Why We Need More Optimistic Workplaces
Despite the prevalence of negative influences on the workplace, it’s possible to create a culture where employees want to be.
The workplace feels like it’s been a long steady drain on our lives. In the past year alone, work has amplified, and not in a good way, its effects on our well-being. Throughout 2020, stories and research revealed how lonely we had become as we isolated ourselves from family members, friends, and coworkers. There was a sort of collective malaise that hovered over us. Executives are reportedly pulling out their hair over the ever-changing calculus for bringing employees back to the office.
Yet, work’s draining influence on the work experience has been in decline for decades. Gender parity and equality are only now commanding a modicum of attention from corporate decision-makers. If ever there is a need to make the workplace better for all its workers, it’s now.
Despite work’s underwhelming influence on our lives, we want to feel good about the work we do. What’s more, we want our hard work to have a positive, even lasting impact. Studs Terkel, the author of Working, summed this up eloquently:
[Work] is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.
It’s seductive to focus on what’s broken with work life. In writing this post I had to exercise restraint in citing the many issues plaguing the modern workplace. Yet, the dominant narrative about the workplace and all its follies is one-sided. We absolutely cannot ignore what people do, don’t do, or say that diminish people’s contributions at work. We cannot look away from the effects of management malpractice that undercuts the intentions behind a company’s values, mission, or purpose. Understanding what’s behind the negative narrative is important. However, it’s how we reverse course that matters.
Enter Workplace Optimism
Most of us are familiar with optimism as an outlook on life. We attribute the proverbial glass-half-full mindset to optimists. That’s not what workplace optimism is, however.
Workplace optimism is a perception. In optimistic workplaces, we find meaning and purpose in what we do. People also focus on what’s right and what’s possible rather than being dragged down by idolizing problems. This is what I learned from interviewing hundreds of employees and people leaders who work in optimistic workplaces. Employees’ favorable perceptions evoke positive feelings towards work, the company, colleagues, and their bosses. This positive feeling gives us hope that good things come from our hard work.
When our work experience is positive our thinking improves; we find different ways to find fitting solutions to vexing problems. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson explains in her book Positivity, that positive emotions “broaden our minds and expand our range of vision.” Her research found that actions and ways of thinking are constructively influenced. People were better able to see connections and relationships between ideas and concepts. And a positive affect helps broaden our cognitive functions helping to find novel ways to solve problems.
Positive emotions are contagious. Research finds that emotions — positive and negative — can spread across small groups, organizations, and even in social groups. Think of the last time you witnessed someone experience joy. You likely wanted that experience for yourself. Now imagine how positivity and contagious emotions help build the highly desirable optimistic workplace climate.
On Creating Optimistic Workplaces
Issues that undermine employees’ performance are not ignored in optimistic workplaces. In fact, in these companies, there is a bias for action and results. The nuance, however, is leaders intentionally focus on creating a culture that helps people do their best work, and feel valued, wanted, and welcomed in the process.
Creating optimistic workplaces does not require a corporate transformation project, though it would be helpful. Through the countless stories from employees, I learned it’s the manager who greatly influences how employees view their experience at work. Specifically, it’s not a manager’s technical skills that win employees’ heads, hearts, and hands. Instead, it’s their ability to relate to people, and this requires empathy.
The McKinsey Global Institute codified 56 skills and attitudes needed for the future of work. According to the research, empathy was a top skill central to developing relationships with others. Humility, inspiring trust, and sociability were linked to thriving at work. “Adaptability” and “coping with uncertainty,” both considered attitudes, were also found to be important for leaders. It stands to reason, then, that companies must overhaul how they develop current and future leaders.
Perhaps a less obvious theme from the research is this: relatedness and relationships building are intentional leadership acts that help us triumph over any force majeure our companies face. It’s also what helps leaders connect with their workers — humans not resources.
In these times where division is more prevalent than unity, a pivot away from relating to employees as resources make sense. A resource is finite. It’s something we toss away after its use is no longer valued or needed. Humans, however, have infinite capacity. The motivating spark in our infinite capacity — boundless and open to possibility — is the source to create workplaces where people want to be — virtual or in-person.
It’s natural to resist change, people, or ideas. Yet, it’s also our capacity for accepting changes, building relationships, and exploring new ideas that help us rewrite the “Monday through Friday sort of dying” narrative.
Changing employees’ perceptions about how they experience work is a shift for many leaders. It’s natural to resist change, people, or ideas. Yet, it’s also our capacity for accepting changes, building relationships, and exploring new ideas that help us rewrite the “Monday through Friday sort of dying” narrative.
We’re 16 months into the pandemic. It’s not over. Unfortunately, its influences on business, the workforce, and society will be felt for some time. And through the many twists and pivots, we’ve learned that it’s the unpredictable that can be predicted. There is some comfort in this knowing.
While we may be weary, we owe it to ourselves to improve the things that are a major part of our lives, including work. We need to keep our focus on thriving even when we attempt to create something uplifting during gut-wrenching, difficult times. We all do better when we focus on what’s possible. It’s easier to achieve this in an optimistic environment.
