Tag Archives: workplace conflicts

Narcissists Have Pathway To Success While Doing Harm To Others

By Douglas LaBier • March 2, 2021

This is no surprise to most anyone who’s worked in corporations, but a recent study documents that narcissists truly do become successful more easily in many organizational settings. And that takes a toll on peers and others in their orbit, from their arrogance, insensitivity, need to control and dominate. This confirms and adds to empirical evidence what we see in workplace and career consulting, as well as in psychotherapy with men and women dealing with the emotional impact of work-related conflicts.

The study, published in The Leadership Quarterly, was described by Carly Cassella in Science Alert. She writes, “People who are fundamentally entitled, self-confident, manipulative, and callous do really well in the modern workplace…(and) those who scored higher in extraversion, overconfidence, self-esteem, dominance, and authoritarianism were more likely to get appointed CEO after a certain amount of time at their firm.”

Moreover, Cassella continues,

Narcissism is known to be a dark trait, and individuals who are characterized by higher levels of narcissisms are known to procure negative outcomes for the firm, such as financial crime, tax avoidance, less collaborative cultures and more. Some studies have shown, for instance, that narcissistic CEOs are tied to unequal compensation, lower employee satisfaction, and a lack of communication in the workplace. They also appear more willing to commit crimes for the sake of the business.

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them,” explained psychologist Charles O’Reilly for the Stanford University newsroom in 2020. “In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples. So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity. We’ve documented this in a bunch of Silicon Valley tech firms.”

Credit: Pexels/Dinielle De Veyra

Three-Quarters of Workers Are Stressed, New Survey Finds

By Douglas LaBier March 12, 2019

This new survey from CareerCast adds the latest to frequent surveys showing the stress, dissatisfaction and health impact of many workplaces and career environments. But in my view, such surveys tend to ignore the underlying source for so many people: psychologically unhealthy management & leadership; and the impact of our cultural definition of “success.”

The report, described by PR Newswire, follows below:

Stress is unavoidable, but a vast majority of Americans feel unduly stressed at work with 78% of respondents to a new CareerCast survey rating their job stress at seven or higher on a ten-point scale. That’s a jump from the 2017 CareerCast stress survey, which found 69% of responding readers scored their job stress seven or higher.

The most common stress factor cited in the CareerCast survey was meeting deadlines (38% of respondents), with growth potential and interacting with the public tied for a distant second stressor at 14% each.

The average American ages 25 to 54 spends 40.3 hours per week at work, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s approximately one-quarter of the entire week, a third of waking time for those who sleep an average of seven hours per night. Factor in travel to-and-from one’s place of employment, and the amount of time dedicated to employment increases further. All this is to say that work occupies so much of our life that if work’s stressful, life will be stressful.

To assist job seekers and career changers in finding a good fit profession, CareerCast has released its 2019 ranking of the least and most stressful jobs. Based on an evaluation of 11 stress factors, including deadlines, hazards, physical demands and public interaction, CareerCast ranks Enlisted Military, Firefighter and Airline Pilot as the top three most stressful jobs. The least stressful are Diagnostic Medical Sonographer, Compliance Officer and Hair Stylist.

“Stress in the workplace might prompt job seekers to consider a career change. We have identified jobs such as Medical Records Technician, Operations Research Analyst and Massage Therapist, which might be a good fit for those seeking a less stressful position,” says Kyle Kensing, Online Content Editor, CareerCast. “However, people who thrive on the pressures inherent to high-stress jobs and are willing to put themselves in immediate danger, might choose a stressful job like firefighter or police officer. While no job is stress-free, choosing a profession based on its stress level is purely a personal choice.”

For the complete report, click here.

Midlife and Stressed From Work? It Will Damage Your Mental Health

September 25, 2018

This isn’t a surprise, but new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry and described here found that if you’re in midlife and feel stressed, overworked and powerless, you’re at higher risk for developing mental health problems than others who don’t share that experience in their work.

According to Sabir Giga, author of an accompanying editorial in The Lancet report, “For individual workers, it’s important to recognize that persistent and long-term stress could lead to physical and mental health conditions. Demanding jobs may be unavoidable, but we can make changes in our lives that allow more control and flexibility in how much we work and the way we do it.”

That’s the challenge, of course, and it’s rooted in the management culture and practices of organizational leadership. And that’s where I find most organizations fail to identify what is required by leadership to support. worker wellbeing and positive commitment.

This study is based on nearly 7000 workers in the UK, but I think its core findings are similar to those found among US workers as well. The workers in this study, averaging around 45 years of age, had never been diagnosed with depression, anxiety or other disorders. Overall, about one-third reported having little control over what they did at work, and slightly more than one-fourth described their jobs as very demanding and stressful. By age 50, workers who reported high levels of job strain five years earlier were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with mental health disorders as the people who had low-stress jobs. With demanding jobs, workers were 70 percent more likely to develop a mental illness by age 50, the study also found. And people who reported having little control over their work were 89 percent more likely to be diagnosed with psychological disorders.
Continue reading →

Most People Are Unhappy With Their Jobs, New Survey Finds

December 5, 2017

Here we go again: Periodically, we find yet another survey that documents how dissatisfied, unhappy, and thwarted people feel about their jobs. Or just hate what they do. As one person lamented, “I actually like my work; I just hate my job.” Of course, such findings raise continuing questions about the sources of so much unhappiness and conflict, which can and does trigger a range of emotional and physical problems.

This latest study found that about 75 percent of American workers are looking for a new job; and most complain that they fail to receive enough recognition from their organizations.

These findings are from The 2017 Mind the Workplace report, released by the nonprofit group Mental Health America (MHA) and The Faas Foundation, surveyed more than 17,000 U.S. workers in 19 industries.

Among the findings were that 77 percent of workers surveyed said some of their colleagues get recognition they don’t deserve, while those who bring more to the table professionally get ignored. Moreover, nearly half said they “rarely or never” received the level of pay they deserved. Moreover, 44 percent said skilled workers were “‘always or often’ overlooked.”

There’s more: Sixty-six percent of respondents said they seldom feel like they can trust their colleagues to support them at the office. And 64% percent of employees reported that if things got tough, their supervisor would “sometimes, rarely or never” support them.

And to highlight what I said above regarding the impact on their health, Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said that the stress of their job had “a significant impact on their mental and behavioral health.” Not to mention that a 2016 Harvard/Stanford study that found that an average of 120,000 workplace deaths annually might be linked to work-related stress.

The usual explanations – and recommendations – for such data, tend to focus on learning to manage stress better. That’s always good advice, for life in out frenzied, rapidly changing workplace and career challenges. And a 2016 Harvard/Stanford study that found that an average of 120,000 workplace deaths annually might be linked to work-related stress.

But I think what’s chronically overlooked is the source – whether stress, hatred of one’s job, or the emotional and physical damage people experience. That source is most often rooted in the Continue reading →

Workplace Sexual Misconduct Prompts Rapid Change

November 10, 2017

It’s about time. The rapidly multiplying accusations of sexual harassment, nonconsensual sex and assault have caught the attention of business leaders. Better late than never, one must say.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Carol Hymowitz describes the rapid shifts in corporate behavior:

The wave of misconduct allegations has abruptly shifted the climate in American workplaces, prompting companies to scrutinize how employees work with one another, in one of the most rapid changes in corporate behavior in generations.

‘This is a moment where people will not turn their heads when something is wrong,’ says Pamela Craig, a former Accenture PLC finance chief who sits on the boards of Merck & Co. and Akamai Technologies Inc. and is foundation chair at C200, a women’s leadership organization. ‘We need to make it a watershed.’

More reports of workplace sexual harassment have emerged from individual women and men, and from news accounts and companies. As accusations pile up, they are sparking public and private workplace conversations about how men and women work together, and how companies deal with same-sex harassment. Managers describe a clear epochal shift: Before Weinstein to After Weinstein.

Click here for the full Wall Street Journal report.

Leaders with a Moral Purpose Have More Engaged, Productive Workers

July 5, 2017

Having a sense of purpose in your life is often subsumed to the more “important” things – like advancing your career, finding the right relationship, or acquiring more material goods – the “bling” of having really “made it” in life. Right? But consider this: What enables you to know what’s worth going after in the external, outer world – and what’s not and ultimately harmful – is an internal sense of purpose. Knowing what you’re really living for. Your moral purpose, for being alive on this planet, at this historical moment you happen to be living within. And that includes your impact on the larger society and future generations as well, in recognition that you are one link in a long chain of beings who came before you and who will come after you are no longer here.

The consequences of ignoring your moral purpose – or developing an unhealthy, unconscious purpose — are legion in our society: rampant dysfunction and unhappiness in individual relationships, in the rise of self-centered, destructive political and policy aims, and in the products and services provided by today’s organizations and businesses.

A new study shows the direct connection in that latter realm, the workplace. It finds that leaders who have a moral purpose in their leadership vision and actions have employees who are more highly engaged — productive, collaborative, and experience greater enjoyment in their work and organizations. Contrast that with the large numbers of workers who report feeling depressed, significant stress, and even hatred of their work, their workplace, and their bosses.

This new study, described in a report from British researchers, emphasizes the need for what they call ‘purposeful leadership’ for the modern workplace. They find that When modern managers display ‘purposeful’ behaviors, employees are less likely to quit, more satisfied, willing to go the extra mile, better performers and less cynical,

Lead researcher Catherine Bailey says in a summary of the report, “Our study shows that the modern workplace is as much a battle for hearts and minds as it is one of rules and duties.”

“People increasingly expect an organizational purpose that goes beyond a mere focus on the bottom line, beyond the kind of short-term, financial imperatives that are blamed by many for causing the 2008 recession. In turn, they respond to leaders who care not just about themselves but wider society, who have strong morals and ethics, and who behave with purpose.”

Laura Harrison, author of the report, adds, “Much has been discussed about the critical nature of invoking and ‘living’ purpose in an organization, but little around the alignment of this purpose to the internal, perhaps hidden, moral compass of an organization’s leaders. The challenge now is how we enable and support the development of leaders that people actually want to follow.”

The researchers suggest that there is much that organizations can do to foster purposeful and ethical leadership, including the adoption of relevant policies, leader role-modeling, alignment around a core vision, training and development, and organizational culture.

Credit: Pexels

Trump’s Election Makes Men More Aggressive, Research Shows

April 11, 2017

A new study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business finds that the emboldening of the extreme right that helped Donald Trump win the presidency has altered social norms. Part of that shift reflects an increase in men acting more aggressively toward women.

To explain, the researchers noted that such groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center have found an uptick of hate crimes and harassment taking place across the country. The rise of such incidents led Wharton researchers to examine whether a dimension of that might be found in differences in communications styles of men and women; for example, if their negotiation tactics changed – both before and after the election – depending on which gender they interact with.

Their experiments found a striking result: Post-election, male study participants were less cooperative, more likely to use adversarial strategies and less likely to reach an agreement with a partner. “We didn’t know Trump was going to be elected; we didn’t set out to study Trump’s election,” according to lead researcher Corinne Low. “We had the [lab experiment] sessions on the calendar already, and post-election, we looked at the data and saw that people’s behavior was profoundly different.”

“It appears that whatever Trump represents – that rhetorical style, that presence – seems to have consequences for other people’s behaviors.” Before the election, men were less likely to use aggressive negotiation tactics when they knew their partner was a woman – a pattern that could be classified as chivalry or a kind of “benevolent sexism,” Low says. “This tells us that if women’s outcomes are dependent on men’s whims, those whims could change. We could see the turning of the tide, and suddenly men are more aggressive.”

The experiments involved playing a “Battle of the Sexes” game in which men and women had to divide $20 with a partner. In some cases, participants were told the gender of their partner; in other cases, that information wasn’t provided. Each round had only two options for splitting the money: One partner would get $15 and the other would get $5, or vice versa; or, if they couldn’t agree, both would walk away with zero.

The researchers pointed out that previous studies suggest that political and world events can affect people’s behavior, including their displays of generosity, cooperation and fairness. “It appears that whatever Trump represents – that rhetorical style, that presence – seems to have consequences for other people’s behaviors,” Low says.

Many human rights and social justice groups have observed a spike in anti-Semitism and hate crimes following the election. “That’s anecdotal evidence that words matter,” Low says, “and what we have is lab evidence that this matters.”

Credit: Wisegeek

What Prevents Taking Work Stress Home With You?

February 14, 2017

I think this new study is useful, per se, but it contains a glaring, most significant omission. And that’s often typical of academic research that ignores the reality of everyday experience. To explain, researchers at the University of Central Florida found that exercise and sleep are keys to keeping employees from bringing work stress and frustrations home.

The study, reported in this summary from the University, looked in particular at abusive behavior at home. They found that those who engaged in more walking at work, and had more sleep, were less likely to behave abusively at home. That is, according to researcher Shannon Taylor, “…employees who are mistreated at work are likely to engage in similar behaviors at home. If they’ve been belittled or insulted by a supervisor, they tend to vent their frustration on members of their household. Our study shows that happens because they’re too tired to regulate their behavior.”

Well, yes. Exercise and sleep help everyone.

But as a solution, that finding deals with a symptom, not the source. It ignores the primary sources of most employee distress and dissatisfaction to begin with: A management culture that’s outright abusive, psychologically unhealthy, unsupportive of career development, too limiting of opportunities for continued learning, and a host of other management and organizational issues. I’ve written a great deal about the impact of an unhealthy management and leadership culture upon people’s workplace experience; and their role in a range of emotional and physical ailments that people experience as a consequence.

Moreover, the current study was conducted with MBA students – a population whose work experiences are not the same as entry level, mid-level or senior career workers. So the researchers’ conclusions — “burning an additional 587 calories can reduce the harmful effects of mistreatment and help prevent it from carrying into the home…(by,for example) with an hour of swimming or a brisk 90-minute walk” — are healthy practices, certainly. But they don’t address the fact that healthy organizations will help people experience a more positive, supportive, and meaningful career and work experience to begin with.

The research was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Credit: NIU Newsroom

High-Stress Job? Beware: An Early Death Is More Likely

November 15, 2016

A new study from Indiana University has found that people who are in high-stress jobs, and who typically have little control over their work — its flow, time-frame and impact – are more likely to die younger or have poorer health. compared with people who have more power and decision- making autonomy.

According to this news release from the Kelley School of Business, previous academic research has found that having greater control over your job can help you manage work-related stress. But it’s never suggested that it was a matter of life and death — until now.

The study, published in Personnel Psychology, used a longitudinal sample of 2,363 Wisconsin residents in their 60s over a seven-year period. The researchers found that for individuals in low-control jobs, high job demands are associated with a 15.4 percent increase in the likelihood of death, compared to low job demands. For those in high-control jobs, high job demands are associated with a 34 percent decrease in the likelihood of death compared to low job demands.

According to lead author Erik Gonzalez-Mulé, “We explored job demands, or the amount of work, time pressure and concentration demands of a job, and job control, or the amount of discretion one has over making decisions at work, as joint predictors of death. These findings suggest that stressful jobs have clear negative consequences for employee health when paired with low freedom in decision-making, while stressful jobs can actually be beneficial to employee health if also paired with freedom in decision-making.”

And, he added, “When you don’t have the necessary resources to deal with a demanding job, you…might eat more, you might smoke, you might engage in some of these things to cope with it.”

Credit: Interrete

Bad Jobs Hurt Your Mental Health By The Time You’re 40

September 13, 2016

No surprise, here: Yet another study has demonstrated that unengaging, insufficiently meaningful work — and the overall work culture — has negative impact upon mental health. And, it’s apparent by the time you’re 40.

This new research found that debilitating work experiences in your 20s and 30s have an accumulated negative impact on your mental health by the time you’re into your 40s. And that continues on, needless to say. The research found that people who were unhappy with their work early in their careers became more depressed, worried, and had more trouble sleeping.

Of course, many previous studies have shown that the majority of people are unhappy with their work – even hate it. For example, a 2014 survey by the Conference Board. But oddly — despite all the research and clinical evidence that debilitating work and unhealthy management impacts your mental health in increasingly harmful ways over time – those mental health consequences continue to be overlooked or ignored.

This new study was conducted by Ohio State researchers. It investigated the long-term health effects of job satisfaction, or lack of it, earlier in people’s careers. It analyzed data from longitudinal surveys of nearly 6500 American workers, in which people rated their level of satisfaction with their work.

According to the findings, described in this report from Ohio State, all participants reported a number of health issues after they reached the age of 40. Specifically, those people who expressed the lowest job satisfaction over the years reported much higher levels of depression, sleep problems, and excessive worry; as well as scoring lower on traditional mental health measures.

Moreover, those who initially reported high job satisfaction, but then had a downward trend, were more likely than the consistently satisfied group to report trouble sleeping, excessive worry, and symptoms of psychiatric conditions And among those who had low job satisfaction, their mental health was more affected than their physical health.

As one of the researchers, Hui Zheng, pointed out, however, “The higher levels of mental health problems for those with low job satisfaction may be a precursor to future physical problems. Increased anxiety and depression could lead to cardiovascular or other health problems that won’t show up until they are older.” Zheng added that a person does not have to be at the end of their career to see the health impacts of job satisfaction on mental health: the study participants were examined while in their 40s. Overall, “We found that there is a cumulative effect of job satisfaction on health that appears as early as your 40s,” said lead author Jonathan Dirlam.

Credit: CPD Archive

Music While You Work Increases Teamwork

August 30, 2016

So turn up the volume! A new study finds that playing music while people are working actually increases cooperation and teamwork. A series of experiments conducted by Cornell University found that music has an impact on the cooperative attitudes among workers.

According to a summary of the research, the question arose from the observation that “From casual acoustic melodies at the coffee shop to throbbing electronic beats at teen clothing outlets, music is used to mold customer experience and behavior.” The researchers wondered what impact it might have on employees? So they conducted two studies to test the effect of different types of music on the cooperative behavior of individuals working as a team.

The researchers, Kevin Kniffin, Jubo Yan, Brian Wansink and William Schulzer, published their findings in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, described in this summary from Cornell:

For each study, participants were grouped into teams of three. Each team member was given multiple opportunities to either contribute to the team’s value using tokens or keep the tokens for personal use.

When happy, upbeat music was played – researchers chose the “Happy Days” theme song, “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison, “Yellow Submarine” by the Beatles and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves – team members were more likely to contribute to the group’s value. When music deemed unpleasant was played – in this case, heavy metal songs by less than well-known bands – participants were more likely to keep tokens for themselves. The researchers found contribution levels to the public good when happy, upbeat songs were played were approximately one-third higher compared to the less pleasant music. Continue reading →

Is Your Coworker Struggling With Depression?

May 3, 2016

Here’s an informative article by Martha C. White, from Money. It quotes me a few times, especially about my emphasis on how the management and workplace culture can create emotional conflict for people, independent of what they be bringing to the workplace from their personal lives, outside of work.

The article follows:

The recent sad news that a young Apple employee was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the company’s headquarters raises an important, if troubling, question: Would you know what to do if you suspected a coworker might be dangerously depressed?

Of course, if there is the threat of violence to themselves or others, calling 911 or contacting company security is the way to go—you shouldn’t put yourself in danger. But before a troubled person reaches that breaking point, mental health experts say they often tip their hand, indicating in ways that seem clear in hindsight that they were wrestling with depression.

The Warning Signs

Many of us see our coworkers more hours in a week than we see our own family members, which means we are in a unique position to detect a shift in a colleague’s mental state.

“It’s always a difficult issue, yet most coworkers can tell if something seems wrong or off in a colleague’s demeanor,” said Douglas LaBier, a business psychologist and the director of the Center for Progressive Development in Washington, D.C.

While saying things like they want to die, feel completely alone, or have nobody who cares about them are obvious indications of a troubled mental state, most people who struggle with depression in the workplace express their distress more subtly than that, noted Edward Yost, a human resources executive with the Society for Human Resource Management. More general feelings of being helpless or trapped, especially if expressed frequently, are more likely to be the kind of comments a coworker might express to another, he said.

Two hallmarks of depression that go hand in hand are isolation and withdrawal, said Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute. The isolation may be self-imposed or may be a result of being shut out of workplace cliques.

People who are depressed may withdraw from others and distance themselves from social interaction, Namie said, and because many people with depression are good at masking their feelings of self-negativity, a colleague may brush off a sudden disappearance from team lunches or department happy hours by blaming an increased workload or other job-related obligations.

For a conscientious coworker, those claims should be carefully considered, because there are two possibilities here, neither of which is great news from a mental health perspective. The first is that he or she is using work as an excuse to pull away from others. The second is that the person actually is overloaded with work all the time.

“Many become depressed and demoralized not just by personal issues outside of work, but by the management culture at work,” LaBier said. Whether the reason is a conflict with the boss or other management, no opportunity for advancement, or a sense of stagnation, “Feelings of being stuck and trapped result—which will cause emotional problems,” he said. Continue reading →

Covert Sexism in the Workplace: As Harmful as Overt Behavior?

March 15, 2016

It’s pretty clear that our workplaces are steadily evolving towards environments of greater equality. That is, organizations in which men and women are valued, recognized and rewarded for the capacities most crucial to an organization’s success. For example, the ability to work collaboratively, particularly with others who differ from oneself — whether because of gender, cultural and ethnic backgrounds; or sexual orientation.

This is an ongoing, gradual transformation, however, with many subtle obstacles rooted in personal and institutional prejudices and barriers. So it’s important to document and raise awareness about attitudes and behavior that continue to undermine individuals and teams in organizations. One current example is revealed in this study that examined hidden sexism in the workplace. It found that that frequent sexist comments as well as a management culture that covertly demeans women are just as damaging to women as overt acts of sexual coercion, sexually-tinged conduct or sexist behavior towards them.

Such hidden, embedded sexism, according to the research published in The Psychology of Women Quarterly, may go unnoticed. That is, “Norms, leadership, or policies that reduce intense harmful experiences may lead managers to believe that they have solved the problem of maltreatment of women in the workplace,”according to the authors. Continue reading →

Are You ‘Checked-Out’ On the Job? Here’s Why

February 16, 2016

You may have heard about the Spanish man who was found to have not reported for work for six years, and no one noticed — although he continued to be paid. When finally discovered, he claimed that when he did go to work, he had nothing to do.

That may be an extreme example, but many people today are turned-off by their jobs in less visible ways. They become pretty disengaged from work – either mentally checking out, or in actual behavior if they can – like faking doing work, or skipping out to go to a movie. Surveys find disengagement as high as 70% of American workers. It’s no surprise that nearly every day a new survey pops up about how much people dislike their jobs and their management. The reasons typically include severe, unrelenting stress from too many demands and too few resources or rewards, such as cited in a poll of 7000 people. Both stress and just tuning out are often rooted in debilitating, undermining management behavior and workplace culture. For example, a survey of 2,000 workers found that 47 percent said their managers made them feel threatened, rather than rewarded, and 24 percent thought their bosses were poor communicators, lacking empathy.

Three Sources of Boredom and Disengagement

But I find three additional, often overlooked reasons why employees tune out or disconnect from their work, and become bored or depressed on the job:

Too Much Mismatch – This occurs when you start to realize that “I just don’t belong here.” An example is a woman working in financial services who described to me an increasing mismatch Continue reading →

To Get More Creative, Become Less Productive

February 2, 2016

A recent Harvard Business Review article by Art Markman highlights the value of subverting your usual way of thinking and doing, in order to enhance creativity at work. I’ve seen this borne out in the experiences of those who’ve tried stepping out of their comfort zone, outside of their usual “box;” and become more of an “outlier” in their approach to solving problems or dealing with new challenges,

Markman writes:

There is a fundamental tension between productivity and creativity, and managers won’t get more of the latter until they recognize it. Productive people move through the tasks they have to accomplish in a systematic way. They make steady and measurable progress toward their goals. They make effective and efficient use of their time.

Creativity… doesn’t. Creativity needs time and space to grow. Although we can systematically engage in activities that are related to creativity, it is hard to systematize creativity itself. In particular, creativity is fundamentally about knowledge. Nearly all creative ideas involve people finding new uses for existing knowledge – some novel configuration of old insights. James Dyson developed his vacuum by drawing a parallel to sawmills. Fiona Fairhurst designed a faster swimsuit by understanding shark skin. George de Mestral invented Velcro by understanding cockleburs.

That means people need to have the time to learn things that are not obviously relevant to their jobs, so that they will have a broad and deep knowledge base to draw from when they need to be creative. Moreover, creative enterprises rarely involve steady and measurable progress. Instead, being creative involves trying lots of different possibilities, struggling down several blind alleys before finding the right solution. Continue reading →

Are You Emotionally Connected With Your Work? Does It Matter?

December 15, 2015

Some new research about workplace behavior caught my attention recently. It highlights — by omission — the important link between an organization’s management culture and the psychological experience of working within it. That’s a link that needs to be examined, but often isn’t; and this study illustrates that gap. It found that people who report feeling emotionally engaged and connected with their work and their organizations also experience greater psychological well-being.

That finding may sound obvious, though it’s always good to have empirical data confirm the obvious. In this case, it shows that if you’re among the fortunate ones who feel engaged and positive about your work and management, you’re likely to experience a greater sense of wellbeing. The problem is, most people aren’t so fortunate, as surveys repeatedly show. But this study does expose important questions, raised by its own findings:

What, exactly, promotes a sense of emotional connection with your work to begin with? And how might that increase your overall sense of well-being?

First, let’s look at the study, conducted in Denmark and published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. It examined the well-being and other health-related outcomes in 5,000 Danish workers. Among employees in various workgroups the study found significantly higher well-being concerning “the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization.” Those employees also had lower sickness absence rates and fewer sleep disturbances.

The lead author, Thomas Clausen, suggests that efforts to increase emotional connection with work may lead to a happier, healthier workforce. Of course. That makes good sense, and most companies would likely agree. The problem is that a positive sense of connection with work requires several conditions and factors that organizational leadership often fails to recognize or address. Among the most important are, in my view:

Does senior leadership promote a positive work culture, in which workers are valued and provided opportunities for continued learning and development?

Is diversity encouraged and valued in practice, not just in company mission statements?

Is there a workaholic and/or sexist management culture permeating the organization?

Perhaps most importantly, do employees experience a sense of impact their work has upon the product or service the company provides? The latter appears increasingly important to younger workers, as surveys show.

I’ve written about these issues previously, and they are crucial for long-term, sustainable success within today’s environment – one of increasing interconnection, transparency and constant flux; of rapid technology change and generational shift regarding values, life goals; and how people are redefining personal and career success.

Credit: Lionbridge

A version of this article previously appeared in The Huffington Post.

Actions That Benefit Others — Not Just Oneself — Lead to More Effective Work Teams

December 1, 2015

Although we’re seeing political and cultural calls for policies that advocate self-interest; and social-political positions that ignore or deny evidence of continuing global interdependence, the reality on the ground tells a different story: There, we find data that positive benefits for individuals, business and society accrue from serving the common good; actions that support the benefit of others enhance all, including oneself.

A recent study from Notre Dame and the University of Illinois is a good example. The research, published in the Academy of Management Journal, found that when members of a work team are supported and motivated to benefit others, those teams are higher performing. Moreover, its members remain in their teams for longer periods.

The study examined 67 work teams from both the U.S. and China, as well as 124 student teams at Notre Dame. According to lead researcher Jasmine Hu, “Findings from both the field study and lab research showed that the greater motivation to benefit others, the higher the levels of cooperation and viability and the higher the subsequent team performance.”

She added, “These types of teams were also less likely to have members voluntarily leave their teams. Furthermore, we discovered that these positive effects of team motivation to benefit others were stronger the more the tasks required close interaction and higher interdependence among its members.”

The researchers concluded that the research provided evidence for the importance of management practices that enhance motivation to benefit others. That, in turn, increases the collaboration and cooperation necessary for high-performing teams. It produces “…higher performance, more organizational citizenship behavior, and (members) stay in their teams for a longer period,” Hu said. Moreover, “The highest level of team effectiveness was achieved when team motivation to benefit others and the interdependence of tasks among team members were both high.”

In my view, this study’s findings emphasize the key management role of building and supporting positive relationships among team members. The latter is interwoven with and dependent upon positive management and leadership behavior. That is, by demonstrating belief in and commitment to collaboration and support for individual growth and development at the same time.

Credit: jps, inc

Feeling Emotionally Connected To Work Is Linked With Greater Psychological Wellbeing…But Why?

November 3, 2015

I came across this new research finding that people who feel emotionally engaged and connected with their work experience greater psychological wellbeing. That may sound obvious, though it’s good whenever empirical data confirms the obvious. But I think the missing piece in the research is what, exactly, promotes that sense of emotional connection with your work to begin with?

This study from Denmark, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, examined the well-being and other health-related outcomes in 5,000 Danish workers. It found significantly higher well-being for employees in workgroups with “the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization.” They also had lower sickness absence rates and fewer sleep disturbances.

The lead author, Thomas Clausen, suggests that efforts to increase emotional connection with work may lead to a happier, healthier workforce. This makes sense, of course. Most companies would likely agree. The problem is that sense of connection with work reflects many factors that organizational leadership often fails to recognize or address. For example:

Does senior leadership promote a positive work culture, in which workers are valued and provided opportunities for continued learning and development?
Is diversity encouraged and valued in practice, not just in company mission statements?
Is there a workaholic and/or sexist management culture permeating the organization?
Perhaps most importantly, do employees experience a sense of impact their work has upon the product or service the company provides? The latter appears increasingly important to younger workers, as surveys show.

I’ve written about these issues previously, and they are crucial for long-term, sustainable success within our culture of increasing interconnection, transparency and constant flux; of rapid technology change and generational shift regarding values, life goals, and how people re-define personal and career success.

Credit: Forbes

How Can You Deal With An Abusive Boss?

October 20, 2015

I’ve written previously about abusive bosses and psychologically unhealthy management in general, and I’m revisiting it a bit here, because of a new study that highlights the difficulty people have when dealing with this kine of management environment. And not just employees: sometimes researchers themselves have a naive understanding of the problem.

That is, some recent research about employees who deal with abusive bosses shows that a well-intentioned study of workplace behavior can produce findings that confound the researchers’ predictions. This research found one unsurprising result; but another part of the findings – which puzzled the researchers — is what caught my eye.

To explain, the research surveyed the ways in which employees behave when working for abusive bosses. Those are often people who are narcissistic, denigrating, arrogant and unsupportive — or outright undermining — of employee’s learning and development.

The unsurprising part of the findings was that just trying to avoid the abusive boss or plotting ways to retaliate didn’t work. That made things worse for the employee, according to the study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and summarized by Jena McGregor in the Washington Post.

Rather, the other set of findings is what got my attention. Here, the researchers predicted that “acts of compassion and empathy — employees who assist bad bosses by going above and beyond, helping bosses with heavy workloads even when they’re not asked” would lead to diminished abuse by those bosses. And, that “acts of kindness might help lessen future rude or abusive behavior.”

The researchers were surprised to discover that it didn’t happen. Instead, according to the study’s co-author Charlice Hurst, “Abusive supervisors didn’t respond to followers being positive and compassionate, and doing things to be supportive and helpful.” The researchers concluded that their findings seemed to “clash with common sense.”

Really? I think most anyone who’s ever worked for abusive bosses would laugh at such “common sense” assumptions. No, trying to be “nice” or empathic towards the narcissistic, arrogant boss who often makes conflicting demands on employees isn’t going to produce positive change. Continue reading →

Covert Sexism In The Workplace Is As Harmful As Overt Behavior

October 6, 2015

Our workplaces are steadily evolving towards environments in which men and women are valued, recognized and rewarded for their ability to work collaboratively with others who differ from them – whether gender, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, or sexual orientation. It’s a gradual process, however, and it’s important to document and raise awareness of the attitudes and behavior that continue to undermine individuals and teams in organizations. A current example is this study: It found that that frequent sexist comments and management cultures that are covertly demeaning to women are just as damaging to women as acts of sexual coercion or overtly sexual conduct and behavior towards them.

The research, published in The Psychology of Women Quarterly, found that “Norms, leadership, or policies, that reduce intense harmful experiences may lead managers to believe that they have solved the problem of maltreatment of women in the workplace,” according to the authors. “However, the more frequent, less intense, and often unchallenged gender harassment, sexist discrimination, sexist organizational climate and organizational tolerance for sexual harassment appeared at least as detrimental for women’s wellbeing. They should not be considered lesser forms of sexism.” The research team analyzed 88 independent studies of a combined 73,877 working women, and found following associations:

Sexism and gender harassment were just as harmful to working women’s individual health and work attitudes as common job stressors such as work overload and poor working conditions.
When women are the targets of sexism and harassment in the workplace, they are more dissatisfied with supervisors than co-workers.
There was a trend of a more negative effect of sexism and harassment in male-dominated workplaces, such as the armed forces and financial and legal services firms. However, the authors suggested this required further research.

The authors added, “Our results suggest that organizations should have zero tolerance for low intensity sexism, the same way they do for overt harassment. This will require teaching workers about the harmful nature of low intensity sexist events, not only for women, but also for the overall organizational climate.”

Credit: Aiste Miseviciute/Alamy

Men Are More Threatened By Female Bosses

July 21, 2015

As the French saying goes, the more things change…

New research finds that men may feel threatened by female supervisors and act more assertively toward them than male bosses, which could disrupt the workplace with struggles over power dynamics. According to the study’s lead author, Ekaterina Netchaeva, of Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, “The concept of masculinity is becoming more elusive in society as gender roles blur, with more women taking management positions and becoming the major breadwinners for their families. “Even men who support gender equality may see these advances as a threat to their masculinity, whether they consciously acknowledge it or not.”

The study, conducted with participants at U.S. universities, found, in essence, that men feel more threatened when they answer to female bosses.

Published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the study pointed out that — while women are underrepresented in senior management positions in the United States — they are almost on par with men at middle and lower management levels, according to Labor Department statistics. Self-assertive behavior by men toward female bosses could disrupt the workplace dynamics, stifle team cohesiveness and negatively affect team performance, Netchaeva said. “In an ideal world, men and organizations would be concerned by these findings and adjust their behavior accordingly. But if they don’t, where does that leave women?” she said. “Given the strong societal norms surrounding masculinity, it may be difficult for men to recognize or change their behavior.”

For a description of how the studies were conducted, click here.

Credit: CPD Archive

Bosses Who Serve Their Employees Have Better Business Outcomes

July 7, 2015

A recent study has found that when bosses put employees’ needs over their own, measurable improvements result: in customer satisfaction, higher job performance by employees, and lower turnover are the result. According to the researchers, this type of leadership suggests that if businesses lead by caring for their people, the profits will take care of themselves.

Although this study focused on a service-oriented business, I think its implications highlight something broader: The findings mirror growing recognition by organizations, by individuals in relationships and throughout society in general that positive, supportive engagement with others — in which you serve something of value and importance to all of you, and not just your own narrow self-interest – creates positive benefits for everyone. And that’s really a core feature of a healthy society – one in which people’s attitudes, values and behavior adapt positively to continuous change; to the growing diversity and interconnection among people. Such adaptation promotes positive outcomes for all. Business leadership, as this and many other studies show, increasingly recognizes that reality. But it also applies to intimate and family relationships; and has implications for public policy, as well.

This particular study adds another bit of evidence in the business realm. For example, it found that when bosses act as servants to their employees, it’s good for business. The research found measurable increases in key business metrics like job performance, customer service and employee retention. That is, employees feel the most valued and give back to the company and its customers when their bosses create a culture of trust, caring, cooperation, fairness and empathy. According to Sandy Wayne, one of the authors of the research, “The best business leadership style is far from, ‘Do this. Don’t do that.’ A servant leader looks and sounds a lot more like, ‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’ Or, ‘Let me help you….’ Or, ‘What do you need to…?’ This approach helps employees reach their full potential.”

The corresponding admiration employees have for bosses who care about them manifests itself in teamwork, loyalty and dedication to the business and its customers. The leadership style trickles down. Wayne said, “It’s contagious. The employees see their leaders as role models and often mimic those qualities, creating a culture of servant leadership. This serving culture drives the effectiveness of the business as a whole.”

The need for management cultures that recognize and support this kind of leadership is highlighted when you consider the frequent surveys that show ongoing work-related stress, often associated with negative or unsupportive leadership. One current example is a survey of over 2000 people. It found that the majority of workers feel overworked, and that burnout appears to have become the new normal.

And that’s a prescription for an unhealthy workforce and society.

Credit: ASTD

Women Leaders Have Greater Workplace Stress

May 26, 2015

This isn’t surprising, for two reasons: One is that men are socially conditioned to internalize stress. They deny it consciously while expressing it via physical illness and/or psychiatric symptoms that they don’t recognize; or, they seek relief through alcohol, drugs or other kinds of escapism. The other reason is that women are conditioned more towards experiencing and expressing emotional experience, in general. So their stressful workplace experiences — which are often related to men’s denigration of their leadership roles — tend to be more visible.

A recent conference on women’s leadership, reported in Financial Times by Charles Wallace, describes several examples of the ways in which women leaders face workplace stress in organizations today. He writes, “An increasing amount of attention is being paid to the troubling fact that women in the workplace, especially in management or leadership roles, report being stressed out more often than men,” and “… despite recent strides in equality in the office, women experience a lot more stress than men.”

One reason, frequently cited, is what I referred to above. For example, Errica Moustaki, executive coach at Careers in Depth, a London executive development firm, explained that “women may express stress in psychological or behavioral ways, while men bottle up feelings and have more heart attacks and strokes.” And, that many women executives “experience stressful work situations because of a constant sense of having their confidence undermined by men. Women have to continuously prove themselves in the workplace.”

Despite strides towards more inclusiveness and integration of women into leadership roles, the context of the organization’s culture, especially as it’s shaped by men’s view of women in these roles, is key. It continues to generate stress for women as they rise up in senior level positions.

For the full Financial Times report on the conference and some of its other presentations, click here.
Credit: Highwaymail

The Fake Workaholic

May 12, 2015

This recent article by New York Times writer Neil Irwin caught my attention: He describes a study of the workaholic culture within one large consulting company. The study, from Boston University, found that “Some of the people ostensibly turning in those 80- or 90-hour workweeks, particularly men, may just be faking it.” The findings were based on just that one company, but it does raise the possibility that workers in other companies that promote — or require — a workaholic culture may also be publicly pretending to embrace the long hours regimen.

But to me, these findings raise, implicitly, a deeper problem: Our career and organizational cultures require men and women to adapt and embrace a view of “success” defined by steady, singular pursuit of position, power and financial reward — via workaholic behavior. That, despite substantial evidence that the latter leads to diminished productivity, innovation and employee commitment; despite the pervasive stress among employees, which underlie a wide range of illness — emotional and physical; and despite — no surprise — surveys that show tremendous employee dislike, dissatisfaction and conflict with the culture and management of their organizations. Irwin alludes to an aspect of this at the end of his article, writing, “Maybe it’s that too many companies reward the wrong things, favoring the illusion of extraordinary effort over actual productivity.”

Interestingly, the study found that people who were “passing” as workaholics “…received performance reviews that were as strong as their hyper-ambitious colleagues. For people who were good at faking it, there was no real damage done by their lighter workloads.” Moreover, “…women, particularly those with young children, were much more likely to request greater flexibility through more formal means, such as returning from maternity leave with an explicitly reduced schedule. Men who requested a paternity leave seemed to be punished come review time, and so may have felt more need to take time to spend with their families through those unofficial methods.”

Those additional findings highlight the deeper, pervasive theme I raised above: Our cultural norm that equates a successful adult life with embracing a workaholic and psychologically unhealthy workplace culture has ongoing destructive impact –to individuals, but also to the long-term viability of organizations in this fast-evolving era of rapid change and the rise of younger generations and their view of work, life, and what they are seeking in both realms.

For Irwin’s full article, click here.

Credit: Peter Arkle

Look Over Your Shoulder: Generation Z is Rising!

March 31, 2015

“These children are so mature and they learn so fast, they might just be ready to take over by the time they’re 22.”

Generation X and the aging baby boomers often have trouble understanding and dealing with the millennials. But now, Alexandra Levit’s article in the New York Times calls attention to the rise of Generation Z. Take note, in case you forgot: Everyone grows up and everyone becomes older. Levit writes, “While executives have been fretting over the millennials, though, a new generation is growing up behind the scenes — Generation Z (born starting in the mid-90s to the early ’00s depending on whom you ask). Within the next three years, Gen Zers will be the college grads in my audiences, and they are poised to be somewhat different from the millennials.” Moreover, “These children are so mature and they learn so fast, they might just be ready to take over by the time they’re 22.”

Levit describes her own encounter with them and, more seriously, points out some of their attitudes, values and behavior regarding work, diversity, and activism on issues that concern them. They are the future, and the older generations would do well to pay attention to them — and maybe even learn something from them. She writes:

I recall the exact moment the temperature changed in the workplace. It was 2005, and I was speaking to an audience of 100 young professionals. I was relating my experiences building a career as a Gen Xer (born 1964-79) in a world of traditionalists (born before 1945) and baby boomers (born 1946-63).

Every time I threw out phrases like “paying your dues” and “playing the game,” the audience stared at me blankly. This was not the reaction I had come to expect from early twentysomethings. Usually they took notes on how they could get ahead in corporate America as quickly as possible. Continue reading →

How a Leader’s Power Can Undermine the Company’s Success

January 27, 2015

The role and impact of power in an organization is complex. It’s highly interwoven with the attitudes and personality of people who have achieved power and status within their organizations, and how they express it. Recent studies show that some bosses use the power of their positions in ways that damage their teams and the organization. They may be driven by socially conditioned, conventional attitudes about power and ego; or by more outright psychopathology.

On the more benign end of the spectrum are the findings from a study lead by researchers at Columbia University’s Business School. It found that the more power-lusting, power-fixated leader tends to listen to his or her own views, but neglects to take into account the perspectives of subordinates. And that has consequences for business strategy and decisions. Published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, the research found that when leaders fail to take into account or utilize the perspectives of their people, they are more likely to “bungle the issue and conversation.” That, in turn, results in less effective solutions to complex business problems that the team is facing. In short, less wise decision-making.

According to the study’s lead author, Adam Galinsky, leaders who are able to see the world from others’ points of view produce better outcomes. “Effective leadership is like a successful car ride. To go places, you need gas and acceleration — power is a psychological accelerator. But you also need a good steering wheel so you don’t crash as you speed down the highway — perspective-taking is that psychological steering wheel. When you anchor too heavily onto your own perspective, and don’t take into account the viewpoints of others you are bound to crash.”

Galinsky’s findings are especially visible among leaders who Continue reading →

Abusive Leadership Continues to Harm Employees and Organizations

November 11, 2014

As if this needed more confirmation, there’s increasing evidence that an unhealthy management culture harms efforts to create a well-functioning team. For example, a new study from Michigan State University finds that abusive managers create tremendous conflict for work teams and damage productivity, not to mention morale and commitment.

I’ve often written about the need to understand unhealthy leadership within the larger context of a company’s management culture — not just as an issue of individual leaders’ personalities or pathologies. For example, I’ve described how unhealthy management and an unhealthy leadership culture are intertwined; and ways that subordinates can deal with them.

This new study, conducted in China and the United States, suggests the toxic effect of nonphysical abuse by a supervisor is much broader than believed. Lead investigator Crystal Farh said supervisors who belittle and ridicule workers not only negatively affect those workers’ attitudes and behaviors, but also cause team members to act in a similar hostile manner toward one another. “That’s the most disturbing finding,” Farh said, “because it’s not just about individual victims now, it’s about creating a context where everybody suffers, regardless of whether you were individually abused or not.”

Published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the study pointed out that companies have tended to focus on abused employees and efforts restore self-esteem. That matches my own observations, and underscores the need to address how and why abusive and otherwise unhealthy leaders and leadership cultures arise and thrive to begin with.

The study looked at nonphysical abuse such as verbal mistreatment and demeaning emails. Employees who directly experienced such abuse felt devalued and contributed less to the team. At the same time, the entire team “descended into conflicts,” Farh said, which also reduced worker contributions. “Teams characterized by relationship conflict,” Farh said, “are hostile toward other members, mistreat them, speak to them rudely and experience negative emotions toward them.”

Why Insecure Managers Avoid Input From Employees

November 4, 2014

I find it amazing that new research emerges from time to time that “discovers” that ineffective, personally conflicted, psychologically limited managers and leaders have a negative impact on their employees and the organization. This latest is a good example: A study of an international corporation finds that emotionally insecure managers avoid feedback and input from their employees.

Of course, this is no news to employees who often struggle with such managers. Or to those of us who have worked with leaders and managers whose psychological issues negatively affect their impact in the organization. Nevertheless, it’s good to see such research and surveys. They highlight the need to deal with the impact of unhealthy management in general – whether insecurity, poor communication skills, arrogance, narcissism, bullying, and/or generally creating a non-collaborative, unhealthy or destructive management culture.

The current study was reported in the Academy of Management Journal and described in the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, which pointed out that organizations do better when there are clear communication channels that allow staff to point out ways the company can improve. And that teams who freely share ideas and concerns are more tight-knit and motivated. Managers then get enhanced awareness share in the praise for any improvements that pay off. So, the Research Digest explains, encouraging employee voice should be a no-brainer, especially for any manager feeling unsure of their ability to deliver solo. Yet according to new research, these insecure managers are the ones least likely to listen and act on staff input. Continue reading →

Can Distancing Yourself From A Conflict Help A Relationship?

September 30, 2014

By “leaving” a conflict you can gain the expanded perspective needed to solve it. That means stepping out of your limited ego, and some new research shows how that can help.

It’s easy to become rigidly fixed and sclerosed within a view of who you are (“This is just the way I am”) — unable to envision possibilities for expanding your personal capacities, your thinking or emotions — outside of that fixed view. Unfortunately, that disables you from enlarging your perspective, which can be essential for solving conflicts or problems that you feel stuck inside of, unable to change or alter. That’s especially true for solving relationship difficulties.

President Eisenhower once said that if you’re having difficulty understanding a problem and how to solve it, “enlarge” the problem. Certainly that applies to life beyond the battlefield. That is, “enlarging” how you envision the problem or situation you’re stuck within can free yourself from the limitations of the perspective that imprisons you to begin with.

How can you do that? Some new empirical research shows that, in effect, distancing yourself from a problem or conflict enhances your reasoning; it helps you find new solutions through a broadened perspective. And that provides greater wisdom to bring to bear on the conflict. Researchers from the University of Waterloo and the University of Michigan, as reported in Psychological Science, examined “the ability to recognize the limits of one’s own knowledge, search for a compromise, consider the perspectives of others, and recognize the possible ways in which the scenario could unfold. The research found that you may think about a conflict more wisely if you consider it as an outside observer would.” Continue reading →

Less Stress Among Managers With Positive Employee Relationships

September 10, 2014

Many studies in recent years show the connections between positive, collaborative relationships at work; a positive, supportive management culture; and higher levels of creative, productive work. I think the findings of this recent study from Norway of 3000 managers, conducted by researchers at BI Norwegian Business School, add to this knowledge, and are relevant both to managers and those being managed here in the U.S.

The study examined stress among mangers, and found, In essence, that managers who enjoy a good relationship with their employees suffer less dangerous stress at work. “The best thing a manager can do to prevent work stress is to develop good relationships with the employees at work,” concluded lead researcher Astrid M. Richardsen in a summary of the findings.

The research found that more than six out of ten Norwegian managers (61.8 per cent) indicate that they often or all the time experience time pressure or a heavy workload. Fewer than five per cent say they rarely or never have time pressure at work. Most relevant to U.S. organizations is the finding that managers experience significantly less stress when they feel they have a good relationship to their employees, and the employees show a positive conduct and confidence in their managers. That is, according to the research summary, when the employees are happy with what the manager does, understand his or her challenges and participate actively in solving the problems, the manager will have less stress. This will probably be because the manager trusts the employees more and delegates more tasks to them. Hence the work pressure will decrease, Richardsen believes.

Although differences exist between managers and workers in Norway and the U.S. culture regarding work-life stress and organizational pressures, one commonality is the Norwegian finding that managers who feel they have control of their work situation and great freedom to make decisions experience less work pressure and emotional strain. They also suffer considerably less role stress than managers who do not have such control. Most U.S. managers would resonate with that, as well as the finding that Continue reading →

So Much Work, And No Time for Vacation? Here’s Why!

August 12, 2014

Do you work increasingly long hours, maybe even pride yourself on taking little, if any, vacation time? If so, you’re in pretty good company. Some recent surveys confirm – again — that U.S. workers tend to take relatively little vacation time, and they work increasingly longer hours. With more heightened awareness of the damaging effects of work-life “imbalance,” physically and emotionally, one wonders, what maintains this unhealthy way of life for so many?

It’s easy to cite the fact that U.S. companies provide very little paid vacation time as a matter of policy compared with other industrialized nations. We’re the only advanced economy in the world that doesn’t guarantee its workers paid vacation days and paid holidays, says John Schmitt, co-author of a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that, even after 10 years of employment, about 65 percent of workers have less than 2.5 weeks of paid vacation.

But the lack of vacation time provided by employers is both a cause and effect: It reflects something about our social values to begin with. For example, how we define success and personal worth can include taking little time away from work. And that, in turn, is reinforced by company policies. But beneath the surface, psychologically, is often a sense of being trapped in a way of life that one can’t break free from. Or, as one person told me, “I don’t like who I’ve become.”

According to one survey, the median vacation time is 12 days. And 40 percent take a week or less. Yet, the impact of overwork is well-known: Higher levels of stress, which can create both physical illness and emotional conflicts. It fuels marital and family conflicts. In fact, a Gallup survey found that nearly 70 percent who take no vacations at all report that they struggle to balance work and life. And, while another survey found that about 50 percent claim to be satisfied with their work-life balance, 81 percent also said that work-life balance would be a critical factor in deciding whether to accept a new position. Ironically, overwork and little time off leads to less productivity and less effective decision-making, as well as diminished focus and clarity. That’s become worse in today’s world, as recent research shows the cost of being online and available 24/7, thanks to digital technology.

As the saying goes, no one on their deathbed says they wished they had spent more time at the office. So, what propels people to diminish time away from work — even short breaks to recharge and reboot their energy and life balance? We need to look at some of the social and psychological motives that give rise to this paradoxical picture. Here are some that Continue reading →

“Your Money Or Your Life!”

In one of Jack Benny’s classic comedy skits, a robber confronts him, demanding, “Your money or your life!” Benny — in character as a notorious tightwad — pauses for a long moment. The robber shouts his demand one more, with urgency. Finally, Benny says slowly, “I’m thinking it over!”

Many people today are caught up in a real life version of this dilemma. They acknowledge the stress, the physical and psychological perils of our prevailing view of success. The Third Metric movement is raising awareness of this, and surveys continue to document it. But, while most would prefer a more balanced, integrated life, they also feel reluctant or frightened to alter their endless pursuit of money and related measures of success. One of the reasons many keep “thinking it over” is visible in a lament coursing through the lives of many successful careerists: That “I don’t like the person I’ve become,” as one corporate executive expressed it to me.

George is an example. A highly successful executive in his mid 50s, he’s had a solid educational background, a steady career rise, and a functioning though not especially energized marriage, and two children. As he worked with me to deal with chronic anxiety and general malaise in his “always on” life, he awakened to having always “followed the program” in his life. That is, performing well, shaping his values, personality and goals along a path that was laid down and expected by his parents.

George was drawn to public service and journalism when younger, but that wasn’t part of the “program.” He craved Continue reading →

The Orientation of Millennials at Work Highlights a Social Transformation

A recent article in the New York Times by Tom Agan, co-founder and managing partner of Rivia, highlights a significant transformation underway in our culture. Although it’s linked with the rise of the millennials, I think it’s part of a broader shift of mentality, values, outlook on life, and behavior — and will increasingly impact how people conduct their personal relationships, what they seek from their careers, and public policy. Agan’s essay describes how this shift is visible in the workplace; and why embracing it can enhance innovation and creativity, especially when joined with the experience of older workers.

Agan writes, “Social media permeate the personal, academic, political and professional lives of millennials, helping to foster the type of environment where innovation flourishes. So when compared with older generations, millennials learn quickly — and that’s the most important driver of innovation.”

And, “If corporate cultures don’t align with the transparency, free flow of information, and inclusiveness that millennials highly value — and that are also essential for learning and successful innovation — the competitiveness of many established businesses will suffer. Millennials are becoming more aware of their rising worth. Coupling their ability to learn quickly with their insistence on having a say, they pack a powerful punch.” For the complete article, click here.

An example of the innovative and creative energy of this generation is a report in Just Means that a group of Millennials have created an alternative website to HealthCare.gov: Three twenty-something programmers have created a functional website, HealthSherpa.com, that tells consumers what health insurance plans are available, based on their zip code, plan preference, and personal information. Users can find and compare plans and prices, and work with a subsidy calculator. The trio had each tried to get information from the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, but could not. So they built their own site, using data posted on HealthCare.gov and other information requested from state exchanges. Despite its limits (it can not sign up users), HealthSherpa.com has received 1.4 million views; the sites how to buy buttons have been clicked over 150,000 times. It took the group just a few days to build out their minimal but useful site. The federal government should consider outsourcing to West Coast millennials instead of the professionals to get up a working HealthCare.gov.

Take This Job And…Shove It?/Love It?

It may be hard to say, when you see this contradiction: A new survey finds that 90 percent of older workers, and nearly 40 percent of younger workers say they’re satisfied with their work. But many other surveys report high levels of dissatisfaction, stress, unsupportive management and disengagement from work altogether — across age groups.

How to make sense of such divergent findings? Actually, they all make sense when you look at the surveys more closely, in the context of the career and management environments of many organizations. People of different ages, attitudes and desires deal with their workplace environments in different ways, both subtle and overt.

First, the new survey, reported by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research: It found that “9 in 10 workers who are age 50 or older say they are very or somewhat satisfied with their job.” Specifically, 65 percent said they were “very satisfied,” while the remaining 26 percent were just “satisfied.”

The survey did find that nearly 40 percent of younger workers reported dissatisfaction with their jobs. But on the face of it, the findings suggest that the older you get, you become more “satisfied” with your work. Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey, observed that “Older workers generally have already climbed the career ladder, increased their salaries and reached positions where they have greater security, so more satisfaction makes sense.”

These findings may appear puzzling in the face of many other surveys that report high levels of stress, hostile, unsupportive management, and other negative, debilitating experiences that many workers deal with.

My take is that the AP-NORC Center survey unintentionally masked several underlying phenomena. The result was the high level of reported “satisfaction” among all older workers. Some examples: Continue reading →

Are Companies In Tune With Their Own Workers?

It’s clear that we’re in the midst of massive transformations in the business world and the workplace. These transformations are underway, for example, in a rising sense of responsibility to society; recognition of the workplace culture’s contribution to debilitating stress and life imbalance; the impact of the younger generations upon collaboration, innovation, and career goals; and the increasing fluidity and constant external change that impacts all organizations.

Within such flux and change, it can be difficult to assess whether the company you’re working for, or considering joining, is sufficiently in tune with the future. Is it the right mesh between, on the one hand, your own well-being, evolving career goals and personal values; and, on the other, how well the company is positioned to engage and adapt to the business and cultural shifts that will determine it’s future success?

An important question. Especially so, when nearly every week new surveys appear showing how debilitating and disconnected many leadership and management cultures are, in relation to their employees and future business scenarios.

For example, a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. workers for Root Inc., a strategy execution consulting company, examined what workers would like to see change in their companies. “Many surveys tell us there’s something wrong – we know that American workers are unhappy or not engaged, and leaders know they need make adjustments to keep the very best talent,” said Rich Berens, president of Root. “With this research, we wanted to uncover the specifics of where employees really would like to see things be different and how management can take that data and make organizational changes for the better.”

Some of their findings include: Continue reading →

Why Unqualified People Get Selected, Hired and Promoted

If you’ve ever wondered why people make mistakes when hiring someone for a job, or selecting a candidate for university admissions, this new study by Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino and her colleagues sheds some light on why that happens. They call it the “fundamental attribution error” — the tendency to make snap judgments about a person’s innate characteristics, which often prove incorrect.

Published in the journal PLOS One, the study was described in a Harvard Business School publication, “Working Knowledge.” The study asked, “Why do businesses evaluate candidates solely on past job performance, failing to consider the job’s difficulty? Why do university admissions officers focus on high GPAs, discounting influence of easy grading standards?”

The research found that the fundamental attribution error “is so deeply rooted in our decision making that not even highly trained people-evaluators, such as hiring managers and school admissions officers, can defeat its effects. One of the consequences is that you end up admitting people who should not be admitted, and rejecting people who should not be rejected.”

Click here for the full report.

Why Men’s Self-Esteem Drops When Their Romantic Partners Succeed

One of the writer Gore Vidal’s famous bon mots was, Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

Some recent research gives credence to that, at least where men in relationships are concerned. It found that men feel bad about themselves without realizing it when their romantic partner succeeds or excels at something. Even worse, if the man fails or performs less than his partner on the same task or goal, his self-esteem drops even lower. Yet women feel no worse about themselves in the reverse situation.

I was reflecting on this and a couple of other seemingly unrelated research studies, that strike me as illuminating hidden themes. One theme is that higher status and material success are associated with attitudes of entitlement and narcissism, but with a positive caveat. The other theme is that couples who drift into power struggles secretly long for mutuality and collaboration.

Taken together, I think these findings indirectly reveal a significant upheaval and transformation underway, regarding what men have traditionally learned to define as “manhood” and “success” in our culture. In effect, their implications constitute a harbinger to us males — an unraveling of the traditional definition of “maleness,” or the values and behavior that have defined being a successful male at work, in intimate relationships and in society.

That is, I think we’re experiencing Continue reading →

Great Companies Will Add Value More Than Extract It

An insightful article in the New York Times by Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project, highlights the fact that many of the highly touted business consultants and authors — who describe high performing companies and why they will remain so — are, well…often flat wrong.

Schwartz writes that the most striking example involves Microsoft, which renowned consultant Jim Collins and his co-author of Great by Choice, Morten T. Hansen, cited, Schwartz points out, as “a great performer, and Apple, which they cite as the comparative laggard. Yes, you read that right. Here’s why: the 15-year period the authors happened to examine was 1987 to 2002.”

Schwartz asks, “How could so much research miss the mark by so far?” He explains that “…huge changes in technology in the last decade have redefined what it takes to be successful – elevating factors like the role of disruptive innovation, quickness to market and speed of responsiveness to competitors. What worked for Microsoft in the era that Mr. Collins and Mr. Hansen studied proved to be wholly inadequate to compete with Apple in the era that immediately followed.”

The prime reason Schwartz cites for getting it wrong is “the definition Mr. Collins uses for greatness…Maximizing returns for shareholders over a given period of time is narrow, one-dimensional and woefully insufficient. In an increasingly complex and interdependent world, a truly great company requires a far richer mix of qualities.”

In contrast, Schwartz emphasizes that “A company’s greatness is grounded in doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and the least harm. It is neither first nor foremost about maximizing short-term return for shareholders. Rather, it is about investing in and valuing all stakeholders – employees, customers, suppliers, the community and the planet – in order to generate the greatest value over the longest term for all parties, including the shareholders.”

That’s the key.

For Schwartz’s complete article, click here.

Having Power Diminishes Your Empathy For Others

Several research studies have shown that increasing power in an organization (or in any kind of relationship) tends to diminish capacity for empathy, compassion, and seeing another person’s perspective. This is especially damaging to effective leadership of people subordinate to those in power. Studies have shown that increased power diminishes activity of your “mirror neurons,” which provide the sense of connection with another person’s experience, and fuels empathy. Here’s the latest study that sheds more light on what happens. It shows the need for helping leaders develop and strengthen their capacity to connect with others’ reality and experience, which helps counter the tendency towards self-absorption in one’s own perspective, when one is in a higher-power status.

From the study, summarized in Digital Journal:

Researchers have some new insights into how power diminishes a person’s capacity for empathy. According to scientists, a sense of power shuts down a part of the brain that helps us connect with others. For their study that builds on past information about how the brain operates, the researchers found that even the smallest bit of power – for instance from a job promotion or more money – can shut down our ability to empathize with others. Continue reading →

How The Millennials Differ From The “Old White Guys” At Work

Here’s a good description of the contrast of orientations to work, career and success between the millennial generation and older workers. Writing in a recent Inc. article How Millennials Think, and What To Do About It, Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of HubSpot, points out the need to understand and attract men and women of the younger generations. That means seeing and dealing with differences from what he calls OWGs (Old White Guys.) He writes, “The problem we OWGs (Old White Guys–that’s what they call us) have is that we built our companies’ cultures around the things that motivated our generation: money, career progression, and retirement plans. The Millennial generation has an entirely different consideration set for motivation, and given that they already comprise more of the workforce than GenXers and Baby Boomers, we need to invest time, money, and energy into creating workplaces that Millennial employees will love.”

In the rest of the article, Halligan contrasts the different orientations along four dimensions: Money vs. Mission; OCD vs. ADD; Place vs. Idea; and Rules vs. Judgment. He writes: Continue reading →

Why the Workplace Is So Destructive to So Many People

As Yogi Berra famously said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” We’re seeing yet another survey (they appear with increasing frequency) showing how negatively men and women feel about their workplaces; how damaging the workplace is to mental and physical health, and therefore to the economy. Recently some new high-profile initiatives raise hope about the possibility of meaningful change. But it’s crucial that both hone in the key source of the destructive impact careers and the workplace have upon so many people today: The leadership and management culture of companies, and the practices that result. Ironically, those are often at odds with the personal values and perspectives of the very people who occupy leadership roles, but are hamstrung by constraints from the very top — even when they’re part of it.

Jim, a senior VP, feels unsure about his future role in the organization as it undergoes major transition. His boss provides no information, saying, “just don’t worry about it.” Jim’s also in a bind about Continue reading →

Redefining Success In Our Post-Careerist Culture

Nearly every week a new survey appears showing how stressed out workers are today. The damage is visible in its negative impact upon mental health, increased risk of disease and death, lower worker productivity and a range of other harmful consequences. One recent survey found that 83 percent of all workers report stress. That includes people of all ages, baby boomers to Millennials. The sources cited include too much work, insufficient pay, not enough time for rest or sleep, too little leisure time, co-worker conflicts and general work-life imbalance.

But most of those sources have a deeper origin that the surveys and research don’t tap into. Major changes in our society and world have created a “new normal” of continuous turmoil and disruption. This new environment is pushing both organizations and workers to redefine success beyond the long-prevailing rewards of money, power and position; and towards criteria less focused on self-interest but more adaptive to living and working within what is now a “post-careerist” culture. Much current stress reflects the strain of this growing transition. It’s inevitable and necessary.

That is, many men and women, along with the leadership of companies they work for, are already redefining success. The emerging criteria include Continue reading →

More Stress — For More Workers

It seems like every other day there’s a new survey or research study that shows – again – how stressed-out American workers are, at all levels of career; both men and women. This latest report, by Harris Interactive for Everest College, finds that about 83% of workers report feeling stressed by their jobs. It’s a number that keeps rising, and the usual sources are multiple: pay, too much to handle with too few resources; troublesome co-workers, and work-life balance issues. These are valid sources of stress, but I think these periodic surveys fail to tap into more pervasive, underlying sources of stress and conflict at work: boredom; lack of mesh between the person’s skills and the role; an unhealthy, unsupportive management culture; outright abusive, arrogant and narcissistic bosses, and so forth. I’ve written about some of these issues in previous posts, and plan to address some new versions of these underlying sources of conflict and stress in some future essays.

The current survey was summarized in a Forbes article, by Susan Adams. She writes:

Some 83% of American workers say they feel stressed out by their jobs, up from 73% a year ago, according to a new study by Harris Interactive for Everest College. The No. 1 reason workers feel stressed, according to the survey: low pay. This is the third year of the survey and the third year that less- than-adequate paychecks were the top stressor for workers. The study was conducted by phone among 1,000 adults between Feb. 21 and March 3.

While pay was the biggest source of stress last year, Continue reading →

Daily Stress Affects Long-Term Mental Health

Once again, we find more evidence that daily stress has a long-term negative impact on mental health. Any research that highlights this fact is helpful, but it also draws attention to the role our social conditioning plays in generating the stress that debilitates mental health. And that’s not addressed as much as it should be. I’m referring to the ways we learn to behave in our public and private roles – in relationships, in our careers — that define “success,” and what you learn to do to achieve it, in ways that steadily create emotional conflicts. Without addressing those issues, which include over-emphasis on manipulation, self-centeredness, domination-submission struggles, to name a few — it’s difficult to describe what can support the “emotional balance,” the researchers cite as crucial for avoiding long-term emotional problems.

The latest research about this, published in the journal Psychological Science, was conducted by Susan Charles, UC Irvine professor of psychology and social behaviour, and her colleagues. Here’s what they reported:

Our emotional responses to the stresses of daily life may predict our long-term mental health. The research suggests that maintaining emotional balance is crucial to avoiding severe mental health problems down the road. The study examined this question: Do everyday irritations add up to make the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or do they make us stronger and “inoculate” us against later tribulations? Using data from two national, longitudinal surveys, the researchers found that participants’ negative emotional responses to daily stressors – such as arguments with a spouse or partner, conflicts at work, standing in long lines or sitting in traffic – predicted psychological distress and self-reported anxiety/mood disorders 10 years later. Continue reading →

Work Better By Working “Less”

Evidence continues to mount that the workaholic expectations and demands of many companies are counterproductive. Both observation and research studies show that creativity and productivity increase when the work culture provides time out, so to speak — including periods for naps and vacations. Tony Schwartz, the CEO of The Energy Project, discusses this in a recent New York Times article, and points out that “A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal — including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations — boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.”

He writes:

THINK for a moment about your typical workday. Do you wake up tired? Check your e-mail before you get out of bed? Skip breakfast or grab something on the run that’s not particularly nutritious? Rarely get away from your desk for lunch? Run from meeting to meeting with no time in between? Find it nearly impossible to keep up with the volume of e-mail you receive? Leave work later than you’d like, and still feel compelled to check e-mail in the evenings? More and more of us find ourselves unable to juggle overwhelming demands and maintain a seemingly unsustainable pace. Paradoxically, the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less…

“More, bigger, faster.” This, the ethos of the market economies since the Industrial Revolution, is grounded in a mythical and misguided assumption — that our resources are infinite. Time is the resource on which we’ve relied to get more accomplished. When there’s more to do, we invest more hours. But time is finite, and many of us feel we’re running out, that we’re investing as many hours as we can while trying to retain some semblance of a life outside work.

Click here for the full article.

What Prevents Unethical Behavior In The Workplace?

A business school professor has argued that there’s a gap between business students’ description of ethical behavior in business and the traits they report in themselves. Thomas A. Wright, at Kansas State University, contends that there is a moral decline in higher education, which affects those entering the business world. “Many citizens are increasingly seeing the potentially grave consequences of dishonest and fraudulent actions by our business and political leaders,” he says.

Wright’s study examined student character strength on a number of dimensions including valor, hope, zest, honesty, critical thinking, kindness and gratitude. This is where the students exhibited gaps between their own qualities and those they value for ethical business. For example, MBA students listed honesty as one of their top five strengths. However, Wright found that 88 percent of the students reported that they have cheated in school, with many students reporting they had cheated 100 or more times. Wright said that students who cheat in school are not only more likely to cheat in graduate and professional school, but they also are more likely to engage in unethical business practices. And that this provides all the more reason for why higher education institutions should include ethical and character development. The study was reported in a news release from Kansas State, and summarized in Science Daily here:

A Kansas State University professor’s research is showing a gap between the character traits that business students say make a good executive and the traits they describe having themselves.Thomas A. Wright, the Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in Business Administration, said business schools need to close that gap by continuously discussing ethics and character in the classroom. Continue reading →

Can True Solitude Be Found In A Wired World?

This article, by AP writer Martha Irvine, highlights an issue worth deeper exploration: the simultaneous upside and downside of being always wired. Especially its impact on both well-being and a sense of interconnection, of community. The latter is visible during Hurricane Sandy’s impact on our lives.

She writes:

When was the last time you were alone, and unwired? Really, truly by yourself. Just you and your thoughts — no cellphone, no tablet, no laptop. Many of us crave that kind of solitude, though in an increasingly wired world, it’s a rare commodity. We check texts and emails, and update our online status, at any hour — when we’re lying in bed or sitting at stop lights or on trains. Sometimes, we even do so when we’re on the toilet.

We feel obligated, yes. But we’re also fascinated with this connectedness, constantly tinkering and checking in — an obsession that’s starting to get pushback from a small but growing legion of tech users who are feeling the need to unplug and get away.

“What might have felt like an obligation at first has become an addiction. It’s almost as if we don’t know how to be alone, or we are afraid of what we’ll find when we are alone with ourselves,” says Camille Preston, a tech and communication consultant based in Cambridge, Mass.

“It’s easier to keep doing, than it is to be in stillness.”

One could argue that, in this economy, Continue reading →

Why Your Work Will Continue To Drive You Crazy

“Still Crazy After All These Years”

The title of that old Paul Simon song could easily describe what many people feel about life in their careers and organizations today. Studies and surveys regularly show that the workplace is damaging to many people, physically and mentally. But these reports focus on the effect rather than the cause; the surface symptoms rather than the roots of the problems men and women grapple with in their careers. The latter are found in a negative, undermining management culture and narrow, careerist values.

To explain, a few decades ago I wrote in Modern Madness about the findings of my project on how careers impact people, emotionally — especially successful careers among younger men and women rising in their companies (the yuppies of the time — remember them?). I described a troika of experiences: compromises between their personal values and the behavior required for upward movement and greater success; debilitating trade-offs between their beliefs or attitudes and the behavior necessary for continued career advancement; and — not surprisingly — anger, often severe and usually suppressed, but sometimes exploding in rage.

Back then, in the late 1980s, I found that the major source of such personal conflicts was a negative, stifling management culture. It included the personality — and sometimes the outright pathology — of bosses who created conditions that generated anxiety, depression, suspicion and other dysfunctional behavior; as well as physical illness. And this was among otherwise not-very-troubled people. I called them the “Working Wounded.”

Their conflicts were also intensified by a view of success and achievement Continue reading →