The Positive Organization: Why It’s Not More of the Same
Thomas N. Duening
If we want to change the way organizations work, we need to learn deeply, embrace fully, and communicate effectively this positive research.1
Introduction
Organizational theory is a term that many business practitioners loathe. There is a prevailing notion that anything that is “merely” a theory cannot have substantive implications for practice. At the same time, most business practitioners readily adopt popular organizational theories in the hope that it will arm them with insights to transform their own organizations.
This ambivalence about organizational theory is easy to understand. The bookshelves in the business section of the local bookstore burst with an ever-growing number of volumes promising to reveal the latest secrets, insights, or rules that once and for all will ensure high performance. How is one to choose among these various alternative approaches? What is the evidence that backs up their lofty claims?
Business leader skepticism should be high when it comes to claims about the latest breakthrough in creating high-performing organizations. A review of the past 30 years of such epiphanies reveals a mostly dismal record of lasting performance enhancements. Some of the organizational theories have more substance than others, to be sure. For example, it’s likely that most readers of this book have heard of W. Edwards Deming and the total quality management revolution he helped to usher in following World War II.2 The transformations that many companies experienced as a result of adopting Deming’s ideas and prescriptions were vitally important at the time. Today, Deming and total quality management don’t sell well because most organizations have adopted quality processes, practices, and controls as a routine part of their operations. It is no longer revolutionary to say that one has adopted quality as a centerpiece of competitive advantage; it is the entry price to nearly any industry.
Readers may also recall several other noteworthy organizational theories that have appeared and faded over the past few decades:
• Business Process Reengineering (Hammer and Champy)3
• The One-Minute Manager (Blanchard)4
• In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman)5
• Competitive Advantage (Porter)6
• Management by Objectives (Drucker)7
Of course, there are many more beyond this short list. If you find yourself weary of organizational theory, you are not alone. In fact, some scholars have written insightful critiques of the tendency for practitioners to become beguiled by the latest fads in organizational theory.8
We have collaborated to write this book on positive organizational behavior (POB), because we believe this organizational theory is more powerful than the others noted earlier, and it is based on substantial evidence from the human sciences. In fact, a large part of its power and potency derives from the fact that it is rooted in the ultimate causes of human behavior. Ultimate causation links human behaviors to the evolutionary origins of the motivations and mechanisms underlying them. Traditional management and leadership scholarship has suffered from a lack of integration of evolutionary insights into organizational theory.9
POB is not a theory designed to dig us out of some contemporary organizational hole created by other, now defunct, theories. It is not a theory that is merely a function of the times in which we live. Rather, POB is based on scientific insights into how human beings actually function and flourish, and into the evolutionary (ultimate) and cultural (proximate) causes that underlie these elementary facts of life. For instance, research has demonstrated a powerful cross-species motivation in all animals, including humans, that drives them to understand their environment. This fundamental “EXPLORATION” motivation has been demonstrated to be an ancestral part of all mammalian brains.10 [Note: The capitalization convention for describing ancestral emotional systems is used to denote that we may have a wide range of alternative terms for describing these innate systems.] Engaging in EXPLORATION-related behaviors is rewarding to most mammals—creating positive feelings—and is, in fact, one of the more powerful of the emotional/motivational (E/M) systems common to all mammals (see more on this below).
Just as there is nothing that time-bounds the mammalian and, therefore, human motivation energized by the innate EXPLORATION system, there is nothing that time-bounds the human desire to function at optimal levels. Human flourishing is part of our natural inclination to understand and make the best possible use of our individual talents to achieve personal and social goals regardless of the environment—organizational or natural—in which we find ourselves.
In this chapter, I’ll first highlight several important foregrounding advances in the human sciences that indicate why POB differs from other management fads in its scientific foundations. The first of these advances is positive psychology (PP). PP increasingly is being recognized as a fresh new understanding of the human condition and how individuals can optimize their talents.
The second advance is based on the evolutionary understanding of the human E/M systems. Important new discoveries based on both human and animal studies have revealed a primary, genetically inherited E/M architecture that underlies all human actions and cognitions. These discoveries have been hard-won over the past several decades and are now beginning to bear significant fruit for those interested in the implications for organizational behavior and for individual and group flourishing.
Let’s begin with a brief overview of the emerging science of PP.
I now think that the topic of positive psychology is well-being, that the gold standard for measuring well-being is flourishing, and that the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing.11
Psychologists Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi originated the discipline of PP at the 1998 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.12 In a nutshell, PP focuses on helping people advance from normal to optimal functioning. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi said PP “is about identifying and nurturing [a person’s] strongest qualities, what they own and are best at, and helping them find niches in which they can best live out these strengths.”13 This is in stark contrast to traditional psychology and its focus on human dysfunction and psychological maladaptations. Figure 1.1 highlights the difference between traditional and PP.
As this figure shows, clinical psychology is concerned with mental illness, mental disorders, and other dysfunctions. Organizational leaders, taking their cues from decades of psychological research into human capital and its relationship to organizational performance, also were prone to focusing on helping people who were situated to the left in this figure. This has been referred to as the four D’s approach to leading (damage, disease, disorder, and dysfunction). The four D’s approach tends to focus on “preventing poor performance, low motivation, ill-health, and disengagement.”14
By way of contrast, PP focuses on the right side of Figure 1.1. According to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, the purpose of PP “is to begin to catalyze a change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building positive qualities.” We emphasize here the difference between PP and other management fads such as “positive thinking.” The latter were never part of the scholarly literature, and much of the popular approaches to “positivity” have come to be viewed “with doubt and suspicion—a product of wishful thinking, denial, or even ‘hucksterism.’”15 Management scholar Fred Luthans highlights that PP differs from “feel good” positive approaches to human psychology in “its heritage of insisting on sound theory and research before moving on to application and practice.”16
Figure 1.1 The continuum from mental illness to flourishing
Negative versus Positive Organizational Behavior
For purposes of developing the negative–positive contrast in the realm of organizational performance, consider two organizational behavior typologies that have been developed by scholars. One focuses on deviancy in the workplace, the other on positive behaviors in the workplace.
Researchers Sandra Robinson and Rebecca Bennett developed the employee deviancy typology.17 They defined employee deviance as “voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in so doing threatens the well-being of an organization.”18 Notice that the researchers distinctly linked deviant behavior to potential harms to the organization. Their research was based on surveys and interviews with full-time employees whose average age was 37. They discovered that the deviant behaviors reported by the study participants ranged on a two-dimensional scale between minor and serious and between interpersonal and organizational. The typology that emerged from the research is provided as Figure 1.2.
Figure 1.2 Typology of employee deviant behavior19
No doubt you’ve seen some of these deviant behaviors before. They are common among employees who don’t have opportunities to flourish at work.
By way of contrast, a focus on POB has led to the development of a positive typology. Luthans and Youssef give us a typology of positive workplace behavior that is encapsulated under the acronym CHOSE (confidence/self-efficacy, hope, optimism, subjective well-being, and emotional intelligence) (Figure 1.3).20
Figure 1.3 Luthans’s CHOSE positive employee behavior typology21
Obviously there is a vast sea of difference between the employee behaviors noted in the deviance typology from those in the positive typology. The question for organizational leaders is how to promote the positive over the negative. In the literature of PP, the way people behave is the starting point for positive outcomes. Behavior can be guided, both by the individual and by the organization, via commitment to a set of virtues and character strengths. We next talk about a set of virtues that has been identified in the PP research as being linked to human flourishing.
Virtues and Character Strengths
One of the primary topics of PP research is the identification of the virtues that are correlated with high-functioning human beings. The technical definition of “virtue” offered by the positive psychologists is “A disposition to act, desire, and feel that involves the exercise of judgment and leads to a recognizable human excellence or instance of human flourishing. Moreover, virtuous activity involves choosing virtue for itself and in light of some justifiable life plan.”22 Significantly, virtues represent character strengths (i.e., trait-like attributes that are at least partially malleable) and are substantively different from personality traits (i.e., inherited attributes that are unchanging). The continuum from psychological states to psychological traits is highlighted in Figure 1.4.23
Psychological states, such as moods, are changeable and momentary. State-like psychological resources such as efficacy, hope, and optimism also are malleable, but they are more stable over time than are the ephemeral psychological states. Trait-like psychological constructs, including virtues, are relatively stable and difficult, although not impossible to change. Finally, traits are largely defined as heritable and are stable and difficult to change.
Figure 1.4 The state to trait continuum
The research associated with PP is robust and diverse. Research considered central to the movement includes studies of human happiness, well-being, positive emotions, and character strengths. Here, our primary interest in PP centers on its research associated with identifying and explicating the virtues and character strengths associated with optimal human functioning. This branch of PP has developed a relatively stable understanding of virtues associated with optimal human functioning. The stable set of virtues has been codified as the Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Strengths (see Table 1.1).
The VIA Classification of Strengths identifies six virtues. Each virtue has associated character strengths that are defined as the “psychological ingredients” of virtues.24 The originators of the VIA Classification System recognize that the list of character strengths has some limitations. A primary limitation they’ve identified is that it does not take into account local cultural pressures and opportunities. For example, it has been noted that the U.S. culture would likely need to include more explicitly character traits of “ambition and achievement” to reflect the positive moral evaluation such strengths generally receive in that culture. Seligman also addressed this absence and added “achievement” to his list of measurable elements associated with human well-being: positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and achievement.25
Table 1.1 The VIA classification of strengths
Summarizing Positive Psychology
Building positive qualities in humans requires a new understanding of the emotions and motivations that can be tapped to induce the necessary strivings, resilience, and determination that underlie flourishing. The research ongoing in PP now enables us to undertake management and leadership initiatives that are far subtler than those suggested by past psychological theory. For example, one well-known framework for understanding human psychology is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Figure 1.5). Maslow’s theory is consistent with common sense, to be sure (Who could argue that self-actualization is unlikely to be a priority for individual who are starving?). However, Maslow was short on specifics about what self-actualization means and how best to achieve and sustain it.
If you want to think about it from the perspective of Maslow, PP can be viewed as a new science that provides us with infinitely greater detail about what it means to self-actualize. This detail is based on scientific research into the behaviors, environments, thoughts, and social factors that promote human flourishing.
Figure 1.5 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
The Evolutionary Basis of Human Emotions/ Motivations
The basic emotions represent essential tools for living and learning, and the higher brain systems with which they are intimately related provide the perceptual and learned guidance that organisms must have to fulfill their primitive urges.26
For those who need to understand human behavior in a deeper way, there is little doubt that the ultimate causes of human thinking and animation lie in the evolution-given neurodynamic structures of the brain.27 It is important to understand that psychology, as a science, focuses on interpreting the outputs of the brain as they appear in overt behaviors, bodily expressions (e.g., smiling), and verbal reports (e.g., “I feel happy”). Thus, when psychologists talk about things like depression or joy, they are using concepts that are shorthand for vast and integral activities occurring within the brain. The outward signs of depression, joy, and other emotions enable psychologists to intuit that some internal brain processes are occurring.
Why is it necessary to delve into the brain to understand psychological concepts in a deeper way? Why can’t we just continue to use well-known psychological terms like happiness, sadness, and others as we always have? People have gotten by since the dawn of history using so-called “folk psychology” to describe the internal processes behind their own and others’ behaviors. In fact, folk psychology is an incredibly effective way for all of us to get about in, and get along with others in, our social worlds. But we can do better.28 It is true that human culture has substantially broken free of the chains of evolutionary history. Still, the evolved E/M systems that comprise our species constrain us to a limited range of alternative patterns of human flourishing. Behavior patterns that deviate too far from these innate constraints tend to be short lived. History is replete with failed experiments in cultural design. And therein lies the reason to delve into the various brain sciences to provide a stronger foundation for a nuanced understanding of the ancestral forces that drive human feelings, behaviors, and cognition. Perhaps, given this insight, positive cultural forms—including organizational cultural forms—can more readily be attained and sustained.
This section of the chapter will not endeavor to unravel the manner in which the neural apparatus of the brain works. Suffice it to say that chemical and electrical forces that power the vast neural networks in the brain are non-mysterious parts of nature that give rise to all the thinking, emoting, and behaving that people do.29 The brain is a dynamic and in some ways mysterious organ to be sure. Likely, the human sciences will never be able to trace the precise causal patterns that effect an individual’s personality, proclivities, and preferences. Still, the general patterns of behavior that emerge as distinctly human preferences are lodged in the whispers of evolutionary priorities.30 It is indisputable, for example, that people generally prefer to view pastoral landscapes rather than fetid garbage dumps. Why? The choice seems unforced and natural—which is exactly the point. Our ancestors evolved and carved out a niche in the savannas of Africa, and they developed a distinct and innate preference for verdant, and therefore fruitful vistas. The dung beetle, on the other hand, with its differential adaptations and life strategies likely would prefer the garbage dump. To the dung beetle, that choice is unforced and natural.
Evolution works via natural selection. It has over the 4 billion years of life on earth selected life forms that have adapted to their unique habitats. Mammalian evolution, of which humans are part, has been traced back 315 to 320 million years. The evolution of the human line has been traced back 4 million years. Of course, at the time at which the human lineage began it was already equipped with the evolved brain bequeathed by its mammalian primate ancestors. Since then, the main adaptation that has led to the uniquely human way of functioning is an extraordinarily large neocortex (measured by body mass) compared with other mammals. The neocortex is the seat of most of our conscious experience, including communicating, planning, and thinking.
The large neocortex in humans evolved to help us manage our complex social environment. In other words, the uniquely social habitats chosen by our ancestors led to the inexorable development of a distinctive social brain.31 The main driving force of human evolution today is no longer selection of instinctual behavior patterns. Rather, humans are now subject primarily to the equally selective forces of cultural evolution.32 Still, the insight that faint echoes of our instinctual preferences gently nudge our choices and preferences to certain cultural forms over others does offer opportunities for organizational applications. In short, leaders that heed this insight will be more likely to create attainable, sustainable organizational cultures that enable employees to flourish in an unforced and natural way.
With this as a background, we can begin to explore some of the high-level findings into human brain mechanisms that underlie the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that each of us experience. The research into these primary E/M systems that underlie all of human psychology has identified roughly seven distinct systems: EXPLORATION, BONDING, LUST, ANGER, FEAR, GRIEF, and PLAY (the capitalization convention, again, is used to denote the E/M system as primary driver of various feelings and action potentials; as opposed to the behavioral manifestations resulting from activation of such systems for which we have a variety of colloquial descriptions). Within these seven basic emotional systems, four are clearly linked with positive emotions in humans (EXPLORATION, PLAY, BONDING, and LUST), and three clearly linked with negative emotions (ANGER, FEAR, and GRIEF).
Generally speaking, the modern workplace likely plays host to individuals currently in the throes of the full range of these emotions. However, only six of these systems need be considered in greater detail for the purpose of raising organizational performance. That is, the LUST system, although it may be present among individuals within any organization, is not likely a functional driver of workplace performance and we will ignore it here.
The emotional systems that we will focus on are EXPLORATION, BONDING, PLAY, ANGER, FEAR, and GRIEF. These key E/M systems are present in every person in the workforce to a greater or lesser degree, and can be influenced in a manner that leads more often than not to organizational performance enhancements. As Panksepp noted, “arousals of these brain systems are accompanied by subjectively experienced feeling states that may provide efficient ways to guide and sustain behavior patterns, as well as to mediate certain types of learning.”33
The six E/M systems that individuals within all organizations experience, and that can be influenced through leadership can be divided into “Positive” and “Negative.” Let’s briefly explore each of these key E/M systems to get a better idea of how they can be integrated into to organizational behavior and leadership.
EXPLORATION: This seminal E/M system drives the organism to explore its environment, to find key resources, to strive to solve problems, and to anticipate new experiences with enthusiasm and anticipatory joy. “Feelings of environmentally engaged aliveness—positive excitement or euphoria—accompany such seeking urges in humans.”34 The great adventure that is life is consumed almost entirely during adulthood by various forms of work. For most people, work is defining of who they are. Think about the last time you were at a cocktail party and you were introduced to someone you didn’t know. Surely one of the first questions that you ask or that is asked of you is “What do you do?” This question, we all know, does not refer to what you do as a hobby, what you do in the bedroom, or what you do in your spare time. The question refers to what you do for work. Despite the defining nature of work for most people, work also tends to become routine, drudgery, and uninspiring. The EXPLORATION system ceases to be activated often enough for people to recall the adventurous spirit that led them to their career in the first place. One of the leaders of the PP movement earlier investigated this phenomenon and postulated that people are most engaged at work if they are able to achieve a state referred to as “flow.” Flow is a state of being where the EXPLORATION system is activated. This occurs most often when people are asked to stretch their talents and skills in creative and innovative acts of problem solving or value creation for the organization. Leaders help to establish flow in the workplace by ensuring that people have opportunities to go beyond their routine work assignments and to engage challenges that call forth their native talents and skills and stretch them. This type of challenge engages the EXPLORATION system and the associated positive affects.
BONDING: The BONDING system is the primary driver of social, empathic, and altruistic feelings and actions among humans. The BONDING system drives people to seek shared goals with others and share social achievements, and mutual traditions, values, and norms. Through affiliation with specific others, people develop their individual identity. According to Tomasello, “The fundamental social-cognitive ability that underlies human culture is the individual human being’s ability to and tendency to identify with other human beings.”35 There are two primary perspectives associated with BONDING: Identity theory and attachment theory. Identity theory seeks to understand how individuals construct and negotiate a personal work-centered identity. It is concerned with questions such as “who am I?” and “how should I act?.”36 Others have conceived social identity as “perception of oneness with or belongingness to some human aggregate.”37 Indeed, some scholars have noted that identification with a social category is necessary to call forth human action. Sociologist Nelson Foote said, “Doubt of identity, or confusion where it does not cause complete disorientation, certainly drains action of its meaning, and thus limits mobilization of organic correlates of emotion, drive, and energy which constitute the introspectively-sensed ‘push’ of motivated action.”38 Thus, any confusion about one’s identity not only may cause a sense of disorientation, but also and more damagingly a tendency to avoid focused action. Attachment theory posits that humans possess an innate attachment system that motivates them to approach and emotionally bond with others who provide them with a sense of security, comfort, and warmth. In the infant, this is primarily manifest in the child–parent bond. In the adult, attachment forms with individuals with whom one identifies and who are able to provide a secure base. Organizations are domains where attachment takes place both naturally and in a structured manner. Natural affiliations occur among people who share commonalities such as age, gender, career status, financial status, and other things. At the same time, there are structured affiliations based on organizational structure, physical proximity, workflow, and other factors that are design features of the organization. Natural affiliations are the most powerful and lasting.
PLAY: Work and play are intrinsic parts of the lives of all of us. Work provides meaning for many, while play provides respite and social connectivity. Although the term “play” connotes an activity more commonly associated with childhood, the emotional roots of play remain an important part of adulthood. Indeed, the adult version of childhood rough and tumble play is manifest as socially acceptable teasing, humorous banter, and weekend recreation. In fact, the emotional urge to play “was also not left to chance by evolution, but is built into the instinctual action apparatus of the human brain.”39 Part of social joy derives from our playful interactions with others, where winners and losers are determined according to a common understanding of fairness. Even rats, which are prone to engage in regular rough and tumble play with cage mates, have a mutual understanding of fair play. If any single rat regularly pins its cage mate (pinning is a common part of rat play behavior), the rat being pinned quickly loses interest in play behavior if it does not have opportunities to be the pinner. In other words, rats develop an ability to “let” each other win often enough to keep a playful mood alive between them.
The Negative E/M Systems
ANGER: The ANGER system is aroused in all mammals when they are frustrated from reaching goals and acquiring resources. Although unregulated ANGER is not appropriate in the workplace, it is useful to recognize that this E/M system will be activated in workplaces that routinely and without explanation thwart individual initiative. “We know that [ANGER] is an unpleasant affect not only because people say so, but also because both animals and humans will try to avoid electrical stimulation of this system.”40
FEAR: Fear is the most well-studied of the basic E/M systems we are discussing here. Fear and anxiety are common afflictions for many people, with anxiety reduction programs and prescriptions for anxiety reducing medications on the rise. This is because fear and anxiety create a cascade of feelings and chemical/hormonal responses that tend to inhibit cognitive efficiency. The extreme of this is the fight or flight response where the individual becomes consumed by instinctual action patterns with little room for deliberative thought. Anxiety is pervasive because, as Panksepp notes “we are so intelligent [that] we humans can learn to fear more things, past and future, than a little mouse can.”41 Driving fear and anxiety from the workplace is likely not possible, but these pernicious E/M systems can be managed and reduced through effective leadership tactics. For example, it has been established that transparent, regular, and clear employee evaluation systems engender a sense of security among employees. Knowing what is expected and knowing that one has the capacity to meet expectations helps reduce anxiety in the workplace.
GRIEF: This system is perhaps the most challenging to understand from the perspective of the practicing manager. Why should a manager be concerned about an employee’s grief other than to provide appropriate bereavement leave? In fact this E/M system is labeled in a manner that creates some confusion. The GRIEF system is the term selected to describe the very specific E/M system activations a person feels when experiencing a wide range of situations that are interpreted by the individual as social isolation or rejection—the extreme form being when a loved one dies with no hope of re-engagement for the bereaved. The neuropsycho-logical research clearly demonstrates that humans derive deep satisfaction from being in caring social relationships with others. This satisfaction is based on powerful E/M system dynamics that are activated when one feels embraced within secure, safe social relationships. The GRIEF system kicks in when these social relationships are threatened or removed.
Summary of E/M Systems
The various E/M systems that have been posited as drivers of human behavior are not mysterious psychological forces, although they are still the subjects of much intense study. Essentially, researchers in this area are unified on the basic notion that these primary drivers of behavior reflect species-specific adaptations based on evolutionary selection process to which the humans have been exposed over millennia. The brain mechanisms involved in these basic drivers are still being investigated, but there is gathering consensus at least around the six E/M systems we have explored in this chapter.
The E/M systems comprise both positive and negative affective states. For the most part, humans perform at higher levels when in the throes of positive affect than they do under the influence of negative affect. This is not always true, however. For example, people who feel GRIEF over the possibility of an impending social loss may increase their performance in a manner that seeks to avoid the loss. Still, in the long run, humans perform at higher levels, and for longer periods, and with greater determination and resilience when driven primarily by positive effects such as BONDING over GRIEF and EXPLORATION over FEAR.
Now that we understand the premises of PP and have at least a beginner’s level understanding of the primary E/M systems that drive all human behavior, let’s explore some actions leaders can undertake with this new knowledge.
We have been on quite a journey through some of the theoretical foundations to POB that you will find reiterated and advanced throughout this book. It’s time now to get a general idea of how these theories can be put into action within the organizational setting.
1. Prepare employees to be hired by the best in your industry, and be prepared to help them advance their careers with other organizations if they choose.
Ironically, you are most likely to retain employees if they feel like you are truly interested in their career advancement—wherever it may take them. It is counter-intuitive, obviously, to build individual talent in a manner that is a fit with top competitors. But if you are building them to be a fit for top competitors, you are also building them for success in their chosen profession—which translates to higher performance for you. Most professional-level employees enjoy building their talents to achieve excellence in their chosen careers. This pursuit in fact feels good because it is a function of an active EXPLORATION E/M system. Research has shown that EXPLORATION is most active for people who feel they are operating from a secure base. If they believe advancing in their career means they are trapped into a particular promotion and salary band system (yours) they are likely to feel less secure. Far better to make it known to everyone that you are most interested in helping them become accomplished professionals who have ample internal promotion opportunities, but who also will be assisted in the event that a better opportunity arises—even with your closest competitor.
2. Develop a robust and effective outplacement office that will assist employees who have failed to meet the performance expectations of the company.
This may seem like a cost-center investment that is not reflected in either the revenues or profits of the firm. But let’s take a deeper look at the logic of developing outplacement services designed to help those who have been terminated find comparable employment elsewhere—even with the firm’s competitors.
The GRIEF system in mammals is activated when the individual feels as though its social attachments are threatened. The activation of this system powerfully inhibits positive E/M systems such as EXPLORATION and PLAY. When employees feel threatened, either because they are taking risks that are necessary to advance the organization or because they are not currently meeting expectations, their ability to advance beyond the feeling is blocked by activation of the GRIEF system. Such employees are more likely to continue to underperform and eventually to select out of the system entirely.
To prevent and/or alleviate this type of behavior, companies must be able to communicate to their employees that they will help them, even if they should fail and be fired. Employees who feel a sense of social belonging despite their need to engage in risky, innovative behaviors are more likely to find the internal E/M resources to face difficult challenges and see them through than those who face the potentially gaping maw of termination.
3. Enable play activities within the workplace and during the workday.
You may be thinking that this chapter has gone completely off the rails suggesting that business leaders should allow people to play at work. Our inclination as adults, who largely have sublimated our ability for imaginative play, is to separate work and play. Naturally, we are not suggesting that the workplace should be turned into a playground, but there are several very important consequences of enabling some play activity in the workplace. Below we highlight some of these consequences and suggest techniques for bringing them about:
• Play promotes creativity and innovation. Play by its very nature is spontaneous, open ended, and creative. Among children there is no need for elaborate toys, play structures, or organizational rules to initiate play. Children have little trouble inventing games with others and creatively altering and adjusting the rules as they proceed. Play, in fact, often is inhibited by preexisting rules. When asked about play, children often indicate that it is best when there is no adult supervision. While adult play, such as professional sports, is definitively rule-governed there is also an aspect of balance that intuitively arises. Professional sports that are “overly officiated” or where the rules begin to encroach upon the spontaneity of the interaction become objects of derision and controversy. Play in the workplace, if it is to enhance innovation and creativity, must avoid being overly governed by oppressive rules. Of course, employees should “play” within the context of some rules that align with organizational strategies and objectives.
• Play promotes bonding and identification with others. Organizations that promote reasonably bounded play activities as noted above can help develop positive bonding among employees. It is important, however, that play activities not be forced on people—which could have the opposite affect and drive people apart. Many of you probably have been to retreats or workshops where some high-paid consultant required that you engage in a play activity that you would never choose on your own. Often, this is done to get you “out of your comfort zone” or some other silly reason. Most likely, you did not find yourself becoming more deeply bonded with your playgroup as a result of the “play” activity (except perhaps through your shared disdain). Play has to flow naturally to be effective in promoting interpersonal bonding. People must self-select to the play activity. Organizations can establish opportunities for people to engage in play. This can be done to great benefit if the opportunities include play with individuals outside one’s normal work group. Extending social bonding via play activities across organizational boundaries can go a long way to breaking down the “silos” that become an endemic and intractable problem for so many organizations. People that have played together, and who have developed social bonds as a result, are far more likely to solve cross-functional problems than are those who have never before interacted except through their (often adversarial) work activities.
• Play has been linked to a wide range of positive health benefits. Physical play has the benefit of promoting fitness and reductions in stress and other autoimmune and inflammation related disorders. As such, promoting play can reduce absenteeism due to some health issues.
4. Establish and promulgate a set of organizational virtues that will guide hiring and promotion practices within the organization.
Most organizations have mission statements. Some also have vision statements and/or statements of corporate values. These are important and can be useful in guiding behavior that is designed to advance the organization as a whole. However, for individuals within the organization to develop an ability to flourish, they must also be able to pursue virtues that promote their individual flourishing. Research indicates that cultivating a virtues-based workplace identity is highly predictive of employee engagement in their work and organization.42 Companies should articulate a set of virtues and character strengths that are consistent with its mission and values. Most likely, the virtues and character strengths developed and articulated by the VIA Classification System are consistent with nearly any type of organization. As such, they provide an excellent starting point for developing a set of preferred individual virtues and character strengths for the organization. The organization should also then establish a talent development regime aimed at helping people evaluate their current capabilities on the virtues scale and at helping them broaden and build their capacities on each of the virtues and associated character strengths. The goal of the “broaden and build” approach to talent development should not be limited to the workplace. It should extend as well to improving employees lives at home, in their personal finances, and myriad other areas.43
For Further Reading
Panksepp J., and Lucy Biven. 2012. The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
This book provides an extensive overview of the E/M systems discussed in this chapter. It is extremely well-written, but may be challenging for newcomers to this topic.
Antonio Damasio. 2010. Self Comes to Mind. Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Damasio is one of the leading neuroscientists of the modern era. His exploration of how the self emerges from the dynamics of the brain is an accessible and fascinating read for anyone interested the topic.
Michael Tomasello. 2009. Why We Cooperate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
This small anthology presents the thesis that human beings are unique in being the only species that cooperates to achieved shared goals. This book provides a general reader with significant insights into how the human species has evolved its propensity to cooperate.
Endnotes
1. Anchor, S. 2014. Foreword to How to be a Positive Leader, eds. J.E. Dutton and G.M. Spreitzer. San Francisco, CA: Barrett-Koehler.
2. Deming, W.E. 2000. Out of the Crisis. Boston, MA: MIT Press, reprint edition.
3. Hammer, M., and J.A. Champy. 1993. Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
4. K. Blanchard. The One Minute Manager. New York, NY: William Morrow.
5. Peters, T.J., and R.H. Waterman. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
6. Porter, M.E. 1998. Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. New York, NY: Free Press.
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