Go read the 5 Myths of Great Workplaces

Is there a downside to everyone being happy at work? Is conflict good or bad? Does hiring for cultural fit produce group think? A great summary over at HBR of what to consider if your goal is to foster a critically engaged team.

"... task conflicts produce better decisions and stronger financial outcomes. ... Healthy debate encourages group members to think more deeply, scrutinize alternatives, and avoid premature consensus. While many of us view conflict as unpleasant, the experience of open deliberation can actually energizes employees by providing them with better strategies for doing their job."

Read the rest and the top 5 tips at https://hbr.org/2015/03/5-myths-of-great-workplaces

Mr and Mrs Rude in the workplace

Mr Rude.
... There are benefits to rudeness … that is, for those who perpetrate it. In a study conducted by a trio of American universities last year, it was discovered that rude men earn 18 per cent more than “agreeable” men, while rude women earn 5 per cent more than nice women. 

The study comprised 10,000 workers over a period of 20 years, and it concluded that one explanation for the salary difference is that rude people tend to be more forceful during salary negotiations. The result? They get what they want.

Sure, rudeness might offer an advantage to some people, but it creates a stack of problems for others. Research released in 2011 by Baylor University in Texas found rude people at work create a negative impact not only on their unfortunate colleagues, but also on their colleagues’ partners.

Read on over at smh.com.au to find out how. 

The chemistry of enthusiasm - Bain & Company

A great read on employee satisfaction - how to measure it, achieve it and the correlation to customer NPS.

In our view, too many companies try to raise engagement by launching disconnected initiatives like wellness programs. Such initiatives might improve employee morale slightly and serve other purposes, but they’re detached from customers’ priorities. They lack the specific mechanisms that lift employee engagement the most over a long period and link directly to customer advocacy. ...

Companies that have substantially raised employee engagement act differently. They go beyond the basic prerequisites of employee satisfaction, which include an emotionally safe environment, the right tools to get work done and fair compensation. These trailblazers manage to instill an extraordinary sense of purpose and autonomy, as well as strong affiliation with the company and its offerings. They take a systematic approach, focusing on a few key areas.

Measure employee engagement just like customer engagement and tightly link the two

 

Firms Push Visual Note Taking to Spark Creativity, Sharpen Focus - WSJ.com

Firms are holding training sessions to teach employees the basics of what's known as visual note taking. Others, like vacation-rental company HomeAway Inc. and retailer Zappos, are hiring graphic recorders, consultants who sketch what is discussed at meetings and conferences, cartoon-style, to keep employees engaged.

Doodling proponents say it can help generate ideas, fuel collaboration and simplify communication. It can be especially helpful among global colleagues who don't share a common first language. Putting pen to paper also is seen as an antidote to the pervasiveness of digital culture, getting workers to look up from their devices. And studies show it can help workers retain more information.

LinkedIn is pretty good at finding relevant content ... which is how I came across this article from the Wall Street Journal on sketching. I have seen and posted a few images of Facebook HQ where there are blackboards and whiteboards everywhere. Seems like the trend is being encouraged elsewhere, helping concentration, collaboration and idea generation. Not only that, companies are employing graphic facilitators (also referred to as sketch artists, or graphic recorders) to annotate conferences and meetings so people don't "zone out". The UX/CX world employs this kind of technique when "envisioning" but I wonder if it will take off as a mainstream trend here in Australia for company meetings. Hope so.

Enterprise Engagement 101 via Wikipedia

And this is what I am hoping I will be working on soon:

Tools of Engagement

Engagement involves a broad range of disciplines and tactics. A comprehensive study of what motivates people in business conducted in 2002 by the International Society of Performance Improvement for the Incentive Research Foundation identified the following key factors:

  • Leadership – the ability of the organization to articulate a vision to its constituents.
  • Communication – the ability of the organization to convey its vision to its constituents.
  • Capability – the ability of an organization’s constituents to do what is asked of them.
  • Buy-in – the willingness of an organization’s constituents to do what is asked of them.
  • Support – the degree to which people feel recognized by the organization.
  • Emotion – the state of mind people have related to their work or relationship with the organization.
  • Measurement and feedback – the degree to which constituents receive feedback for their contribution and to which the organization analyzes results and adjusts accordingly[13].

Businesses use a wide array of tactics to address the above issues, including:

The expertise, products, and services related to these various practices comprise the emerging field of Enterprise Engagement. Bottom line: Much more research is needed to better understand how these various elements affect customer and employee engagement, and financial results.

It strikes me as so unusual that Enterprise Engagement has sprung from marketing, but considering the past role marketing agencies have played in organisations it makes sense. Read the complete entry for great references to pivotal articles and a comprehensive summary of the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Engagement.

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Do incentives work? Autonomy, mastery, and the purpose (not profit) motive

Do incentives work? Well the answer is yes and no. They work for rudimentary mechanical tasks, but when you up the cognitive anti, incentives fail to motivate. Not only that, they can negatively impact performance. Pay people enough so they are not thinking about money and can instead be free to concentrate on their performance. Also relevant to management practice is the idea of giving people autonomy. Think autonomy, mastery, and the purpose motive. Watch the video to see how this plays out.