The future of work is not about problems. It is about the possibilities we create.
In a world where we’ve optimized everything from supply chains to shareholder value, we are forgetting the most important thing: Our People. Modern work maximizes everything but human potential.
It is time to change thow we build and transform organizations, company cultures and how we work.
To do this, we need to change how we understand the functioning of people and teams, and we need to let go of long held strategies and approaches:
Innovation labs are often forced into the reality and constraints of the ‘line organization’, effectively killing the spirit of divergent thinking and blocking new ideas.
Transformations fail in 7 out of 10 cases, because human emotions and behaviours are not taken into consideration.
Customer Experience (CX) is often being measured on a stand-alone basis, but that ignores the point that when a customer buys a service, they in fact also buys a piece of the company culture. So when we want to improve the Customer Experience, we need to work on the Employee Experience first.
It all points to the company culture: Is the leadership style allowing divergent thinking? Is the environment safe enough for employees to not fear transformations? And is the work to improve the Employee Experience and Engagement sincere and effective?
“If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” (Einstein, of course).
In this article, we outline 5 areas where we need to rethink the objectives and approaches we have, and we give you concrete ideas of how we can create new possibilities for the organizations of the future.
1. Well-being Drives Performance
Individual and organizational well-being enables higher engagement, creativity, collaboration, and performance. This has been proven in numerous research. But organizational well-being is too often misunderstood. It is not about the perks and avoiding performance focus, but rather about putting the well-being of employees higher on the agenda, and install measures that support this. It could be as simple as introducing “Check Ins” at the beginning of a meeting, or the installation of a monthly conversation between the employee and the leader, that only focuses on how the employee feels, their personal situation and development. This is already being practised by several companies, who have understood the power of the trust and energy it builds.
The new possibility: Your business will be better when you enable your employees to feel well!
2. Intrinsic Motivation Fuels Engagement
Intrinsic motivation, characterized by a sense of purpose, autonomy, confidence, and connectedness, enables increased engagement and performance. In particular for non-routine tasks, where a level of creativity and autonomy is needed, it does not help to simply pay a performance bonus. As a matter of fact, this can be counter-productive and reduce the quality of the outcome. A high level of intrinsic motivation predicts a high level of engagement, which determines individual performance. With this in mind, it is not surprising that companies with a high Customer Experience also have an Employee Engagement level of 79%, compared to only 49% for companies with a below average Customer Experience rating. Additionally, it is worth remembering that Customer Loyalty is dependent on the creation of “positive emotions” for the customer. Who do you think is better in evoking positive emotions for the customer – the one who is intrinsicaly motivated, or the one who is just getting paid for it?
The new possibility: Your business will be better when you motivate your employees the right way.
3. Positive Leadership is Contagious and Without Alternative
Positive leaders are catalysts of group performance, as their role-model behaviour and inclusive style inspires and enables people to develop and grow. But we often see leaders who are unaware of how intrinsic motivation functions, unskilled in their communication or even hiding behind a mask of “invulnerability’ in order not to appear weak. Such leaders have no credibility and cannot help organizations into the future. Again, there is numerous research available explaining the importance of authentic leadership, the effect of leaders who can coach and create personal bonds with the employees.
To be clear: This is not about “feel-good” leadership, where performance and processes are ignored. It is rather a change of the leader’s mindset, and learning of new capabilities that enable a more human and impactful leadership style. If someone wants to call it a more “warm” relationship, we do not object to that at all.
The new possibility: Positive leaders inspire people to go new places. Bad leaders make employees run away!
4. The Strongest “Currency” in the World: Psychological Capital
Personal development and performance is dependent on a person’s confidence in his or her capabilities, resilience in the face of adversity, goal agency, qualified optimism, and emotional self-management. This Psychological Capital must be a central element in any talent development program, leadership training and even be offered as a personal development opportunity to all employees.
People with a high level of Psychological Capital can subscribe to these statements:
Resilience: When I face adversity, I can cope with it and reframe it into something positive.
Optimism: When I hear my negative inner voices, I can dispute them and create optimistic thought processes.
Self-confidence: I am self-aware of my resources and know where I may have to develop.
Hope: I have a goal that motivates me and that I want to approach (not avoid). I can imagine several pathways to get there.
The development of an increased level of psychological capital enables employees to be both more adaptive and agile, and to go beyond the established boundaries in their work and in the interaction with colleagues and customers. Eventually this will have a positive impact on the customer experience, sales, productivity and profitability.
The new possibility: Focus personal development programs on the capability to build Resilience, Optimism and Self-awareness.
5. Psychological Safety in Teams is Most Important
Teams thrive when they have psychological safety that allows members to be vulnerable and take risks. This fosters a constructive conflict culture, where collaboration, learning, alignment, commitment, and performance emerge. Google’s “Aristotle” project demonstrated this powerfully and we recommend that you study their research.
But what is “Psychological Safety”? It is when the environment and team interaction allows people to bring up new ideas, call out mistakes, be vulnerable – without fearing to be shamed, blamed or ridiculed. It is about having a constructive conflict culture, being empathic and non-judgemental.Research has shown two important factors of psychologically “safe” teams: They take turn in speaking, and they are better in gauging the emotions of their team mates. They allow each other to show up as the humans, with all their flaws, virtuousness and diversity.
Here are three suggestions to what organizations could do differently:
Conflict is good: But it has to be a constructive and respectful kind of conflict, where people exchange views and ask questions. Many employees and leaders shy away from this, as they believe that it is counter-productive or even “dangerous”. But in fact, without conflict there can be no alignment and commitment. Because who wants to go in a certain direction, when your opinion was not heard?
Leaders are facilitators: Until a leader needs to take a decision, the leader’s mind-set should be about creating space for the team and facilitate the discussions. It requires both skill and courage, and is something which can be trained and learned.
See a team as a “system”: A thriving team culture does not happen by accident, and it is much more than just gluing individual values and behaviors together. It is about forming an alliance of diverse people, where individual motivation, values, and behaviors weave together to shape the overall team dynamic. When we understand a team as a “system”, we realize that the system has an own identity, and there are many different voices that need to be heard. We must stop seeing teams as a “group of people”, and rather adapt the methods and skills offered in what is known as “Organizational Relationship Systems Coaching”.
The new possibility: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – if we do it the right way!
So, how can we change the way we create new possibilities in our organizations?
We experience that the evidence-based science behind positive psychology offers a new angle to work with. It’s a body of work that focuses on studying positive outliers, not the cult of average. Because if we only study what’s average, that’s exactly what we’ll be. The future of work is not about problems. It is about the possibilities we create.
By combining this with what we already know from behavioral psychology and organizational psychology, we create more depth in the way we understand organizations, and are able to design and deliver the leadership, team collaboration and personal growth that is needed for the future of work.
Positive Psychology is the scientific study of human flourishing: The strengths, virtuousness and methods that enable individuals, teams and organizations to thrive.
If you are interested in more information on this topic and insight into the research which this article is based on, reach out to us via Henrik@novosensus.org or visit us on www.novosensus.org.