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Why Compassion Is a Better Managerial Tactic than Toughness

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Stanford University neurosurgeon Dr. James Doty tells the story of performing surgery on a little boy’s brain tumor. In the middle of the procedure, the resident who is assisting him gets distracted and accidentally pierces a vein. With blood shedding everywhere, Doty is no longer able to see the delicate brain area he is working on. The boy’s life is at stake. Doty is left with no other choice than to blindly reaching into the affected area in the hopes of locating and clamping the vein. Fortunately, he is successful.

Most of us are not brain surgeons, but we certainly are all confronted with situations in which an employee makes a grave mistake, potentially ruining a critical project.

The question is:  How should we react when an employee is not performing well or makes a mistake?

Frustration is of course the natural response — and one we all can identify with. Especially if the mistake hurts an important project or reflects badly upon us.

The traditional approach is to reprimand the employee in some way. The hope is that some form of punishment will be beneficial: it will teach the employee a lesson. Expressing our frustration also may relieve us of the stress and anger caused by the mistake. Finally, it may help the rest of the team stay on their toes to avoid making future errors.

Some managers, however, choose a different response when confronted by an underperforming employee: compassion and curiosity.  Not that a part of them isn’t frustrated or exasperated — maybe they still worry about how their employee’s mistakes will reflect back on them — but they are somehow able to suspend judgment and may even be able to use the moment to do a bit of coaching.

What does research say is best? The more compassionate response will get you more powerful results.

First, compassion and curiosity increase employee loyalty and trust. Research has shown that feelings of warmth and positive relationships at work have a greater say over employee loyalty than the size of their paycheck.  In particular, a study by Jonathan Haidt of New York University shows that the more employees look up to their leaders and are moved by their compassion or kindness (a state he terms elevation), the more loyal they become to him or her. So if you are more compassionate to your employee, not only will he or she be more loyal to you, but anyone else who has witnessed your behavior may also experience elevation and feel more devoted to you.

Conversely, responding with anger or frustration erodes loyalty. As Adam Grant, Professor at the Wharton Business School and best-selling author of Give & Take, points out that, because of the law of reciprocity, if you embarrass or blame an employee too harshly, your reaction may end up coming around to haunt you. “Next time you need to rely on that employee, you may have lost some of the loyalty that was there before,” he told me.

We are especially sensitive to signs of trustworthiness in our leaders, and compassion increases our willingness to trust. Simply put, our brains respond more positively to bosses who have shown us empathy, as neuroimaging research confirms. Employee trust in turn improves performance.

Doty, who is also Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, recalls his first experience in the OR room. He was so nervous that he perspired profusely. Soon enough, a drop of sweat fell into the operation site and contaminated it. The operation was a simple one and the patients’ life was in no way at stake. As for the operation site, it could have been easily irrigated. However, the operating surgeon — one of the biggest names in surgery at the time — was so angry that he kicked Doty out of the OR room. Doty recalls returning home and crying tears of devastation.

Tellingly, Doty explains in an interview how, if the surgeon had acted differently, he would have gained Doty’s undying loyalty. “If the surgeon, instead of raging, had said something like: Listen young man watch what just happened, you contaminated the field. I know you’re nervous. You can’t be nervous if you want to be a surgeon. Why don’t you go outside and take a few minutes to collect yourself. Readjust your cap in such a way that the sweat doesn’t pour down your face. Then come back and I’ll show you something. Well, then he would have been my hero forever.”

Not only does an angry response erode loyalty and trust, it also inhibits creativity by jacking up the employee’s stress levels. As Doty explains, “Creating an environment where there is fear, anxiety and lack of trust makes people shut down. If people have fear and anxiety, we know from neuroscience that their threat response is engaged, their cognitive control is impacted. As a consequence, their productivity and creativity diminish.” For instance, brain imaging studies show that, when we feel safe, our brain’s stress response is lower.

Grant also agrees that “when you respond in a frustrated, furious manner, the employee becomes less likely to take risks in the future because s/he worries about the negative consequences of making mistakes. In other words, you kill the culture of experimentation that is critical to learning and innovation.” Grant refers to research by Fiona Lee at the University of Michigan that shows that promoting a culture of safety — rather than fear of negative consequences – helps encourage the spirit of experimentation so critical for creativity.

There is, of course, a reason we feel anger. Research shows that feelings of anger can have beneficial results – for example, they can give us the energy to stand up against injustice. Moreover, they make us appear more powerful. However, when as a leader you express negative emotions like anger, your employees actually view you as less effective. Conversely, being likable and projecting warmth — not toughness — gives leaders a distinct advantage, as Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School has shown.

So how can you respond with more compassion the next time an employee makes a serious mistake?

1. Take a moment. Doty explains that the first thing is to get a handle on your own emotions — anger, frustration, or whatever the case may be. “You have to take a step back and control your own emotional response because if you act out of emotional engagement, you are not thoughtful about your approach to the problem. By stepping back and taking a period of time to reflect, you enter a mental state that allows for a more thoughtful, reasonable and discerned response.” Practicing meditation can help improve your self-awareness and emotional control.

You don’t want to operate from a place where you are just pretending not to be angry. Research shows that this kind of pretense actually ends up raising both your and your employee’s heart rates. Instead, take some time to cool off so you can see the situation with more detachment.

2. Put yourself in your employees’ shoes.  Taking a step back will help give you the ability to empathize with your employee. Why was Dr. Doty, in the near-tragic OR moment, able to respond compassionately to his resident? As a consequence of recalling his own first experience in the OR room, he could identify and empathize with the resident. This allowed him to curb his frustration, avoid degrading the already horrified resident, and maintain the presence of mind to save a little boy’s life.

The ability to perspective-take is a valuable one. Studies have shown that it helps you see aspects of the situation you may not have noticed and leads to better results in interactions and negotiations. And because positions of power tend to lower our natural inclination for empathy, it is particularly important that managers have the self-awareness to make sure they practice seeing situations form their employee’s perspective.

3. Forgive. Empathy, of course, helps you forgive.

Forgiveness not only strengthens your relationship with your employee by promoting loyalty, it turns out that it is also good for you. Whereas carrying a grudge is bad for your heart (blood pressure and heart rate both go up), forgiveness lowers both your blood pressure and that of the person you’re forgiving. Other studies show that forgiveness makes you happier and more satisfied with life, significantly reducing stress and negative emotions.

When trust, loyalty, and creativity are high, and stress is low, employees are happier and more productive and turnover is lower. Positive interactions even make employees healthier and require fewer sick days. Other studies have shown how compassionate management leads to improvements in customer service and client outcomes and satisfaction.

Doty told me he’s never thrown anyone out of his OR. “It’s not that I let them off the hook, but by choosing a compassionate response when they know they have made a mistake, they are not destroyed, they have learned a lesson, and they want to improve for you because you’ve been kind to them.”

 

Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., is a Lecturer at the Yale School of Management and Faculty Director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. She is also Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and the author of The Happiness Track. Follower her work at www.emmaseppala.com.

today v2

The Art of Blooming Late

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Mozart was a celestial genius, but he struggled like a mere mortal during his teens and early twenties. Though already a prolific composer, he had to work as an organist and concertmaster in his native Salzburg to make ends meet. Underpaid, unfulfilled, and hemmed in by his frustratingly average gigs, he felt a burning desire to devote more time and energy to his art. So after a period of doubt and deliberation, that’s exactly what he did. He quit his job, set up shop in Vienna, and embarked on what turned out to be the most productive and creative period of his life.

 Tim Bowers

Even if you never hope to reach Mozart’s level of mastery, you may relate to his need to break free from convention. Maybe you feel as if your job is like painting by numbers. Maybe you’ve done everything right—excelled at school, worked hard, and landed a good, high-paying job—but you’re tired of being just like everyone else. Maybe you yearn to achieve something that is unmistakably you.

If you aspire to do more personally fulfilling work—say, to found a start-up or turn a hobby into a full-fledged career—drafting a plan of action can be daunting. Even so, a few newly released books suggest that it’s entirely possible to develop the wherewithal, nerve, and clarity of purpose to create your own version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

In Aristotle’s Way, the classicist Edith Hall describes the ancient philosopher’s belief that becoming conscious of our skills, talents, and aptitudes (dynamis) and then using our resources to make the most of them (energeia) is the foundation of living a good life. If you’re not working toward reaching your unique potential—as Mozart did—it’s normal to feel dissatisfied. If that’s the case, says Aristotle, it’s your duty to make things right. The philosopher John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche, agrees. “The self does not lie passively in wait for us to discover it,” he writes. “Selfhood is made in the active, ongoing process, in the German verb werden, ‘to become.’”

What, then, is holding you back? Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes magazine and author of Late Bloomers, argues that our culture’s obsession with early achievement dissuades us from pursuing our passions. Instead of having varied interests, studying widely, and taking our time—essentials for self-discovery—we’re encouraged to ace tests, become specialists right away, and pursue safe, stable, and lucrative careers. As a result, most of us end up choosing professional excellence over personal fulfillment, and often we lose ourselves in the process. According to the journalist David Epstein, author of Range, our obsession with specialization has infiltrated the ranks of youth sports coaches and helicopter parents, and it defies logic. Unless your job requires repetitive, routine tasks, being a specialist isn’t an asset. Having a wide range of skills and experiences is more beneficial because it allows you to be nimble and creative.

The authors of Dark Horse, Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas of Harvard’s School of Education, noticed the negative effects of early specialization in a study of people who came out of nowhere to achieve great success. “Despite feeling bored or frustrated, underutilized or overwhelmed,” the two write, “most dark horses reluctantly plodded along for years before finally coming to the realization that they were not living a fulfilling life.” Then, after a period of restless, quiet ambition, these seemingly average people—administrative assistants, engineers, IT managers—were able to transform their “cravings, predilections, and fascinations” into successful careers as master sommeliers, lifestyle entrepreneurs, and celebrated craftsmen.

To prompt this kind of revolution in your own life, Rose and Ogas suggest creating a micromotive, or a goal tailored to an extremely specific activity that truly inspires you. For example, when Korinne Belock left her job as a political aide to form Urban Simplicity, a firm that declutters and redesigns homes and offices, her micromotive was “organizing physical space.” Note that she didn’t say “doing something creative” or “starting my own business.” Those declarations are too general and fuzzy to be acted on. Instead, she identified a task that sparked within her an outsized amount of curiosity and pleasure and used it as her guide.

As you move forward, there are a few things to keep in mind. First and foremost, it’s never too late to “become” yourself. Aristotle, for example, didn’t fully devote himself to writing and philosophy until he was nearly 50. There are also benefits to taking a long, winding path to self-fulfillment. Remember that age typically brings wisdom, resilience, humility, self-knowledge, and creativity. This is one reason the average age of founders of high-growth start-ups is 45. Citing the work of developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, Karlgaard writes, the “ages 40 to 64 constitute a unique period where one’s creativity and experience combine with a universal human longing to make our lives matter.”

That said, once you’ve decided to embark on the journey, it may take years, if not longer, to reach your destination. But as research has shown, small daily changes can have a compound effect and slowly but surely lead you closer to the person you think you ought to be.

If you ever get stuck, think of Joanne, a talented and creative woman who bounced from job to job throughout her twenties, working as a researcher, secretary, and English-as-a-second-language teacher. Optionless and clinically depressed, she felt like a total failure. But she took that feeling of despair and used it to her advantage. Since she hadn’t succeeded in following a standard path, she felt liberated to do what she’d always wanted to do: write fantasy novels for children. As she would later recount, “I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was.”

You’ve probably heard of her. Her pen name is J.K. Rowling.

Now get to work.

 

Kevin Evers is an associate editor at Harvard Business Review.

today v2

Calming Your Brain During Conflict

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Conflict wreaks havoc on our brains. We are groomed by evolution to protect ourselves whenever we sense a threat. In our modern context, we don’t fight like a badger with a coyote, or run away like a rabbit from a fox. But our basic impulse to protect ourselves is automatic and unconscious.

We have two amygdala, one on each side of the brain, behind the eyes and the optical nerves. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, in his book The Body Keeps the Score, calls this the brain’s “smoke detector.” It’s responsible for detecting fear and preparing our body for an emergency response.

When we perceive a threat, the amygdala sounds an alarm, releasing a cascade of chemicals in the body. Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol flood our system, immediately preparing us for fight or flight. When this deeply instinctive function takes over, we call it what Daniel Goleman coined in Emotional Intelligence as “amygdala hijack.” In common psychological parlance we say, “We’ve been triggered.” We notice immediate changes like an increased heart rate or sweaty palms. Our breathing becomes more shallow and rapid as we take in more oxygen, preparing to bolt if we have to.

The flood of stress hormones create other sensations like a quivering in our solar plexus, limbs, or our voice. We may notice heat flush our face, our throat constrict, or the back of our neck tighten and jaw set. We are in the grip of a highly efficient, but prehistoric set of physiological responses. These sensations are not exactly pleasant — they’re not meant for relaxation. They’re designed to move us to action.

The active amygdala also immediately shuts down the neural pathway to our prefrontal cortex so we can become disoriented in a heated conversation. Complex decision-making disappears, as does our access to multiple perspectives. As our attention narrows, we find ourselves trapped in the one perspective that makes us feel the most safe: “I’m right and you’re wrong,” even though we ordinarily see more perspectives.

And if that wasn’t enough, our memory becomes untrustworthy. Have you ever been in a fight with your partner or friend, and you literally can’t remember a positive thing about them? It’s as though the brain drops the memory function altogether in an effort to survive the threat. When our memory is compromised like this, we can’t recall something from the past that might help us calm down. In fact, we can’t remember much of anything. Instead, we’re simply filled with the flashing red light of the amygdala indicating “Danger, react. Danger, protect. Danger, attack.”

In the throes of amygdala hijack, we can’t choose how we want to react because the old protective mechanism in the nervous system does it for us — even before we glimpse that there could be a choice.  It is ridiculous.

Practicing Mindfulness in Conflict

Mindfulness is the perfect awareness technique to employ when a conflict arises — whether it’s at work or home. It allows us to override the conditioned nervous system with conscious awareness. Instead of attacking or recoiling, and later justifying our reactions, we can learn to stay present, participate in regulating our own nervous system, and eventually, develop new, more free and helpful ways of interacting.

Practicing mindfulness in the middle of a conflict demands a willingness to stay present, to feel intensely, to override our negative thoughts, and to engage our breath to maintain presence with the body. Like any skill, it takes practice.

There are different approaches to working with a provoked nervous system and intense emotions, but they all have some elements in common. Here are four simple steps (which I also describe in my book, Everything is Workable) that I try to use when I find myself with an overloaded nervous system and a body racing with a fight or flight impulse.

Step 1: Stay present.

The first step in practicing mindfulness when triggered is to notice we are provoked. We may notice a change in our tone of voice, gripping sensations in the belly, or a sudden desire to withdraw. Each of us has particular bodily and behavioral cues that alert us to the reality that we feel threatened, and are therefore running on automatic pilot.

We have to decide to stay put and present, to be curious and explore our experience. For me, it helps to remind myself to relax. I have a visual cue that I use that involves my son. When I’m worked up, he has the habit of looking at me, raising and lowering his hands in a calming fashion, and saying “Easy Windmill.”  I try to reflect on this and it helps me calm down because he’s so charming when he does it.

Step 2: Let go of the story.

This might be the most difficult part of the practice. We need to completely let go of the thinking and judging mind. This is a very challenging step because when we feel threatened, the mind immediately fills with all kinds of difficult thoughts and stories about what’s happening. But we must be willing to forget the story, just for a minute, because there is a feedback loop between our thoughts and our body. If the negative thoughts persist, so do the stressful hormones. It isn’t that we’re wrong, but we will be more far more clear in our perceptions when the nervous system has relaxed.

Step 3: Focus on the body.

Now simply focus on feeling and exploring whatever sensations arise in the body. We feel them naturally, just as they are, not trying to control or change them. We allow the mind to be as open as possible, noticing the different places in the body where sensations occur, what is tight, shaky, rushing, or hurts. We pay attention to the different qualities and textures of the sensations, and the way things change and shift. We can also notice how biased we are against unpleasant or more intense sensations.

Step 4: Finally, breathe.

Everybody knows that it helps to breathe. There are many different qualities of the breath, but we only need to learn about two: Rhythm and smoothness. As Alan Watkins explains in his book Coherence: The Secret Science of Brilliant Leadership, if we focus on these two dimensions, even for a few short minutes, the production of the cortisol and adrenaline will stop.

To breath rhythmically means that the in-breath and out-breath occur repeatedly at the same intervals. So if we inhale, counting 1, 2, 3, and 4, and then exhale, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, then inhale again, counting 1, 2, 3, and 4, and then exhale again, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6; this establishes rhythm.

At the same time, we should invite the breath to be even or smooth, meaning that the volume of the breath stays consistent as it moves in and out, like sipping liquid through a narrow straw. If we manage those two qualities for just a few minutes, the breath assists us in remaining present, making it possible to stay with intense sensation in the body.

Paying attention to our body re-establishes equilibrium faster, restoring our ability to think, to listen, and relate. This takes practice, but eventually, we retrain ourselves to respond rather than to react. Anger becomes clarity and resolve, sadness leads to compassion, jealousy becomes fuel for change.

There will also be certain moments when we fail. Becoming more intimate with our body’s response to a hijacked nervous system is challenging, to say the least. This is because the sensations are very uncomfortable, our emotions are volatile, and our mind is usually filling with unsupportive thoughts like “Get me outta here,” or “How can they be saying that?” or “This is a waste of my time.”

Each time we succeed in being mindful of our body in moments of distress, we develop our capacity. Even more, we may observe something new when it occurs. A moment of pause, an unexpected question when it appears or a laugh that erupts. When anything new happens, taking note of it helps to free us of the pattern to our old way of doing things. Before we know it, our old habit of fight or flight is changing, and the world is a safer place.

Diane Musho Hamilton is an internationally recognized mediator and facilitator and the author of Everything is Workable: A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution.

today

Comfort verses Growth Zones

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today

4 Pieces of Career Advice It’s Okay to Ignore

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When you are in the earliest stages of your career, there is no shortage of advice to help you navigate things like how to get hired, make a good impression, and fulfill your wildest job aspirations. But what is talked about less often is the advice that you actually shouldn’t follow, which turns out to be a lot of it.

Some of the most common career tips — just be yourself, focus on your strengths, follow your passion — don’t pan out in the real world. Even when the advice feels “intuitively right” much of the actual data and research suggests that we are probably better off doing the exact opposite.

Here are a few “gold standard” tips you should probably just ignore, and what you should do instead:

“Just be yourself.”

This may be one of the most overused and harmful pieces of career advice ever given. In work settings, especially job interviews, people don’t want to see your unfiltered and uninhibited personality. They are more interested in seeing the best version of you — that is, you on your best behavior, telling them what they want to hear, even if it isn’t exactly what you want to say. Adhering to social etiquette, showing restraint and self-control, and playing the game of self-presentation will maximize your chances of landing a job, whereas “being yourself” may make you look spoiled, entitled, or narcissistic. The table below illustrates this point.

Interview question Authentic answer Rehearsed answer
Do you enjoy working with others? Well, it depends. Some people are truly unbearable, but I do enjoy working with those who think like me. I love it. I’m a natural team player and truly live by the mantra “there is no ‘I’ in team.” I’m at my best when I’m making other people better.
Why did you apply for this job? To be honest, it pays well and I’m running out of options. It would also look good on my CV, and hopefully help me find my dream job later. I may sound corny, but it’s my dream job. Contributing to your team would be invaluable. Everybody knows that you’re the best at what you do.
Tell us about a situation where you demonstrated leadership? I’m in my 20s, so I don’t have a lot of examples to choose from. Plus, the job that I’m applying for doesn’t include leadership responsibilities, so why does it matter? I’ve always enjoyed leading and my style is servant leadership. I lead to serve others and make them better. During the pandemic, I volunteered as a support teacher in my local school, helping run classes on Zoom.
Where do you see yourself in five years? Hopefully where you are: making a lot more money while other people do most of the work for me. Actually, I really don’t know. Who even thinks that far ahead these days? I hope I’ll have grown in this role and am continuing to contribute to your organization, helping the team thrive and learning along the way.
Source: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic  © HBR.org

What to do instead: In any high-stakes situation, including job interviews, you will be rewarded if you manage and control your public image. Or in the words of the great sociologist Erving Goffman: Act how you want others to see you — even if it is not 100% genuine. The science of social impressions says that the best approach is to read the room and work out what others expect of you. Then tweak your behavior to avoid disappointing them. Be sensitive to context. For instance, if you are speaking to a recruiter at a disruptive tech start-up, you should not wear the same outfit you might wear to an interview at a big bank or conservative corporation.

This doesn’t mean you need to violate your own principles or be an impostor. It just means you need to be emotionally intelligent enough to respect the social etiquette of the company looking to hire you. Things might be different five years later when you are an established player in the company and have a strong reputation, but you need to play the game before you can break the rules. Your rules may be better, but a job interview is no time to persuade other people of that.

“Let your achievements speak for themselves.”

The world would be better off if people succeeded because of their competence rather than confidence. In a perfect world, you would not need to spend time self-promoting, self-branding, politicking, and managing up. But sadly, this is not the reality. All style and no substance will get you farther than no style and all substance. In the workforce, research has shown time and again that connections, impressions, and showmanship tend to trump talent and potential.

What to do instead: Your brand is a bigger driver of your career success than your actual work. This means that even the most talented people benefit a lot from “managing up” — cultivating strong relationships with their bosses, and making sure powerful people see their value. For you, my advice is to learn how to (humbly) be your loudest cheerleader. The ideal scenario is for your boss to think that you are just as modest as you are talented. Being too explicit or assertive can backfire.

Observe people in positions of power and make an effort to understand what problems they’re trying to solve. Then show and tell them how you can help. This is a better formula for success than ignoring others and focusing only on your own work. Even the greatest artists in the world, such as Van Gogh and Mozart, died poor because they were and not focused enough on playing the game of “business politics.”

“Focus on your strengths.” 

People generally love this piece of career advice, because it’s much easier to follow than the alternative: “Recognize and mitigate your weakness.” The problem is that strengths are born out of tendencies that come naturally to us — spontaneous parts of ourselves that elevate our status and reputation with others. And while everyone has them, it is virtually impossible to succeed in any area of life unless you learn to keep your weaknesses in check, too.

For example, you can be the smartest person in the world, but if you lack empathy and humility, your intelligence will make you seem arrogant and cold. You could be the most talented writer, but if you have no self-control, you will never produce much work or deliver it on time. Moreover, if overused, your strengths will eventually turn into weaknesses: Too much confidence turns into delusion, a surplus of kindness into conflict avoidance, and extreme ambition into greed.

What to do instead:  Aristotle noted that every virtue is a mean between two extremes. It is better to be somewhat emotional than cold or explosive; it is better to be somewhat curious than closed-minded or a reckless; and it is better to be a little bit creative than unimaginative or eccentric. If your goal is to adapt to the real world and make a strong impression on others — which comes in handy at the start of your career — take this advice instead: Celebrate your strengths, but also do the work of identifying your weaknesses.

All extraordinary achievers are rather self-critical. To a large degree, their very ambition is the result of constantly attempting to overcome their limitations, and their inability to be satisfied just with their achievements. Similarly, when you know what your weaknesses are, you will experience a healthy degree of discomfort. That discomfort may drive you to get better — to close the gap between the person you are and the person you want to be. You’ll get farther, faster.

“Follow your passion.”

While it helps to have a clear idea of what you want to do in life, following your passion is often only a winning formula if your passion aligns with job market demand and your actual talent. It is also true that passions are more ephemeral than we tend to think: This year you may be passionate about photography, but next year you might be passionate about science, writing, or animation. In most cases, if you only look for opportunities in industries that you love, instead of broadening your perspective and considering those that will make you grow, you end up sacrificing jobs that could advance your career down the line.

You also give up an important chance at self-discovery — that is, a chance to learn more about what you want and don’t want and to stumble upon new things you may be good at or enjoy. Remember that following your passion can be a protective strategy, one that allows you to stay within your comfort zone, play to your strengths, and hampers your development.

What to do instead:  Usually, the younger you are, the more trade-offs you have to make. In your 20s, you should think hard about matching your interests and potential to available opportunities, and seize the ones that will help you learn and grow. In your 30s, you might want to shift your focus from earning short-term rewards to making a longer-term impact. At both stages, it is wise to be flexible. Treat your strong interests as “nice-to-haves,” but put them on standby until the chance arrives to unleash them in a productive way. In the end, it is less useful to follow your passion, than it is to find people who are passionately devoted to helping you grow.

The good news is that the trade-offs decrease with age.

In short, the best thing you can do right now is make the best possible choices. This means being open, and trying to carefully assess the pros and cons each path that opens to you might present. What you value is key, and you should never violate your own moral compass. After that, your success chances will probably increase if you maximize fit between your potential, interests, and opportunities.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, and an associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab. He is the author of Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and How to Fix It), upon which his TEDx talk was based. Find him on Twitter: @drtcp or at www.drtomas.com. 

today

Type Less, Talk More

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Modern communication media allow us to exchange information with others using text, voice, and audiovisual cues. But because communication also involves maintaining social relationships that are critical for our happiness, health, and the smooth running of a business, reaching out to others requires deciding how best to do so. And in this regard, the value of voice is key. We recently conducted several experiments that suggest people undervalue the positive relational consequences of using voice relative to text alone, leading them to favor typing rather than talking—a potentially unwise preference.

In one experiment, for instance, we asked people to think of an old friend they had not interacted with in a while, but with whom they would like to reconnect. These people then imagined how these interactions would make them feel if they typed to their old friend (over email) or talked to their old friend (over the phone). Results were mixed. Although people expected to feel more connected to their old friend when talking compared to typing, they also expected to feel more awkward when talking compared to typing. When they were asked to choose which media they would prefer to use, the anticipated costs of talking seemed to loom large: The majority said they would rather just type to their old friend.

These concerns, however, were unwarranted. We know because we then randomly assigned these people to reconnect with their old friend either by typing (over email) or by talking (over the phone). As these people expected, they did feel more connected to their old friend after talking than after typing. Contrary to expectations, however, there was no difference in how awkward they felt after talking rather than typing. Misplaced fears of an awkward interaction, it appears, can lead to a mistaken preference for typing rather than talking.

Emails and phone calls may now seem like ancient technology to some, especially now that the COVID-19 pandemic has made videoconferencing a part of many people’s daily routines, especially at work. But adding video to an “old-fashioned” phone call may not further increase our sense of connection to another person, as another of our experiments suggests.

In this case, we asked people to connect with a stranger by discussing several meaningful questions (e.g., “Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?”), either by texting in real time during a live chat, talking using only audio, or talking over video chat. Participants first told us how they expected they would feel during the interaction that they were about to have, and then they reported how they actually felt after having had their interaction. Before the interaction, they did not seem to expect that how they communicated with the person would affect how connected or awkward they would feel, but once again, they actually felt more connected (and no more awkward) after talking rather than typing.

Being able to see another person, in short, did not make people feel any more connected than if they simply talked with them. A sense of connection does not seem to come from being able see another person but rather from hearing another person’s voice. This is consistent with several other findings suggesting that a person’s voice is really the signal that creates understanding and connection.

It’s important to keep our experimental results in perspective. They don’t necessarily suggest you should always be picking up the phone and talking to your colleagues and friends. Text-based interactions are sometimes simpler and more efficient and enable recipients to respond at their leisure.  If you’re sending a simple message, a quick update, or an attachment, then emails and texts are the way to go.  But our data suggest that you’re apt to overestimate how awkward it will feel to talk on the phone, or to underestimate how connected that will make you feel—and as a result you may send text-based messages when voice would be more beneficial. So, take a little more time to talk to others than you might be inclined to. You—and those you talk to—are likely to feel better as a result.

Amit Kumar is an assistant professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Nicholas Epley is the John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He studies social cognition to understand why smart people routinely misunderstand each other.

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Inspiring Words…One Step At A Time

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Restore Your Sense of Control — Despite the Pandemic

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The coronavirus pandemic has wrought unprecedented levels of personal and professional upheaval upon many employees. It may irrevocably transform how we work, communicate, eat, shop, date, and travel. Clearly, these are not “normal” times. And yet, society continues to move forward.

Amid this turmoil, many employees have had to abruptly accept fundamental changes to their work routines. And these changes have been stressful — nearly 7 in 10 U.S. workers say navigating the pandemic has been the most stressful time of their entire professional careers. One of the reasons the pandemic has been so stressful is because it has stripped people of their autonomy, or the extent to which they can be themselves and have discretion over their actions. Having a certain amount of autonomy has long been considered an innate psychological need, and studies have suggested that a lack of autonomy is detrimental for employee performance and well-being.

The coronavirus pandemic presents a clear threat to employee autonomy because of its looming physical health risks, the uncontrollability of future layoffs and furloughs, constraints on physical movement, and mandatory work from home arrangements. Thus, understanding how employees recover their sense of autonomy, and which employees may be better or worse equipped to recover promptly, is crucial for understanding the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on the workforce.

In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology, we investigated the psychological recovery experience of a sample of full-time employees from 41 different community colleges during the two-week period at the onset of the pandemic. (The Monday after Covid-19 was declared a “global pandemic” by the WHO and a “national emergency” by the U.S. Government: March 16, 2020.) We surveyed the employees 3 times each day for 10 consecutive work days. Each survey included the same questions about how employees felt right now. This research method — known as experience sampling — allowed us to track the trajectory of employees’ feelings and attitudes over time. We were especially interested in how employees experienced two manifestations of threatened autonomy: powerlessness and inauthenticity. In other words, we wanted to know to what extent employees felt like they had control over their own actions and could be their true selves as the Covid-19 outbreak worsened.

Although the employees we surveyed initially experienced elevated levels of powerlessness and reduced levels of authenticity (compared to a similar sample of employees we surveyed before the pandemic began), they recovered surprisingly quickly. Specifically, over the two-week survey period, employees reported decreasing feelings of powerlessness and increasing feelings of authenticity despite their reported stress levels remaining high (and in some cases increasing) over the same time period. That is, employees regained a large portion of their autonomy in a relatively short amount of time, even though the situation neither subjectively nor objectively improved. This is remarkable, as it suggests that employees adapted to a “new normal” and began to recover a sense of autonomy much more quickly than many would have expected and past research on psychological recovery has documented.

Interestingly, the employees who recovered their sense of autonomy fastest were those that scored high on neuroticism, a personality trait reflecting a tendency to experience nervousness and anxiety. Neuroticism generally has a bad reputation — in fact, some have argued that of all the personality dimensions, neuroticism “is probably the one with the least going for it.” Some of our findings align with this gloomy view of neuroticism — our results indicated that in the early stages of the pandemic, neurotic employees felt particularly powerless and inauthentic. However, our findings also suggest a silver lining for neurotic employees: while they initially felt more powerless and less authentic, these employees also recovered faster over time (i.e., their sense of powerless went down and their sense of authenticity went up more quickly than less neurotic employees). This notion of healthy neuroticism suggests there may be functional benefits associated with vigilance and worrying in dangerous environments. Indeed, in chaotic and unsafe situations, such as during a pandemic, some amount of neuroticism may cause people to feel right at home, helping them navigate and adapt to the new normal.

Our findings shed some initial light on the effects of and responses to Covid-19, but there is still much to learn about the ongoing effects of the pandemic on everyday life. For example, will the faster recovery rate we observed among neurotic employees eventually allow them to achieve a greater sense of autonomy than their less neurotic colleagues? Will employees experience a second dip in autonomy as the pandemic continues and certain constraints prove insurmountable?

In the meantime, we put together a few tips for how employees, managers, and organizations can accelerate the autonomy recovery process, particularly if you are struggling to feel like yourself or exercise control over your personal and/or professional life.

For Employees

Assess and modify your environment. Working from home is not synonymous with feeling autonomous. Achieving autonomy in this environment takes effort. Start by defining a clear boundary between your “work” and “home” spheres (e.g., “When I’m in this room or wearing these headphones I’m ‘at work’”). This will help you psychologically detach from work at the end of the day and re-enter your home environment (and mindset), which research has shown is beneficial for employee well-being and performance. Experiencing too much spillover from “work” to “home” or vice versa is likely to undermine feelings of authenticity and control in both spheres.

This does not mean that you need to erect a cubicle in your home, install fluorescent lights, and clock in at the same time each morning. Rather, take liberties in customizing your office space and workflow to make it as personally meaningful and comfortable as possible. Ultimately, work from home arrangements are deeply personal and will likely be part of our professional lives for years to come.

Embrace the perks of working from home. In 2018, Americans spent nearly two full workweeks a year commuting to and from work, with a staggering 4.3 million workers qualifying as “super-commuters,” who spend 90 minutes or longer commuting to work in each direction every day. Few experiences are more autonomy constraining than sitting in traffic. Therefore, reclaiming this time can provide a boost to your sense of autonomy. You can use this bonus time to get more sleep, spend more time with your family, connect with friends, pursue a hobby, learn a new skill, exercise, or pursue any number of other personally satisfying activities. The key is to leverage this extra time to feel more authentic and in control of your life. Try to resist the temptation to simply work more hours.

Don’t forget self-care. From widespread business and school closures to restrictive public health policies, the pandemic has dictated many aspects of peoples’ work and personal lives in ways that are obviously not within your control as an individual. How you treat yourself, however, is up to you. Therefore, practicing self-care — through investing time, money, or attention to improve some aspect of your well-being — is especially important in stressful times. Consider earmarking the money you save on gasoline and eating out for self-care. If money is tight, consider free forms of self-care such as exercising or practicing mindfulness, which can help you reclaim control over your body and mind. Remember that “recovery marks the onset of a broader challenge, not the end of the crisis.” Thus, self-care should be an ongoing priority instead of a one and done event. Plan accordingly.

For Managers

Replace micromanagement with regular check-ins. It can be difficult for supervisors to take a more hands-off approach when their instinct is to micromanage. Indeed some companies have invested in new employee surveillance technologies that allow managers to meticulously track how their employees spend their time when they work from home. Relying on employee surveillance is more indicative of underlying trust and culture issues than it is a sustainable and effective management response to the pandemic. Not to mention, these practices threaten employee autonomy. Managers may learn from a company like Automattic, the parent company behind WordPress and Tumblr, that has found success by empowering its employees to work whenever and wherever they want. Focusing on output over process may help in this regard.

The opposite of micromanagement, however, is not abandonment. Regular check-ins with your employees are crucial. Ask how they are doing and what they need to feel supported and be successful. You are in this together after all.

Give your neurotic employees another look. Neuroticism is often viewed as a personality flaw or weakness. Those criticisms may be warranted when everything is going smoothly. However, neuroticism confers an evolutionary advantage in that it is associated with greater sensitivity to and vigilance in the face of environmental threats. When the environment is threatening, neurotic employees experience congruence between their personality trait and their environmental state, which can manifest in more efficient cognitions and behaviors.

In addition, neurotic employees may prove to be very reliable and effective team members during the pandemic. Research has shown that in group-task settings, neurotic workers gain status by surpassing expectations. Therefore, managers should consider revisiting and potentially updating their pre-existing beliefs about certain employees. It may be helpful to have some “Chicken Littles” in your organization when the sky is falling.

For Organizations

The pandemic is a glaring reminder that organizational culture is key. Enforcing company policies and holding people accountable can be especially challenging when employees work remotely. This can be a problem when dealing with deviant or unmotivated employees. Autonomy can also have negative effects at the other extreme — highly motivated workaholics may be at risk of experiencing burnout if they are given too much autonomy because peer performance is less easily observable. Absent social comparisons, some employees may resort to working incredibly long and stressful hours to keep pace with an imaginary performance standard. In this way, greater autonomy can be a double-edged sword.

These complexities reveal the importance of investing in a strong organizational culture. Having clear and sensible norms and expectations regarding working from home and working after hours can help mitigate these concerns. Additionally, recognizing and rewarding employees who embody your organization’s values can be a great way to promote morale and encourage others in the organization to follow suit. This is especially important in the context of remote work because organizational culture functions like an invisible hand, driving certain behaviors even when no one is watching.

Of course, some organizational cultures will be better suited to thrive in this moment than others such as those that promote (and actually live up to) adaptability as a core value and source of competitive advantage, but this reality should not discourage other organizations from taking stock of their cultures and the effects — both intended and unintended — those cultures may have on employee behavior and morale during the pandemic.

Think beyond facilitating recovery to designing the future of work. The pandemic has accelerated trends that are already in motion by shining a light on some of the inefficiencies of traditional office work. For example, the rationale for requiring closely monitored office work between the hours of 8 and 5 is quickly losing legitimacy as evidence mounts showing that more flexible and autonomous work arrangements are associated with greater employee initiative and support for organizational change, job creativity, and performance.

Now is the time to take a step back and ask, “What would an ideal world of work look like for this organization and what steps can we take now to create this future?” In this vein, some have asked, “Do we really need the office?” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey doesn’t think so — his company recently announced that many employees would be allowed to work from home permanently.

Overall, the pandemic has pulled the curtain back on a number of outdated business practices and revealed certain inefficiencies that will be difficult for companies to overlook moving forward. The quicker organizations internalize these lessons, the more of a competitive advantage they will have in the future.

As bleak as the future may look, the pandemic will eventually pass. Amid the chaos of today, organizations have a once in a generation opportunity to reimagine the workplaces of tomorrow and it is a safe bet that understanding and managing for employee autonomy will remain front and center in the new world of work that emerges.

If our content helps you to contend with coronavirus and other challenges, please consider subscribing to HBR. A subscription purchase is the best way to support the creation of these resources.

Eric M. Anicich is an Assistant Professor in the Management and Organization Department at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. His research focuses on the forms and functions of social hierarchy within groups.

Trevor A. Foulk is an Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. His research focuses on power dynamics and deviant behaviors in organizational settings.

Merrick R. Osborne is a doctoral student in the Management and Organization Department at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

Jake Gale is a doctoral student at the Warrington College of Business at University of Florida.

Michael Schaerer is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior & Human Resources and Lee Kong Chian Fellow at Singapore Management University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business. His research focuses on social hierarchies, negotiations, and teams.

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How Much Will Remote Work Continue After the Pandemic?

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A new study of pandemic-induced remote workers and their employers suggests that at least 16 percent will remain at-home workers long after the COVID-19 crisis has receded.

The survey of 1,800 people in both small and larger businesses also found:

  • While overall levels of remote work are high, there is considerable variation across industries.
  • Remote work is much more common in industries with better educated and better paid workers.
  • Respondents in better educated and higher paid industries have also observed less productivity loss from the transition to remote work.
  • More than one-third of firms that had employees switch to remote work believe that it will remain more common at their company even after the COVID-19 crisis ends.

 

“These estimates suggest that at least 16 percent of American workers will switch from professional offices to working at home at least two days per week as a result of COVID- 19,” the researchers conclude. “This would represent a dramatic and persistent shift in workplace norms around remote work, and has implications for companies, employees, and policymakers alike.”

The working paper, What Jobs Are Being Done at Home During the COVID-19 Crisis? Evidence from Firm-Level Surveys, was conducted by Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Zoe Cullen and Associate Professors Michael Luca and Christopher Stanton, with colleagues Alexander Bartik, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, and Edward Glaeser, a Harvard University economics professor.

They surveyed 1,770 members of Alignable, an online platform for small-business leaders. To supplement that small-business data, a second survey was completed by 70 business economists belonging to the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). Alignable respondents were generally owners or managers of small businesses, whereas NABE respondents generally work at larger firms and were not owners.

“THE PANDEMIC HAS BROUGHT ABOUT TREMENDOUS CHANGES, AND WE COULDN’T HAVE ANTICIPATED THE SCALE OR SPEED AT WHICH THEY HAVE OCCURRED.”

The surveys gathered respondents’ impressions about the scope of the switch to remote work during the pandemic, the ease with which different jobs could be performed online, the productivity effects of remote work, and the potential for continued remote work after the threat of COVID-19 transmission subsides.

“The pandemic has brought about tremendous changes, and we couldn’t have anticipated the scale or speed at which they have occurred,” says Stanton, the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at HBS. “I think there’s an important question about the extent to which this is going to be a more permanent change or not, so for me, that’s the main motivation for the paper, as well as trying to explore whether people are more or less productive given this new environment.”

The results confirmed high levels of COVID-related remote work, which the researchers define as working from home at least two days per week. Of those surveyed, 45 percent of Alignable members reported that workers within their companies had seen their jobs move online. In the NABE survey, about 80 percent of respondents said their companies had adopted some form of remote work post-crisis.

The research also confirmed that higher-paying jobs that require more education have a higher capacity to become remote jobs, highlighting concerns about inequality. “The NABE firms seem to have more remote-working, likely due to the fact that more of these firms are in white collar industries where remote working is easier,” the researchers wrote.

Are remote workers less productive?

While past research suggests that many American workers could successfully perform their jobs from outside the office, companies have been slow to adopt remote work arrangements for a variety of reasons, says Luca, the Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor at HBS.

“There can be important barriers to switching to remote work, even if an employer allows it,” says Luca. Some employees worry that working from home means being passed over for promotions. Other workers might prefer an office environment where they feel more productive (even though some of their colleagues might feel more productive at home), or they find it easier to connect with people at the office. “These challenges can be overcome, but managers need to create an environment that will allow remote work to be successful,” Luca says.

In the study of small-business employees by Luca and his colleagues, 29 percent of Alignable members reported that moving to remote work increased their productivity. Among NABE members, that figure was a consistent 28 percent.

Contrary to expectations, workers whose jobs were more conducive to remote work on average did not report comparatively higher gains in productivity as a result of the transition to working outside the office, says Luca. Those findings, the researchers believe, reflect conditions surrounding the pandemic that have made childcare unavailable for many professionals and have added other stressors.

The view across industries

To better understand variations across industries, the researchers compared the survey results with a remote-work feasibility index developed earlier this year by fellow researchers Johnathan Dingel and Brent Neiman of the University of Chicago. They found that the index is strikingly reliable when it comes to predicting the scale of the transition to remote work within a given industry as well as in predicting the productivity gains or losses the survey respondents reported.

“THERE CAN BE IMPORTANT BARRIERS TO SWITCHING TO REMOTE WORK, EVEN IF AN EMPLOYER ALLOWS IT.”

For example, the finance and insurance industry, which the index predicted would have a high capacity for remote work, saw 79 percent of jobs move online, according to the survey results. However, while about 32 percent of survey respondents in that industry reported productivity gains, the industry as a whole reported an average productivity loss of 13 percent.

More than one-third of respondents to both the Alignable and NABE surveys said they believed that at least 40 percent of newly remote employees would continue to work remotely at least some of the time, even after social distancing restrictions end. That means, however, that nearly 60 percent of respondents believed that the majority of their workforce would return nearly exclusively to the office, indicating the potential for a more temporary condition.

Although highly impressionistic, the survey data illuminates the scale at which workers quickly began working from home, causing a potential shift in the nature of work that may very well outlast the pandemic.

“Despite the majority of employees returning to the office, the scale of remote work during the pandemic has the potential to lead to a persistent change in the organization of jobs for many firms and workers,” says Cullen, adding “in a way that wouldn’t have seemed possible last year.”

About the Author

Kristen Senz is a social media editor and writer for Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.

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How HR Leaders Can Adapt to Uncertain Times

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Human Resource departments had a difficult job prior to the pandemic. In 2019, more than 50% of HR leaders struggled to ensure that employees had the skills necessary to navigate an increasingly digitized workplace. But, admittedly, this “future of work” had always seemed a safe distance ahead — far enough, at least, to thoughtfully prepare for.

My company, HPWP Group, has been leading discussions surrounding the future of work and how it impacts HR professionals for the past 15 years. We can tell you that Covid-19 has changed the playing field. Today, HR leaders are working around the clock, taking unprecedented measures to keep their employees safe and ensure that their organizations survive. They are navigating furloughs, layoffs, and reductions in force. They are adjusting to mass remote work. They are creating business continuity plans, drafting emergency communication procedures, and preventing the spread of germs in the office.

All of these issues are being addressed through a familiar process: defining the problem, addressing the variables that make it complicated, and agreeing on the best way forward. But when we consider that today’s greatest challenges are ones that many leaders have never faced before, it becomes clear that they are not just complicated (predictable) but complex (unknown). Traditional problem-solving, which is aimed at addressing the complicated as opposed to the complex, will not establish the most effective solutions.

As we’ve seen through our work, many HR teams aim to resolve issues by developing new policies and procedures. Unfortunately, once created, those same policies are rarely revisited, ultimately leading to additional problems — especially now, when the landscape is changing so fast. At the same time, a “one-size-fits-all” approach won’t allow for the kind of individual thinking and creativity that result in the most innovative solutions.

To be truly effective in this “new normal,” then, we believe HR leaders need to adjust and develop a new core capability: a complexity mindset.

Shifting From Complicated to Complex

This mindset change requires shifting away from complicated thinking and embracing a complexity consciousness. Simply stated, complicated problems require linear thinking — they can often be predicted or avoided and can benefit from expert input. We’ve experienced this kind of problem-solving time and again. It’s familiar.

In stark contrast, complex problems live in the realm of the unknown. There are no best practices to solve complex problems because we’ve never experienced them before and, therefore, could not have predicted them. In this framework, it’s crucial to tap into your organization’s collective intelligence, prioritize company values, and allow solutions to emerge.

This means that HR leaders will need to start collaborating more with employees at every level. Now is the time to focus on interpersonal relationships rather than control, standards, and hierarchy. Adopting a complexity mindset starts by accepting that complexity exists and needs to be accounted for differently. Here’s how HR leaders can embrace this mindset.

Tap into the power of collective intelligence. When complex problems arise, don’t overlook your most valuable resource: the genius of your own employees. The majority of the workforce consists of smart, trustworthy people who know their jobs better than their leaders do. Given everything on HR leaders’ plates today, they will not succeed if they don’t trust their employees to help them brainstorm solutions for remote work accommodations, continued engagement, and additional support. In other words, they won’t succeed if they don’t embrace collective intelligence.

Collective intelligence is group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration, efforts, and engagement of diverse teams. In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, journalist and writer James Surowiecki states that collective intelligence needs four conditions to flourish: (1) diversity of opinion to guard against groupthink; (2) independent thinking that frees each person to express their own opinions without judgment or pressure to conform; (3) decentralization, which means that the closer a person is to the problem or the customer, the likelier they are to offer a meaningful contribution; and (4) a good method for aggregating results.

For years, I’ve taught leaders the mechanics of harnessing collective intelligence within their teams. It requires excellent facilitation skills, clear parameters, and lots of flip charts and yellow sticky notes. Teams love it because they get to share real, meaningful input on important issues. The results are innovative ideas, diversity of thought with alignment (paradoxically), and walking away with stronger teams.

One recent complex problem that requires this approach is the growing practice of “virtual onboarding.” LinkedIn offers a graceful example of how to solve it using collective intelligence. To be successfully executed, virtual onboarding requires collaboration between HR and IT departments. According to SHRM, LinkedIn’s IT team developed a set of credentials that their HR team could use to load internally used software remotely in order to assist them with training new employees. To accomplish this, however, their HR team first needed to flatten the hierarchy and invite team members outside of their department to share their ideas around how to best communicate with new team members.

By promoting engagement between diverse workers and departments, companies can overcome obstacles that initially seem overwhelming or insurmountable. Put the humanity back into human resources. For an excellent example of complicated versus complex, consider performance management. Traditional thinking is that employee behavior must be guided by the rules of compliance. In my experience, corporate attorneys consistently tell HR leaders that they must adopt a mindset of risk mitigation in order to avoid lawsuits. This mindset translates into a culture of bureaucracy: rules, policies, and practices for every bad apple ever encountered. To make matters worse, HR leaders are continuously reminded to “treat everyone the same” which, given that every person and every situation is different, results in a lack of fairness and good judgment.

Bureaucracy and “fairness” are simple solutions that won’t solve complex problems. For a case in point, consider the video game company Activision Blizzard. Their HR leaders were forced to confront just how inflexible their remote work policy was when faced with the reality of Covid-19. Parents balancing work and childcare, and employees managing health concerns, weren’t properly accommodated. Instead of sticking to rigid rules, the company implemented quick solutions like flexible hours and remote system access to support their employees in ways they had never considered before.

Complexity conscious HR leaders view company performance as the result of open and clear communication, positive assumptions, and self-management. Instead of taking a matrix approach, aligning infraction with corresponding punishment, communicate with your teams about the specific problem and the impact. An approach that uses emotional intelligence will lead to increased productivity and higher engagement levels.
In practice, this means that when a team or employee comes to you with a problem, probe for the underlying cause instead of jumping to a rulebook solution. Ask open-ended questions such as “What is holding you back?” or “How would you handle this?” Throughout, assume that the vast majority of employees are good people who will want to solve a problem once it’s brought to their attention. Now you’re free to facilitate a lasting solution rather than dispensing discipline.

Foster a trust culture. As we navigate our current landscape, we need trust to serve as our foundation in order to create teams comfortable grappling together with the unknown. So much has been written about the need for organizations to improve communication, recognize employees, and practice transparency, but real change has been slow. As this crisis unfolds, it’s my hope that organizations will see the benefits of creating respectful, trusting workplaces and act with more urgency than before.

From an employee perspective, consider that more than 60% of workers say senior management-employee trust is paramount to their satisfaction. That’s because high-trust environments allow people to be their true selves, and when people can bring their whole selves to work, they are not only more creative, but more productive as well.

Building a high-trust culture starts with cultivating positive beliefs about employees, because assumptions drive behavior. If you assume your employees work hard, care about the company’s success, and have integrity, they are likelier to act accordingly (as long as they know what’s expected of them). “Getting culture right is crucial across all levels of business at any time — but it’s particularly important in times of crisis,” Diane Adams, Chief Culture and Talent Officer at Sprinklr, recently wrote. “When we’re happy, we’re at our best personally and professionally, and everyone wins.”

For HR leaders, this means rewarding exceptional performance with public recognition and individual growth opportunities, encouraging employee autonomy by letting workers set their own habits and mold their roles, and fostering transparency through open communication and evolving relationships. The goal is to develop leader-employee relationships based on genuineness and vulnerability, and debunk the notion that managers should keep their distance from a personal standpoint.

HR leaders who adopt a complexity conscious mindset recognize that trust is key to getting through this present crisis. Thankfully, many realize this and have already begun to build cultures of trust trustworthy: Edelman research shows that people trust their employers more than the government or media when it comes to coronavirus-related communication.

Make your company values foundational. Fear and panic give rise to knee-jerk reactions during crises. Even progressive organizations backslide to traditional thinking. Sadly, under greater amounts of pressure, it’s not unusual to see leaders of all kinds, including HR teams, make autocratic decisions without regard to their impact on employees. Moving forward, HR leaders can help fight this instinct by putting a greater focus on demonstrating fairness and a passion for their people.

Adopting a mindset of complexity means returning to the values of the company and allowing those values to become a filter for decision-making in high-pressure situations. Every successful company has a set of fundamental beliefs upon which the business and its behavior are based. But too often, they are words on a wall, when they should be the very basis for how the organization executes its mission during good times and bad times. This one concept has the potential to profoundly transform organizations. Eighty-eight percent of employees believe that a positive work culture is the result of a value- and mission-oriented foundation.

How do you use your values as a guide for decisions? Here are some questions to guide you based on commonly held values.

Value: Communication

Questions to consider:

  • What information do we or could we share that would increase transparency?
  • What information do employees need and want?
  • What information would make employees feel more involved?

Value: Trust

Questions to consider:

  • If we had trust in the vast majority of employees, what would we do differently?
  • What’s getting in the way of trust?
  • What personal behaviors can we demonstrate that would help build even more trust?

Value: Employee engagement

Questions to consider:

  • To what extent are employees affected by this situation?
  • What experience or knowledge do they have that will be valuable regarding this topic?
  • Have we made some topics taboo for employee engagement? If so, what assumptions are enforcing the taboo?

Applying this approach yields other powerful benefits as well: Using your values as a filter means less stress, more time, and better results. In fact, B Corporations, which commit to more than just profitability or growth, are 63% more likely to survive the pandemic than similar-sized businesses.

If you work in Human Resources, remember that your role — always, but especially today — is to be your company’s moral conscience. I know leaders in major companies who are willing to step up and challenge their organizations to act in alignment with their values. This can (and should) be your role, too. Adopting a complexity mindset will help you fulfill it.

Sue Bingham, founder and principal of HPWP Group, has been at the forefront of the positive business movement for 35 years. She’s driven to create high-performing workplaces by partnering with courageous leaders who value the contributions of team members. Bingham also wrote a bestselling Amazon book, Creating the High Performance Workplace: It’s Not Complicated to Develop a Culture of Commitment, and contributed to From Hierarchy to High Performance, an international bestseller.