Working Smarter

The person sitting next to you on the plane is a total stranger, yet after an hour of conversation, you feel like know him/her better than someone you’ve worked with for years. You wind up discussing some family issue or long-ago setback even your friends don’t know. What’s going on here?

Psychologists call it the “Stranger on the Train Effect,” a suspension of the normal rules of revelation, because what you say to a stranger can’t come back to haunt you. It’s a kind of Vulcan mind-meld minus the lobster-like pincer move to the shoulder. We get to the nub quickly when we’re traveling, since there’s limited time and no need to fear blowback from what we say. If you’ve ever experienced this phenomenon, you know it’s possible to get below the surface with folks very quickly, something we all have a need to do.

One of our core needs is “relatedness,” say researchers. We need to have close connections with others. When we do, that’s gratifying. We feel energized. Listened to. Valued by someone. A part of something.

That’s true not just outside the job, but also at work, where strangers can be less so when there are more opportunities to communicate beyond the usual game face and grunts. Granted, the revelation parameters are a lot different at work, where comments do have an afterlife, but the same need to connect exists at the office—and managers who understand this can get a big payoff in the form of engaged staff.

Engaged employees are 28% more productive than their colleagues. Employee engagement means someone is self-generating extra effort and vitality. It doesn’t come from being told to get fired up. Engagement is a two-way street, and requires communication and trust flowing in both directions.

This is a delicate topic at most organizations. People tend to be at their most guarded in a realm that controls their paycheck and promotions. Yet the trust that fuels engagement can only come when people feel they have an opportunity to be heard. Survey scores at most organizations are low when it comes to staff believing they have a voice. That’s another way of saying involvement is low, which means so is engagement.

Without a voice, there’s a sense of exclusion, which doesn’t make people feel valued, the critical factor in engagement. Exclusion promotes the opposite of the proaction necessary for engagement. What does spark self-initiative is inclusion. The research shows that when employees feel a part of the mix, free to contribute and even offer countering views, engagement soars. When more voices are heard, money is saved too. Ernst & Young saved $15 million in one initiative that sought out everyone’s suggestions on better ways to work.

How can more employees find the voice of engagement? It starts with more conversations between leaders and staff; not more meetings, but personal conversations that recognize people for what they’re doing well, asking them to set high goals, and relying on them to self-assess progress. Allow people to express how they feel about a certain task. Even if there’s nothing that can be done to change it, the mere fact of discussion helps build trust.

Being able to talk about what’s working or not keeps resentments from building up and creates a spirit of inclusion. That increases the sense that an employee is valued, and it can help surface better ways of doing things that build employee competence, another core need.

Trust is a reciprocal affair. You don’t get it unless you give it. I see that on my local basketball team, the Los Angeles Lakers. The leader of the team, all-star Kobe Bryant, is inclined to do it all himself, but the stats show that when he doesn’t score as much and shares the ball with teammates, the team has a much better record.

When we give up the ball more, the evidence shows more self-responsibility is taken, more communicating takes place. Research by Harvard’s Leslie Perlow has shown that dialogue within teams can increase productivity and effectiveness, but also something more: commitment. Talent wants to hang around when their voices and issues are heard and occasionally acted upon.

You don’t have to be a Vulcan to be on a better page with colleagues, but getting beneath the usual small talk to promote more relatedness isn’t that hard. Be more interested in others. Ask about their lives, their cycling club, or dance lessons. When we know more about the individual needs and lives of our colleagues, the sharing builds better teams, provides more support when we need it, and promotes better work-life balance for all.

Engaged employees are a part of the solution. If you'd like to find out how an employee engagement program can build involvement in your organization, click the button below.

I was on the dance floor at a local restaurant when the New Year kicked in, letting the backbone slip with my wife and a bunch of friendly strangers to an old disco number like “We Are Family.” Dancing makes just about everything better, and about a thousand times more than just watching.

The crowd was thin but animated, a diverse bunch in ages and ethnicities all united in hopes for the coming year—and in shaking it no matter what their rhythm aptitude was. Several had already stepped onto the floor solo without regard to what others thought. Bravo! A great start to a year of no regrets.

Above the band there was a giant TV with ABC’s Times Square countdown. Just before the midnight hour, I caught a glimpse of a graphic showing the Top 5 New Year’s resolutions. Of course, “lose weight” was there, but also “enjoy life more” and “do more things with family and friends.”

In other words, I couldn’t help notice, two of the top five resolutions, the resolution behind the resolutions, had to do with a more balanced life (you can add "exercise more" to that category too). A lot of us know we need to do better in this department, but it can’t happen without a couple of key ingredients that the first weeks of a new year can help us with—time to think and commitment to change.  

At the beginning of the year we do something we seldom do beyond January—take a moment to self-reflect. Usually, mechanical busyness holds off the questions that need to be asked to chart a different trajectory. What is it I really need in my life, as oppose to want? What can I do to make life and work more enjoyable, meaningful, less stressful? Where am I going? Where do I want to go? 

Thinking prevents regrets later. As researchers have found, we regret the things we don’t do more than the things we do. It’s called the “the inaction effect.” That’s why resolutions like “enjoy life more” pop up on a lot of lists. There’s a nagging void when we are caught up in action to the exclusion of the thought that puts life on the calendar.

If you don't make the time and the resolutions, the world does it for you by default. Unconscious mode leads to the kinds of resolutions you don't want: 1) Do nothing about the stressors in my life, 2) Make sure devices and messages can badger me at any second, 3) Do tasks in the most inefficient way, 4) Run myself into the ground by not having any self-maintenance and recharging.

Resolutions get a bad rap, because the concept is excellent—fixing what's not working. The problem is that we aren’t taught how to use the right goals to create or achieve resolutions. Studies show that external goals, such as losing weight or getting rich, don’t stick. They’re about what others think. You don’t really buy these goals, so it’s hard to stay motivated.

Intrinsic goals—for learning, growth, excellence, challenge, fun—are much more effective at helping you commit and persist with an objective. The goal is meaningful to you in and of itself, and that keeps your self-regulation equipment sustaining the effort.

If enjoying life more or having more time for family and friends are on your resolution list, upgrading work-life balance is the intrinsic goal that gives you the best chance of success. Is that really possible? Can you get more life on the agenda and do all the work your job demands? The science says, unequivocally, yes.  

Work in the right way and you get more done in less time, and with a truckful less stress. Work-life balance means that you and your organization are using the research tools available to work more productively, have better time management and prioritizing and more control over devices and stress, deploy regular recharging and refueling, and explore the proven flex options.

Like most resolutions, it’s not easy, but unlike most vague resolutions, there are many practical tools to build a more effective work style and stop stress in its tracks. Key adjustments to how you and your colleagues do your work make all the difference.

It takes courage to change the same-old, same-old. That means speaking up, reaching out, whatever it takes to make things different in 2013. The ability to identify what’s not working and be receptive to another approach is invaluable to any organization. One Harvard study says speaking up results in improved practices and satisfaction. It called the word “No” the “voice-oriented improvement system.”

Doing things differently isn't as much of a stretch as it would seem. In fact, it's something humans were born to do. We get a burst of the brain's reward chemical, dopamine, at the mere expectation of doing something new. So change is who we are. We simply need to find the will and motivation to become who we are. 

As with all resolutions and goals in life, we achieve what we believe we can. We have more belief this time of year, so now is the time to move. Let's jump through the wormhole of change before it closes and work smarter, live better this year.

I'm happy to show you how you can make that happen. Just click on the button below for a free consultation and learn how to put a work-life balance program into action this year, for your organization, yourself, or someone you love. This is the time of your life.