Big Think video | Helping your people love what they do: Improve performance by engaging the biological “seeking system” with Dan Cable, Professor of Organizational Behavior, London Business School, and Author, Alive at Work
There’s a crisis in the workplace. According to a 2016 Gallup Poll, 70% of people are, as the classic pop song puts it, “workin’ for the weekend.” They’re disengaged at work. And a whopping 18% are actively repulsed by what they do for a living.
This is clearly no good for the workers themselves. But it’s also no good for the companies they serve. With all due respect to the HR department, humans aren’t resources. We’re humans. What makes us happy is fairly well understood, as is the fact that happy workers work harder, make fewer mistakes, and invest creative energy in making companies successful.
Understand why employees disengage
- During the Industrial Era, work was broken into really small tasks, such that most workers never met the customer, invented the product, or saw the process overall. Meaning and curiosity were intentionally removed from the workplace. This management shift was made in the name of reliability, quality, and efficiency.
Harness your employees’ innate curiosity
- Our brain’s ventral striatum, or seeking system, urges us to explore. As a species, we are driven to look for the walls of our knowledge and to try to understand cause-and-effect in the world.
Study startup culture
- In startups, curiosity is encouraged. Workers are expected to be fluid in their roles and to exploit new opportunities. In larger, more traditional organizations, curiosity can be a liability. Workers are expected to focus on priority KPIs.
- As a leader or manager, what expectations do you have for your workplace culture and employees?
