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. 
 _________________________
"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

• Are you less productive because of your manager’s behavior and actions?
• Do you feel that some of your boss-inspired projects are a waste of time?
• Are others wasting time because of something your boss said?

My guess is that managers wasting their employees’ time is common in most organizations. In an August 2018 Wall Street Journal article, Bob Sutton (professor at Stanford) discussed the ways leaders unintentionally waste the time of their employees. Here are some insights I gleaned from this article, ways managers may cause employees to be less productive. 

• Adopting fads: Jumping on the latest management fad or program, thus disrupting the workplace with “a new round of training, meetings and paperwork.” Employees may react with “fad surfing” and do the minimums to support the initiative while concentrating on getting their jobs done. 
• Not delegating: As organizations grow or change, there is a limit to how much one person can do. Leaders may fail to realize they are overextended and thus fail to delegate responsibilities. They invest their time in tasks others should be doing (“cookie licking”).
• Rewarding wrong people: Boat-rockers (people who always seek to improve operations, challenge old practices) often are not rewarded to the extent that “status quo” employees are. Boat-rockers facilitate organizational learning and renewal. 
• Making “throw away” comments: Some employees (trucklers) will move into action to make something happen based on a boss’s offhand comment, a reaction the boss may never have intended (“Executive magnification”).

Sutton’s advice to leaders: 

• Be skeptical if all news is good news.
• Be careful in making offhand comments or minor complaints. But if you do, add “Please don’t do anything, I am just thinking out loud.”
• Act on employees’ suggestions, feedback, don’t just give “lip service.”
• Reward employees “who end old, obsolete and effective programs and practices” as “star employees.”

 
My take-aways:
 
1. Bob Sutton nails it. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this employee complaint about time wasted, well let’s just say I’d have a nice wad of cash. Just last week a friend told me about all the time being wasted in his organization because of a fad training program of little or no value in his workplace. Faddism is a problem in organizations. We need more evidence-based evaluations of programs and initiatives, more evidence-based decisions.
 
2. Leaders should work on self-awareness and the effect of our words on others. There will be people eager to please and who will act on your words, regardless of your intent. Self-monitor. Incorporate Sutton’s suggested phrase about thinking out loud into your verbal scripts. I recall in my Air Force days a general commenting offhandedly about the color of a gym. On his next visit the gym was the color he had been wondering about out loud. The general was not happy about the time and expense wasted by those who had it painted. 
 
Sutton, R. L. (2018, August 13). How bosses often waste their employees’ time. The Wall Street Journal. 
 
Image, "White Clock Reading at 2:12", by Stas Knop. Obtained from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-clock-reading-at-2-12-1537268/ Free to use. 

Modified from my blog of August 24, 2018.
​© 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.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

How does the leader or manager affect how employees feel? With bad leaders we know the answer. With good leaders, maybe, maybe not. Research on the leader-employee relationship has focused on many factors. One is the well-being of the employee.
 
Ilke Inceoglu and colleagues (University of Exeter, University of Surrey) reviewed research on leader behavior and well-being in a 2018 issue of The Leadership Quarterly. They argued that researchers have not paid enough attention to how the leader affects employee well-being, often measured somewhat simplistically as job satisfaction. For their qualitative meta-analysis, Inceoglu and her co-authors screened over 5000 leadership studies, then closely examined almost 400, of which they selected the 71 most relevant for in depth analyses.
 
They identified five groupings (mediators) of how leaders affect well-being (all grounded in social and organizational theories). Here are their groupings with associated examples of leader behaviors:

• Social-cognitive: Leaders model attitudes and how to view events; they help shape the context of what is happening in the workplace and the organization; they share and clarify information and help clarify how the immediate work fits the bigger picture.
• Motivational: Leaders affect motivation in many ways, positively  and negatively; leaders can use job redesign principles to make jobs more meaningful; provide opportunities and resources to help employees satisfy workplace needs.
• Affective: The emotions of the leader affect followers; events created by the leader can affect followers emotionally. 
• Relational: The relationship between leader and followers can be crucial; is the leader seen as trustworthy; is the leader someone with whom followers can talk openly. 
• Identification: Through words and actions leaders can foster followers’ identification with the leader, the work group, and the organization.

Inceoglu and her co-authors then discussed the studies they reviewed, classifying by type of leadership (change, task, relational, passive, other), the type(s) of mediators, and type(s) of well-being (hedonic, e.g., job satisfaction; eudaimonic, e.g., work engagement; negative, e.g., burnout; physical, e.g., sleep quality). They concluded employee well-being deserves much more research. 
 
This is an important, sophisticated review deserving the attention of management and organizational behavior scholars. Of great benefit to future researchers will be Appendix A in the study: a table of all 71 studies reviewed with methods and results of each. 
 
My take-aways:
 
1. I can think of many examples, both positive and negative, from my career that fit easily into these five categories. I know how they affected individual well-being and morale. My guess is you can also. 
 
2. So what questions might this research pose to the leader concerned about the well-being of followers:

• What attitudes do you project? How do you come across to employees?
• Do you put work assignments in context or do you just task people to do things with no explanation as to why? 
• Do you keep your employees informed?
• Do you look for ways to grow your employees?
• Do you know what opportunities and resources your employees need?
• Do you keep your emotions appropriate to what is needed, not explosive or exhausting to others, showing enthusiasm where warranted?
• Are you trustworthy?
• Are you a good listener, that is, an active listener?
• Are you a role model, someone with whom others identify positively?
• Do you speak positively about your organization as appropriate?

3.  For my management and organizational psychology colleagues, I highly recommend this study. Inceoglu and her co-authors have provided a framework for years of meaningful research that could enrich our workplaces. 
 
Inceoglu, I., Thomas, G., Chu, C., Plans, D., & Gerbasi, A. (2018). Leadership behavior and employee well-being: An integrated review and a future research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), 179-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.12.006
 
Image,"Thumbs up" by Lucas. https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-man-wearing-black-suit-jacket-doing-thumbs-up-gesture-684385/   Free to use.

Modified from my blog of May 30, 2018.
© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.

Employees who see their work as very meaningful are more likely to be highly engaged in the workplace. Finding ways to make our workplaces more meaningful is a hot topic for leaders. But what about the flipside? What do leaders and managers do that reduces meaningfulness in the workplace? In leadership research reported in the MIT Sloan Management Review in 2016, Catherine Bailey (University of Sussex) and Adrian Madden (University of Greenwich) addressed this question.

Bailey and Madden interviewed 135 people in the United Kingdom, people from different occupations, and talked with them about meaning at work. Bailey and Madden found that “a key leadership challenge” was not creating workplace meaning but rather not destroying the sense of meaning employees had already developed. They identified actions or inactions associated with leaders who “trample” the development of meaningful workplaces. Bailey and Madden called these “deadly sins.” Here are their top five ranked with “most grievous" first.

1. Disconnect people from their values. Employer and employee not seeing eye-to-eye on what is most important, i.e., reducing costs vs. insuring quality, increasing profits vs. helping clients.
2. Take your employees for granted. Lack of recognition, lack of meaningful feedback, not feeling appreciated for hard work and long hours.
3. Give people pointless work to do. People know their jobs and what they should be doing -- but some work of no meaningful value arises because of others' poor planning or poor decisions. 
4. Treat people unfairly.
5. Override people’s better judgment. People not being listened to, not given a voice on work they know, work-related opinions not valued.

My take-aways:
 
1.  We give meaning to our experiences. If we perceive our work as valued and appreciated, it will be more meaningful. Leaders can affect meaningfulness in the workplace even though meaning is created by the individual. Bailey and Madden point out that it is much easier for leaders to crush meaning than to nourish it. This is an important finding. 
 
2. Look at the list above. Which have you seen or experienced? If you are a leader, do you mistakenly do any of these frequently? What can you do differently? 
 
3. My guess is that organizational climate or culture may be such that some of these actions or inactions are ingrained. Leadership is not easy. Ultimately the leader must care about those being led. Where that holds true, these deadly sins will not exist and the potential for employee engagement in the workplace will be higher.

Bailey, C., & Madden, A. (2016). What makes work meaningful -- or meaningless. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(4), 53-61. 

Image by Mohamed Hassan. Retrieved from: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/angry-businesswoman-conflict-3233158/  Used with permission. https://pixabay.com/service/license

Modified from my blog of January 31, 2017.
© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.

Are you being monitored in the workplace by your employer? Do software and other devices track your behavior, monitor your relationships, capture your tone of voice? Are you a data-generator for “people analytics” in your company? Many are. 
 
The July 20th Wall Street Journal featured several articles focusing on “people analytics", the many ways employers are monitoring, tracking, and gathering data on their employees. Sarah Krouse wrote “to be an employee of a large company in the U.S. now often means becoming a workforce data generator.” Krause then described companies and the many ways they gather “people data” and gave examples of how the data has been used to solve problems and increase efficiency. Here are examples of the types of data being captured and analyzed:

• tone of employees during phone calls and meeting conversations
• tone of voices using microphone-equipped badges
• tracking movement using badges
• audio recordings and transcriptions of “phone calls on mobile devices”
• video recordings of employee activities
• hours spent outside office logging into office
• content of emails, texts, Slack chats
• patterns and time on Internet
• frequency of chats and meetings between staff and clients
• profiles of how time is spent
• amount of time spent in meetings
• digital interactions 

 
Some ways this data is used:

• “Classify employees hours as productive or unproductive.”
• Analyze turnover patterns
• Suggest ways for employees to build networks with customers
• Improve training
• Identify key influencers within the organization
• “Spot patterns and praise employees who go above and beyond by detecting, for example, workers who take their laptops home and work after hours.”
• Increase productivity, individually and in groups
• Identify informal networks through organizational network analysis.
• Identify “invisible stars.”

 
My take-aways:
 
1. I understand there are jobs where people analytics software and devices are useful, for example, preventing workplace theft. But the extensive use described in the WSJ articles raises questions for me. 

• How is the information being collected? How is it being protected? How reliable and valid is the data?
• How is the data being used? Do the people analyzing the data understand how to interpret it properly, understand the limitations on conclusions or insights? 
• Are employees aware they are being monitored? Privacy is a concern that has been raised. 
• What are the limits on the legal rights of employers to monitor employees? Where are the gray areas?

 
2. Leaders should use people analytics technology carefully and thoughtfully. Just because something can be measured does not mean it should be measure. This technology is work-centered more than people-centered even though it is human behavior being measure. There’s more to productivity than efficiency. There is also effectiveness. How does employing these technologies affect how employees see their employers or more importantly, their jobs? How does use of software analytics technologies affect employee engagement and meaningfulness in work? Trust is a big component of a healthy organizational culture. It would be interesting to see the relationship between degree of people analytics software and devices and measures of trust in organizations. 
 
3. We need a more comprehensive understanding of people analytics software. What are the best uses, best industries? Where does it extend too far as to affect individual motivation and meaningfulness? Software analytics gathers data on people. We need researchers gathering data on the software analytics software and devices and the impact on organizational climate and organizational culture. 
 
4. I know organizations where people are miserable, feel mistreated, feel they are human robots, and the solution from management is “If you don’t like it, quit.” Unfortunately there are often easy solutions to improve the work environment and effectiveness but management must actually listen to employees and care. Treating people with respect and dignity should be a hallmark of good management. 

Chen, T. (2019, July 20). Three hours of work a day? You're not fooling anyone. The Wall Street Journal, p. B7.
Cutter, C. (2019, July 20). Finding the hidden stars: Holding the company together. The Wall Street Journal, pp. B6-7. (online title: "Finding the quiet employees holding the company together)
Krouse, S. (2019, July 20). The new ways your boss is spying on you. The Wall Street Journal, pp. B1, B6-7.

Image by FotografielLink. From https://pixabay.com/photos/analytics-computer-hiring-database-2697949/
 
© 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 in paperback.

How do you feel about yourself? Are you as compassionate toward yourself as you are toward others? We need to understand and practice self-compassion. Dr. Kristin Neff is a leading scholar and researcher. She offers an online test to determine how self-compassionate we are. Honestly answering the 26 questions can give a good indication of your self-compassion. 
 
Several years ago I blogged about self-compassion and Dr. Neff’s work. From her website: “Self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings” and has three elements:

• Being kind to ourselves: Be “warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.” 
• Accepting our common humanity: Recognize that “suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to ‘me’ alone.”  
• Being mindful: Observe one’s “thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them,” being non-judgmental.

In the May/June 2017 issue of Explore. Dr. Roberto Benzo and colleagues reported a questionnaire study of 400 healthcare workers examining the relationships among self-compassion and a variety of other measures, such as happiness, mindfulness, stress, and exercise. They found:

• self-compassion was highly related to happiness (r = .63)
• “self-compassion was associated with decreased feelings of isolation”
• accepting our humanity and being mindful were “the most predictive of happiness”
• Self-compassion had a far greater impact on happiness than exercise.

My take-aways:
 
1. The study by Benzo and associates was at one hospital. It would be interesting to compare employees at different organizations using the same measures, that is self-compassion, happiness, and such, but add measures for engagement and job satisfaction My guess is organizations with employees who score higher on self-compassion would also be score higher on engagement and job satisfaction.
 
2. This study and others underscore the value of self-compassion and mindfulness training in corporate settings. While such training may seem “touchy-feely,” the potential to affect engagement and the bottom-line may be significant.
 
3. I recommend spending some time at Dr. Neff’s self-compassion website. Watch videos and listen to the exercises. Take time to take care of you.
 
Benzo, R. P., Kirsch, J. L., & Nelson, C. (2017). Compassion, mindfulness, and the happiness of healthcare workers. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, 13(3), 201-206.
 
Neff, K. (2017) Self-compassion. http://self-compassion.org
 
Image, “Be Strong.”  © John Ballard, 2019

Modified from my blog of July 31, 2017. 
 
© 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. ​

How effective is your working relationship with your manager? The boss needs you to do your job. How well you do that job may depend on how well you understand your boss, regardless of whether you like your manager or not. The better you understand your boss, the more likely outcomes will be good, both for the organization and for you.

Few people think about their supervisors’ jobs or work styles. Asking yourself a few questions about your boss might clarify the best ways to work with her or what you might expect from her. The better you know someone, the easier to work with that person. Can you confidently answer the following questions about your boss?

1. What are your boss’s highest priorities? “Sure,” you might answer, “just the other day she stated this is our highest concern.” But is that the highest priority? Formal priorities and informal priorities may not be the same. What are the pressures on your boss from above? How can you help your boss achieve the results that really matter?
2. Is your boss a listener or a reader? Some bosses drop by your workplace or call people into their offices. They ask questions about issues, bounce ideas, and form positions, just from talking and listening. Other bosses want the same type of information but want it in writing. These bosses prefer to read, digest, and form their positions from what they read. Most of us have a preferred style, whether we realize it or not. Your preferred style may or may not match up with your supervisor. Can you adjust?
3. Does your boss compartmentalize work and home? People differ in their preferences for separating their work life from their life away from the job. Some managers eat, live, and breathe their jobs. They may stay late at the office or continue working into the evening at home. Others leave the office and the work behind to focus on other parts of their lives. If you and your boss are mismatched, there may be occasional work-related issues, such as not enough time to meet your boss's expectations or not having enough time to have your questions answered.
4. What are your boss’s greatest strengths and weaknesses? All of us have strengths and weaknesses. You probably know some of your boss’s strengths and weaknesses, but do you know which are greatest? Where does your boss really excel? Could your boss use those strengths to support you better? On the other hand, what can you do to help your boss in areas where the boss may be weak? How can you compensate for these weaknesses when it affects your performance?
5. Does your boss trust you and others? This may be complicated. Creating a culture of trust starts at the top. Your manager may be trustworthy and honest but still not be trusting of you, or some others, for a variety of reasons. When people are not trusted, this can affect performance and lower productivity. Is your boss unnecessarily a micromanager? Are there deficiencies in the work of other employees that need to be addressed? It is sometimes said that trust is earned. The best managers will grow their people as necessary to ensure that any issues of trust are resolved.
6. Is your boss a people-person or task-driven? Most likely you know the answer. Some bosses are very task-oriented and may or may not have strong people skills. Others thrive better where relational skills are most important. They get the job done working with people. The best managers are both, using the style most appropriate to the situation. If you find yourself working with a boss toward one extreme or the other, think through how that might affect your work and how you may need to adjust.

Modified from my original article published online, February 18, 2015, in the American Management Association's Playbook. 

Image, "Executive-business woman", by geralt. Obtained from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/executive-businesswoman-2001849/    Free to use. 

© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.
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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.