What have you learned from the pandemic? The Wall Street Journal asked 10 business leaders that question. Their replies were in a recent issue (June 27-28, 2020). Here are the comments from those leaders which I have sorted into four categories:
 
On community

• I wish we had done a better job of sticking with community building with weekly all-hands or town halls. I worry culture will start to fray.
• It’s important for me to see you, for you to see me and that you’re ok and I’m ok and we’re getting business done. 
• What struck me is that all of us are really looking for anchors and safe harbors during this time.... Until this time, though, I didn’t really see the company—or a company, an employer—as necessarily filling that role for people. But people are looking for us to fill that role. Every day, I try to call three to six people, just to check in, just to say hi, see how they’re doing. I wouldn’t necessarily have done that before.
• Acknowledgments have to be much louder. Giving someone credit at an-all hands in person is much different than on Zoom. Leaders have a responsibility to ensure that success and achievements are especially acknowledged in a time like this.
• How to maintain culture and connectivity on Zoom is something you have to learn. . . Managers have to be inclusive and take extra care to make sure all voices are heard.

On working from home:

• The notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past…It is absolutely remarkable that we have over 70,000 people working remotely and keeping a very complicated $1.7 trillion balance sheet bank functioning...people are doing it from their kitchens.
• It’s definitely overrated...The temptations of staying home and listening to music and going in the garden and going shopping, and cooking or reading an interesting book suddenly—they eat into the working time.
• Wondered what they were doing when they weren’t at the office, but the productivity has been off the roof, so I need to just trust them. If they say they’re working at home, they’re working at home.
• One thing we talk about is mental fatigue. I talk about the brain as a muscle. I’m pushing my people to say: Take a break. Put in a lunch hour. Cut yourself off at five o’clock.
• There’s no such thing as too much communication... 

On adapting

• In any business you get used to operating at a certain cadence, and then all of the sudden when the world around you is changing as fast as it was, you have to kind of pick up your feet way faster and make changes much, much more quickly.
• In this time of ambiguity, you have to be open to learning. Because if you don’t learn, you don’t know how to adapt.... Being transparent, being inquisitive are good ingredients.

On introspection

• I’ve always thought leadership meant I was right there and frankly, I think I get on my staff’s nerves sometimes. I probably had some control issues myself . . . 

 
My take-aways
 
1. The Wall Street Journal provided short sound bites. Longer interviews with each business leader would have probably been more informative and more representative of each leader's thinking about lessons learned.
 
2. The main themes were about remote work:  maintaining culture and maintaining productivity. Sustaining culture in the absence of in-person interactions is tougher. Working remotely is different from being in the workplace. While communication is important, there could be too much communication. Some supervisors have difficulty finding the balance. 
 
3.  The comments about productivity are not surprising but for me they were somewhat disappointing. In companies that value people, the employees will get the job done. There is nothing sacred about the 8-hour day or the hours in which work gets accomplished (unless there are structural issues, e.g., customers and such during certain hours). Research supports that for many jobs there is no differences in productivity between the 6-hour day and the 8-hour day. The attitude that people working at home would be less productive reminds me of McGregor’s Theory X way of thinking about people. 
 
4.  Introspection, reflecting about oneself, should be a characteristic of leaders. For most of us, the pandemic has brought moments in which we ponder issues that we are usually too busy to think about. Now is a good time to pull back, create a space in our days to reflect on where we are, where we are going, what our priorities are, what our priorities should be. 
 
“What I Learned from the Pandemic” (June 27-28, 2020). The Wall Street Journal. 
 
Image, "Growth" by Gerald. Retrieved from: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/growth-suit-work-bank-economy-453485/   Free to use.
 
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

This is an unusually stressful time. Health, finances, income, relationships to name just a few possible sources of stress. Exercise is one key to managing stress. For me I swam most days at a local fitness club until the pandemic. It may be months until I can return to my normal exercise routine. 
 
Roles are major sources of stress in our lives in the best of time. During this pandemic role conflicts may come into sharper focus. Over 50 years ago Kahn and colleagues described six types of role conflict:

• interrole – conflicts among several of your roles. For example, conflict between role as a parent and role as an employee
• intersender – different expectations from different people
• intrasender – different expectations from the same person, such as at different times
• person-role – conflict between demands of role and your values, personal standards
• role ambiguity – not knowing what is expected of you
• role overload – just can’t do everything on your plate

If you work remotely, how has the pandemic affected role-related conflict? Some hypotheses:

• Interrole conflict may be greater. For employees working from home with children, roles as parent and roles as employees are more likely to clash. Children may be in same room or nearby. Roles as parent are more salient. The child needs you and you are right there, unlike going to a workplace miles away. 
• Intersender role conflict will vary with the chain of command but should be less. It is easier to talk with someone in the workplace than it is virtually. In other words, it is less likely someone other than your boss will drop in with different guidance or contradictory requests. 
• Intrasender role conflict depends on the person so there should be no change. A boss that says one thing on Monday and another on Wednesday most likely will do the same virtually.
• Person-role conflict may grow. Working at home there may be more moments to reflect on how you’re living your life now versus months ago. Priorities, perhaps even values, may change. 
• Role ambiguity will probably increase initially if remote working is new. In the workplace we have access to information from others, we can ask questions, we can have processes clarified. These can still be done remotely but involve more effort, more energy. For some, how to do the job remotely may be a challenge, a challenge with no clear guidance.
• Role overload will most likely increase. Working remotely may require learning new skills. It may be harder for supervisors to understand workload levels. Additionally there are the other responsibilities from other roles that are more visible because you are working at home. 

 
My guess is there are large individual differences here. Some will adjust to remote work fine. Others will find it more stressful. Regardless the experience of working at home will become more common in the months and years ahead. Recognizing your sources of role-related stress may help manage these conflicts.
 
Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., Snoek, J. D., & Rosenthal, R. A. (1964). Role stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. New York, NY: John Wiley.
 
Image, "Woman Typing" by Taryn Elliott. Retrieved from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-woman-typing-on-laptop-4112289/    Free to use.
 
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Usually when I write this blog, I share research studies relevant to leadership, management, and life in the workplace. Mostly I am evidence-based, trying in my small way to help bridge the management/organizational scholar–practitioner gap. There is good research with applicable findings that fail to find their way into management practice while unsupported fads spread like the coronavirus.
 
Which brings me to this point: We have a New Normal. Massive unemployment as people lose their jobs. People with jobs working at home for the first time. Managers managing from home for the first time. Fear, worry, and concern are part of our daily lives. There are some areas where research literature can inform, but most of the literature does not exactly, or directly, generalize to work in this time of crisis. We have a new environment.
 
In 1936 Kurt Lewin, the father of social psychology, described human behavior as B = f (L) where L is Lifespace. He elaborated this to B = f (P, E) where P is person and E is environment. P includes all that makes us different (e.g., attitudes, personality, motivations, capabilities, and so forth). E includes both the physical and social environment. Behavior is a function of the many aspects of the person, the environment, and their interaction. In this pandemic the environment has greatly changed and we are trying to adjust. Just think about the ways your life, your thoughts, your behaviors are now different from just last year.
 
In an interview conducted by Ayleen Barbel Fattal, Nathan Hiller (Florida International University) stated:
We can’t expect people to be able to think well and execute complex work tasks if they’re in a heightened state of anxiety about their family’s safety and if they are worried about their company going bankrupt or have watched their family-members lose their jobs. . . You can’t concentrate. You aren’t very productive. . . none of us will be at the top of our game when it comes to work.
 
The environment and its impact on us are inescapable. As I write this, there are many people awaiting the coronavirus test, people lying in hospital beds in tents, people suffering, people dying. Working in trying, dangerous conditions they never foresaw are our frontline nurses, physicians, and other health care providers. Research during other outbreaks has shown the devastating impact of stress (i.e., PTSD) on crisis health care professionals and their heightened need for support.
 
In a recent New York Times, David Gelles talked with eight CEOs about working from home during this pandemic. “Nobody prepares for this,” said Chuck Robbins (Cisco), “None of this technology was designed to support the entire world working from home” (Business section, p. 4). Other CEOs talked about the mental health challenges, the fatigue, even burnout. Giovanni Caforio (Bristol Myers Squibb): “Right now we all have to make trade-offs.”
 
There is much research on working remotely, working in virtual teams, but not research on suddenly having to work at home with no training during a pandemic. Here are three keys for managers from Nathan Hiller and Valentina Bruk-Lee:

• Be empathetic. Ask, listen, try to understand, acknowledge [feelings].
• Communicate clearly, truthfully, and frequently.
• Use video technology. Better to hear and see.

 
To these I would add, “don’t micromanage.”  Be very flexible with work hours, that is, focus on work being done, not when it is done to the extent possible. 
 
Most of the environmental factors weighing on employees weigh also on managers. Parents, grandparents, children at risk. Loneliness. Lack of non-digital social interaction. If you lead managers, do not expect them to be at their best. Work with them just as they need to work with their direct reports.
 
Be strong. Stay safe. 
 
Fattal, A. B. (2020, March 23). How to effectively manage a team during a pandemic while everyone works from home. FIU News. https://news.fiu.edu/2020/how-to-effectively-manage-a-team-during-a-pandemic-while-everyone-works-from-home
 
Gelles, D. (2020, March 29). When a home becomes headquarters. New York Times, Business Section, 4.

Image, "Lurking Virus" by Syaibatul Hamdi. Obtained from https://pixabay.com/photos/epidemic-coronavirus-lurking-virus-4952933/  Free to use. 

​© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Only 1% of leadership research has focused on servant leadership. However, servant leadership was the second most googled leadership theory or approach during the past decade. There are many questions about servant leadership that need to be researched.  How do servant leaders affect the culture of their organizations? How do they affect the bottom-line?

Three researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and another from Michigan State reported a large-scale study of servant leadership in the Academy of Management Journal in 2014. Liden, Wayne, Liao, and Meuser studied nearly 1000 employees in 71 restaurants in 6 states using survey methods and corporate data. They suggested the concept of the leader focusing on serving followers differentiates servant leadership from other leadership theories. Here are some insights from their review of servant leadership studies and Robert Greenleaf’s writings:

• Employees see servant leaders as humble, more concerned with others than themselves.
• Employees see servant leaders as role models, whose behaviors they choose to emulate.
• Because employees emulate the servant leader’s behaviors, the servant leader creates a  “serving culture.”
• “Cultivation of servant leadership among followers is central to servant leadership” (p. 1436)
• Demonstrating empathy and ethical behavior elevates the perception of the servant leader. 
• A serving culture positively affects an organization’s bottom-line.

Here are findings from their study:

• “Store manager servant leadership was positively related to serving culture” (p. 1444).
• “Serving culture related positively with store performance” (p. 1444).
• Employees in “serving cultures” identified more strongly with their stores. 
• Identification with stores was positively correlated with creativity and willingness to find “divergent ways of accomplishing tasks” (p. 1446). 

My take-aways:

1.  I concur with the authors that “servant leadership is at an early stage of theoretical development.” The authors suggested social learning theory and modeling of the leader’s behaviors as an underlying mechanism. I would lean toward a Rychlakean perspective. Those followers so inclined adjust their premises to fit in and perhaps find more meaning in their work experiences.

2.  Overall, while I see the benefits of servant leadership, I suggest there are large individual differences among leaders here. Some leaders simply have a low probability of being able to put others first consistently or genuinely. My guess is this becomes more difficult as one climbs the corporate ladder. On the other hand, servant leadership may be a great fit for small business owners.

3.  There are also individual differences among followers. People work for many reasons beyond the economic (see Decoding the Workplace, Chapter 4). For some people a serving culture may be inconsistent with how they view the workplace. They may not fit in.

4.  The effectiveness of servant leadership on the bottom-line is an important finding in this study. This needs replication. My hypothesis would be that the effectiveness of servant leadership is situational.

5.  You probably know whether you are a servant leader or can grow as one. You probably also know those around you who are servant leaders and those who are not. Regardless knowing yourself and understanding those around you are major factors in determining your success as a leader.

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Liao, C., & Meuser, J. D. (2014).  Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal, 37 (5), 1434-1452.

Image of trends for these leadership approaches made using Google Trends™ tool. ©2020 Google LLC, used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google LLC.
https://trends.google.com/trends/exploredate=all&q=servant%20leadership,authentic%20leadership,transformational%20leadership,leader-member%20exchange
​
Modified and updated from my blog of June 20, 2015.

​© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Many equate leadership with a leader. As I stated in an earlier blog: "Organizations can easily confuse leader development with leadership development (see Day, 2000). Leader development focuses more on the individual, trying to develop skills and competencies to lead. On the other hand, leadership development seeks to grow leadership throughout an organization developing relationships among leaders, understanding followership, to insure leaders are on the same page, not at cross-purposes. And when this happens, magic happens." Leadership can be a property of a group of people or organization. 

In an excellent review in The Academy of Management Annals 2012, Jean-Louis Denis, Ann Langley, and Vivianne Sergi  discussed patterns of plural leadership. Plural leadership Is a “collective phenomenon that is distributed or shared among different people, potentially fluid, and constructed in interaction” (p. 212). Denis and his colleagues describe four types of plural leadership. My guess is you may have seen these in your organizations.

Sharing Leadership. Form of leadership often used by teams. Anyone can perform leadership functions. Everyone is a follower.
Producing Leadership. In knowledge-based organizations we sometimes see leadership just emerge out of interactions. In a meeting of equals, ideas flow, a path is developed, a plan started, an agreement reached. In this “producing leadership” style, individuals lead each other. Leadership emerges as a property of group interaction.

In both “sharing leadership” and “producing leadership”, followers are leaders and leaders are followers. Denis and his co-authors call this mutuality. In essence these involve reciprocal interactions that move things along where there is no clear “leader” identified.

Other forms of plural leadership still have identifiable leaders.
Pooling Leadership. In “pooling leadership”, there may be a group of people who lead together, a dyad, or triad. The leadership group leads the followers. There is still an “elite group”.
Spreading Leadership. In “spreading leadership”, leadership is passed from person to person, much like a relay team, as parts of a project or undertaking are completed. Leadership is periodically shifted. Not all followers lead nor are expected to lead.

My take-aways:

1. Sharing, producing, pooling, spreading: four approaches to plural leadership. We have identified these styles. Now we need research to help us find the best approach for different situations. In the meantime we can use our understanding of these different forms of plural leadership to expand our own leader skill set --- and to build human capital in our organizations.

2. I have enjoyed following the University of Dayton men's basketball team this season. As of this date, their record is 20-2 and they are ranked 6th nationally. They have only lost two games, both in overtime. Why mention the Dayton Flyers? The team has no official team captains. As stated by potential national player of the year and probable first round NBA draft pick Obi Toppin, "Everybody's a captain on our team." Perhaps plural leadership at its best. 

Day, D.V. (2000). Leadership development: A review in context. Leadership Quarterly, 11, 581-613.

Denis, J., Langley, A.,& Sergi, V.  (2012). Leadership in the plural. The Academy of Management Annals, 6:1, 211-283.

Image, "Dayton Flyers", by David Jablonski. Used with permission. 

Modified from my blog of December 19, 2012.

​© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Definitions matter. The term “emotional labor” has morphed from an important concept relevant to employees, managers, HR professionals, and organizational scholars to a far too generalized term loosely used, for example, in describing household gender issues and non-work personal interactions. Google “emotional labor” and the results will run the gamut. 
 
Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild (UC Berkeley) introduced emotional labor in her 1983 book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling: "This labor requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others  . . . This kind of labor calls for a coordination of mind and feeling, and it sometimes draws on a source of self that we honor as deep and integral to our individuality” (1983/2012, p. 7). 
 
Physical labor, mental labor, and emotional labor are characteristics of jobs. Emotional labor is highest in service jobs. The more interactions an employee has directly with customers, the greater the emotional labor. Hochschild used an example of flight attendants being told to smile. Some attendants will fully adopt the flight attendant role, of which smiling is expected. Smiling will just be part of who they are on the job – and how they feel, an example of “deep acting.” Other attendants will fake a smile, doing so because it is a job expectation, regardless of how they feel, an example of “surface acting.” For those who tend to be happy and naturally smile a lot, it may be just a good person-job match, no need for acting. Even so there will be times that interacting with a customer will be trying even for the best of us. Managing emotions in those cases can be difficult, more so for some than others. 
 
For two decades industrial/organizational psychologist Alicia Grandey (Pennsylvania State University) has been a leader in trying to understand emotional labor and its consequences. Why care about emotional labor? Positive affective interactions with customers are associated with (1) positive perceptions of service quality, (2) positive recommendations to others, and (3) intent to return. Grandey (2003) found deep acting associated with more positive customer interactions whereas surface acting was associated with more stress and a greater likelihood of “breaking character with customers.” She provides a good introduction to emotional labor at this website. 
 
In 1999 Robin Leidner, sociologist (University of Pennsylvania), wrote about emotional labor of  “low-to-middle level frontline workers” and addressed ways employers try to manage the quality of employee-customer interactions. Among these were “efforts to regulate the feelings and actions of those who work with the public through detailed pre-specification of conduct”, standardization of speech scripts and body language, and uniforms or appearance standards. These may vary from simple to substantial. 
 
My take-aways:
 
1.  Customer service can be tough on those providing the service. The unpleasant customer, the irate customer, the customer who cannot be satisfied. For some just the volume of interacting, regardless of quality, can be draining. There are clearly large individual differences in our abilities to manage our emotions and do so in healthy ways. I reluctantly admit that although I have taught Customer Service, I was not aware of the literature on emotional labor. Using the concept as discussed here, I see much room for growth in emotional labor research that could benefit employees and employers. 
 
2. Customer service can be tough for the customer. You can fill in your own examples here. My guess is we have all had a bad experience as customers. How did you handle it? How did the front-line employee handle it? Did you provide feedback to the organization? How? Sometimes it is hard to be accepting and act graciously respecting the other person – but if we could, perhaps the emotional toll of difficult interactive experiences would be less. 
 
3. Organizations will vary in how much they care about the quality of their service. If people are going to use the service regardless, they may not care. But for most, especially small businesses, the quality of their employee interactions can be the key to success or failure.  A bad hire, a bad attitude can hurt a business. Likewise, failure to support your frontline employees, including time to decompress if needed, can affect your culture, and your success. 
 
4. Emotional labor is a complex concept affected by many factors, many of which have yet to be researched. My guess is that factors such as type of industry, type of service, and individual differences affect the degree of emotional labor and associated outcomes. This would seem to be a good area for business leaders and academic researchers to partner to advance our understanding of emotional labor.
 
Grandey, A. A. (2003). When “the show must go on”: Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 46(1), 86-96.
 
Hochschild, A. R. (2012). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. (Originally published, 1983)
 
Leidner, R. (1999). Emotional labor in service work. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 561(1), 81-95.

Image,"Person Giving Fruit to Another", by Erik Scheel. Obtained from https://www.pexels.com/photo/apple-business-fruit-local-95425/
​
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

My annual blog about the importance of reading books, modified from my previous January blogs. 

Each January I pose the question: What book are you reading now? My experience is the best leaders always have a book they are reading. Lifelong learning is essential to our growth. A habit of reading books is important for lifelong learning. 

What role do books play in your life? In your learning? Making time to read books is important. I usually have several books in my study that I am working through. On long trips I enjoy audio books. I have friends who like audio books best. 
 
The most amazing book I read in 2019 was Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth. Celestial Bodies is the first Arabic novel to win the Man Booker International Prize. The story of three daughters and their very different lives in a changing Oman, it is a very creative story with beautiful prose and poetry. It took a few chapters to get into the flow of the book but it was worth it. Intriguing and surprising, it expanded my awareness to a time and place unknown to me. Not an easy read but a rewarding read. 

I also enjoyed very much David McCullough's latest, The Pioneers, about the settling of Ohio, the land where I now live. McCullough has a tremendous talent for making history real.

As we begin 2020, here are a few of the books on my reading list:

• The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstein
• The Vision: A Novel of Time and Consciousness by Stephan Schwartz
• A Year with Peter Drucker by Joseph Maciariello

And two books from last year's list that I did not get to:

• Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger
• Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Walls

I am also looking forward to the April release of Scott Barry Kaufman's new book, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. I am sure it will add to my understanding of Abraham Maslow and his work. 

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them”, Mark Twain. 

Or as the comedian Groucho Marx said,
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”   
 
What are you reading?
_______________________
Image, my photo. 
​
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

This time of the year I like to revisit a Christmas classic from Thomas Stetz of Hawaii Pacific University, “What Santa Claus Can Learn from I-O Psychology: Eight Performance Management Recommendations.” The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist originally published the article in 2012 and it can be read in full in the archives of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Here I will summarize (and elaborate on) Dr. Stetz’s astute observations and recommendations concerning Santa Claus’s questionable performance management system.

1. “Develop refined rating scales.” How does Santa determine whether a child is “naughty” or “nice”? What is naughty? What is nice? How can a child improve performance if the child does not have clear guidelines and examples of the behaviors expected?
2. “Develop SMART performance objectives.” A child needs clear goals to be successful at “nice,” goals that are “specific, measureable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.” Ideally these would flow from the family strategic plan.
3. “Increase feedback throughout the year.” It’s either a lump of coal or presents one day a year. 364 days with no feedback is just not acceptable in the 21st Century. If feedback is too much for Santa to handle, he should delegate and train others, such as parents. 
4. “Establish a naughty review board.” There may be review boards in organizations that are naughty; this recommendation concerns grievances. What’s a child to do if deemed naughty and considers this an unfair assessment? Is it fair to not have a grievance procedure, especially in the absence of feedback?
5. “Get a handle on rating inflation.” Let’s be real. It seems most children get a “nice” rating and the associated benefits. Refined rating scales would definitely help here.
6. “Explain how he obtains his information.” This one puzzled me as a kid. How does he know if I am being naughty or nice? As Stetz’s very appropriately noted, “at least a consent-to-monitoring statement should be made.”
7. “Decide between developmental or administrative evaluations.” “Under the current system how can naughty children improve. They can’t” (p. 36). There is no feedback. Children simply did not know how to improve their performance. Santa’s performance system is administrative with only “rewards and punishments.”
8. “Institute self-assessments.” Instead of writing letters to Santa once a year, which not all children do, there should be periodic self-assessments from children. This could be an online system with elf’s perhaps providing feedback. Currently children have little opportunity to speak to the naughty or nice question with relevant supporting data.

Stetz concluded Santa would do well to employ an I-O psychologist.
 
My take-away:
 
Can any of the recommendations for Santa’s performance system be applied to your organization? If so, 2020 might be a good year to work toward improvements. Feedback is key to employee development and organizational growth and renewal.
 
Best wishes for the holiday season and a great 2020.
 
Stetz, T. A. (2012). What Santa Claus can learn from I-O psychology: Eight performance management recommendations. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 49 (3), 35-37.
 
Image of Santa by Clker-Free-Vector-Images. Image obtained from https://pixabay.com/vectors/santa-claus-christmas-reindeer-31665/
​
© John Ballard, PhD, 2019. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

What makes work meaningful? Are there common characteristics of meaningful work? Catherine Bailey (now at King's College, London) and Adrian Madden (University of Greenwich) sought to answer this latter question in research reported in the MIT Sloan Management Review in 2016. For leaders and managers they listed “deadly sins” that destroy employee meaningfulness, which I discussed in a previous blog.
 
Bailey and Madden interviewed 135 people in the United Kingdom from many different occupations. Their research confirmed factors previously identified such as:

• sense of pride in work well done
• interesting, absorbing, or creative work
• recognition from others.

But they concluded these were not sufficient and identified “five unexpected features of meaningful work”:

1. Self-transcendent. Work is meaningful “when it mattered to others more than just to themselves.” For example, a garbage collector feeling value in knowing the trash he collected was being recycled, that he was making a small contribution to a better environment for others.
2. Poignant. Meaningful work is not necessarily associated with being engaged or happy. Challenging, even negative work experiences can hold rich significance, e.g., a nurse with a patient at the end of life.
3. Episodic. Meaningfulness occurs in moments and can come and go. In the midst of their work days people may not be conscious of the meaningfulness of work except when strong experiences occur that highlight that meaningfulness, e.g., a stonemason witnessing the unveiling of a structure he helped build. 
4. Reflective. “Meaningfulness was rarely experienced in the moment but rather in retrospect and on reflection . . .”  For example, a leader is about to turn off the lights after a business Christmas party, pauses, and reflects on the great year that just passed and the achievements.
5. Personal. Meaningful work went beyond engagement or satisfaction at work and seemed more connected to life satisfaction and “personal life experiences.” For example, a musician was deeply moved when his father for the first time saw him perform in public.

Bailey and Madden concluded that it is a complex undertaking for organizations to help employees see work as meaningful, a much more difficult undertaking than increasing engagement or job satisfaction.
 
My take-aways:
 
1.  The five characteristics of meaningful work identified by Bailey and Madden were part of a much larger article. Even so, these characteristics deserve more discussion and research. Their research is descriptive based on interviews. Are there prescriptive ideas we can develop from their findings, suggestions that leaders may find helpful? Seems to be a rich area for research.
 
2. I agree that it is a difficult task to help employees see work as meaningful. But I am a tad more optimistic than the authors. Ultimately it is the individual who gives meaning to anything, including work. However, a leader can create an environment where meaningfulness is more easily seen, especially through words and actions that show connections of work to the bigger picture, words and actions of appreciation, words and actions that share the meaning the leader finds in the work being accomplished.
 
Bailey, C., & Madden, A. (2016). What makes work meaningful -- or meaningless. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(4), 53-61.
 
Image, "Person holding grinder" by Animal Rezwan.
Retrieved from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-grinder-1216544/
Free to use.

Modified from my blog of March 31, 2017. 
© John Ballard, PhD, 2019. All rights reserved.
 
Author of Decoding the Workplace, BEST CAREER BOOK Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2016. Now in paperback and available as audiobook. 
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"Decoding the Workplace: 50 Keys to Understanding People in Organizations is as informed and informative a read as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking. . . Decoding the Workplace should be considered critically important reading for anyone working in a corporate environment." —Midwest Book Review