Developing "The Best Place To Work"

Nicole Diaz and I met when I was a touring artist and was playing a show in Orlando, Florida.

Although she missed the concert, we stayed friends from a distance.

She worked for the Disney company for many years and is an absolute delight to everyone who knows her.

I had the opportunity to pitch her my company's programs and while we didn't end up working together, (YET...) she gave me a gift in the form of an incredible book.

That book? "The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace" by Ron Friedman, PhD.

I am pretty skeptical when people recommend books for a few reasons, some of them include that they may not read like I do. (I don't read for the sake of reading- I STUDY. My phone is littered with notes from the books that I consume and someday if you stop me on the street, I'll show you and brag about it to you!)

Many books aren't based on facts - they're opinion pieces and authors regularly don't cite sources/simply batter their readers with the book's title over and over and over again, and many times there's a better book that could be more valuable to the skills I'm looking to hone.

In fact, my boss, Kirkland Tibbels, used to FINE people when they gave him a book recommendation and it was not deemed as a good book... (I LOVE that!)

This book sat on my shelf for a year, but as I'm beginning to work on my consulting practice and learn to find my own voice, I'm finding that materials like this help me tremendously when I can share my findings with managers and emerging leaders.

I'll begin with these stats: Did you know that 70% of American employees feel disengaged at their jobs and even more concerning, 18% are "actively disengaged," meaning they aren't just underperforming – they're negatively impacting their companies?

"JOSH... that's not happening here!!!" (REALLY??? ::INSERT EYE ROLL::)

I'll start with this takeaway- one of the biggest problems I'm seeing with leadership today is that leaders believe that they have already arrived, and couldn't possibly level up their skills.

In fact, I believe leadership is mostly over-exaggerated nowadays.

Leadership to me is not more than divvying out resources and employing them to achieve goals. (I don't care if you consider yourself a charismatic, militant, or a servant leader- all of these are good qualities with great merit- but when it comes down to it, "leadership" more about "followership" or being worth following and is mainly the art of helping your people achieve what they want.

This is less about your personal skillsets than it is your ability to see the goal and consistently help people reach it... but that's another post for another time.

Now, for a moment, imagine if your business viewed "employee engagement" as an investment in future earnings - regardless of how shitty the economy is.

Put yourself in a VP role -wouldn’t YOU do everything possible to build engagement, regardless of economic conditions?

Friedman argues that part of the problem lies in the reliance on salaries, titles, corner offices, and other short-term boosts which ultimately make long-term engagement difficult, if not impossible to sustain.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, a good framework, evidence-based and proven, exists.

Here are the main takeaways that Friedman points to.

Lesson 1: Psychological Needs Are at the Heart of Employee Engagement

How do you help employees feel competent?

I'll start with one simple and annoying word - "Practice".

But what do you practice? Here's some of the tactics on his list:

1. Immediate feedback 
2. Meaningful recognition
3. Opportunities for growth 
4. Empowering employees to find new challenges to master
5. Allowing for failure
6. Building employee connections 

Lesson 2: Organizations are More Successful When They Address the Limits of the Mind and Body

Each of our brains has limited mental bandwidth.

When our bandwidth is depleted, our mood sours, and our performance slumps.

POWERING THROUGH is a TERRIBLE IDEA and is the root cause of why so many professionals burn out throughout their careers.

Instead of ignoring these limitations and insisting employees fight through low-energy periods, organizations would be wise to design workspaces that conserve mental resources and offer opportunities for recharging.

"Your environment is stronger than your willpower." is a favorite phrase of mine, commonly attributed to Albert Einstein.

Our environments are more than just our surroundings- they include our mental space, our co-workers, our friends, our projects, our managers, and a litany of other factors that most people don't pay attention to.

Don't make that mistake - pay attention to your environment.

It's a literal cheat code that will allow you and your employees to perform better in all aspects.

Lesson 3: Integrating Work and Family Life Improves the Quality of Both

Rather than pretending work and personal time are separate, find ways to blend the two worlds. 

The fallacy of a "work-life balance" has been studied in detail.

I believe there is no such thing - it's simply a part of the whole that is "life", they are fused.

An old coworker, Tad Dunn, CPTM, CLMS , once told me "Don't work to live, live to work." (I can still hear his "Southern California, cool-ass surfer accent" all these years later- and he may not have known until this very moment that he left a legacy in my life with those words.)

Sorry for the delay, Tad! My bad... I've been busy living to work. ;-)

Friedman recommends the following tactics (Along with many more):

1. Include employees’ significant others in after-work activities to deepen workplace friendships 
2. Use the workplace as a vehicle for connecting employees to nonprofits in their communities
3. Express appreciation directly to an employee’s family to influence company pride

Want to get the best from your employees?

Focus on helping join their personal and professional lives in a meaningful way that brings them the utmost satisfaction.

Think about it- don't happy employees tend to do better work?

Building an extraordinary workplace starts with understanding these three fundamental principles and committing to their implementation.

The problem is, most people will intend to do this, but they won't actually commit to it.

Nicole,

Thank you for this gift. You've officially joined the "Josh's Ambitious Adult - Good Book Recommender" List. (Not a real thing, but pretty funny.)

No fines for you. Keep 'em coming.