
make cognitive connections, which is important for innovation and job
efficiency. And, for employees wanting to increase their work satisfaction,
asking for more challenge and variety in job assignments or practicing
gratitude can make a big difference
in your happiness and productivity.
“Over
time a continuous focus on what’s missing trains our minds to center on the
negative,” writes Friedman. “But by taking a moment to redirect our attention to
things that are going right…we restore a balance to our thinking that elevates
our moods and prevents negative emotions like resentment, envy, and regret from
creeping in.”
Additionally,
he suggests that employers challenge employees without overwhelming them and
empower them to find their own best approach to getting the job done (which may
mean a flex schedule or working from home). And he provides employers tips for
managing mood (important, since moods are contagious) and for thanking employees
in ways that increase rather than kill motivation.
Overall,
Friedman recommends fostering three things for better workplace environments:
autonomy (employees having more control over their work), competence (employees
having the tools they need to succeed), and relatedness (better social bonds at
work). Though relatedness may be the most overlooked aspect of employee
engagement, researchers who study predictors of productivity in the workplace
have found that having a best friend at work has many benefits, including
increasing employee focus, passion, and loyalty, and decreasing sick time and
workplace accidents.
How
to encourage friendships at work? “Proximity, familiarity, similarity, and
self-disclosure all play a role,” writes Friedman. “The trick is to create the
conditions that naturally foster these elements and integrate them into the work
environment.” He suggests employers pay for activities that bring workers
together in a shared activity, such as attending a yoga class or working
together on a community project, or create break rooms or other communal spaces
so that this happens naturally.
But
while our social networks are important to nurture, Friedman warns against
encouraging workplace gossip, which can have detrimental impacts on a business.
Though it might be tempting to simply outlaw gossip, Friedman suggests instead
that employers try to use gossip as a way to understand what’s going on
interpersonally at work. Gossip often suggests that someone is feeling powerless
in a situation or needs help and encouragement to succeed, he writes, and
employers would do well to role-model transparency and a willingness to listen
rather than prohibiting gossip or, worse, engaging in it themselves.
Friedman’s
main message is that workplaces have a lot of room for improvement, and that
paying attention to what we’ve learned from the science is a good idea. The old
factory model of workplace efficiency—where each worker is a cog in the system
is expected to do what he’s told to do without an understanding of how he’s
contributing or the power to control his efforts—is outdated in our information
economy. Instead, employers need to find the ways that they can encourage their
most important asset—their employees—and strategically foster greater workplace
innovation, productivity, and harmony.
“When
we provide employees; with the flexibility to succeed in both their personal and
professional lives, we achieve more than an extraordinary workplace,” he writes.
“We create an organization that performs at its very best."
This
article is printed here with permission from the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). Based at UC Berkeley, the GGSC
studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches
skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. You can
learn more about the science and power of gratitude at the Greater
Good Gratitude Summit.
The
author, Jill Suttie, Psy.D., is
Greater Good‘s book review editor and a frequent contributor to the
magazine.
Be
The Change: What steps might you take to improve your workspace? Implement one
of them today.
