“You are the people your direct reports are talking about at dinner every night.”
-Michael Watkins, Your Next Move
A few years ago, an MBA student told me about how her heavy-handed, authoritarian managers gave their employees a copy of The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. The reasoning was simple. Achor explained that happier employees are more productive employees.
I would imagine that one of the executives read a line like the following and had a eureka moment: “Research shows that unhappy employees take more sick days, staying home an average of 1.25 more days per month, or 15 extra sick days a year” (Achor, 2010, p. 43).
“I know what I will do,” he must have thought to himself. “I will give all of my employees this book that tells them how to be happy, and they will be more productive.”
Yet, contrary to his expectations, his employees were furious. My student explained how cynically it was viewed by employees. Rather than change the way that executives dealt with employees, or reversing policies that stifled human flourishing (e.g., Employees in cubicles could not talk to each other; they had to send IM messages to each other for the sake of efficiency), these executives chose the quick fix.
How much better it would have been if these executives would have considered how their actions impact the human beings in their organization. They too have hopes, dreams, and aspirations. What if this search led them to uproot the blockages, not just of efficiency, but of human dignity? They might have been surprised by what they found.
As it turns out, people are not inspired by rules, and they are more likely to be motivated by commitment than control.
How do you run your organization? Would you be satisfied as an entry-level employee in your department? If not, you have some work to do.
__________
Dr. Gerdes is the Director of Graduate Programs in the School of Business at Charleston Southern University. All ideas expressed on www.daringerdes.com are his own.