Joy at Work(er) Blog

Written by Roxanne Brown

The trick to adaptability is to have a strong point of view based on your experience and expertise yet hold a state of openness to take in and lightly evaluate new information, to see how your perspective changes and see if there’s any utility in that shift to the problem at hand.

When people struggle to adapt it’s often because the new information is in conflict with their personal values or outside their life’s experience. When you find yourself in this situation, it’s useful to explore what’s behind your struggle.

It’s okay to have a strong point of view. In fact, your employer may have hired you specifically for that point of view! Adaptability means you’re willing to learn and evolve or expand your thinking as a result. It means you are willing to accept that some situations require a different way of doing things.

Written by Roxanne Brown

How do my work colleagues, leaders and company tell me I belong?

* When there’s specific acknowledgment of my work, capabilities and contributions by others
* When I’m included in work projects and conversations that are specific to my unique capabilities and contribution
* When I’m given roles, jobs, work assignments, titles and/or promotions that are considered valuable to the group and are specific to my unique capabilities and contribution
* When my work results are integrated in the culture in ways that are considered valuable to the group
* When I receive requests for my input that are specific to my unique capabilities and contribution

Joy at Work Indicator: Belonging

“My unique capabilities and contributions have value here. I know that because I can see for myself how my capabilities and contributions have value in delivering the organization’s purpose and others communicate my value back to me.”

Written by Roxanne Brown

The trick to adaptability is to have a strong point of view based on your experience and expertise yet hold a state of openness to take in and lightly evaluate new information, to see how your perspective changes and see if there’s any utility in that shift to the problem at hand.

When people struggle to adapt it’s often because the new information is in conflict with their personal values or outside their life’s experience. When you find yourself in this situation, it’s useful to explore what’s behind your struggle.

It’s okay to have a strong point of view. In fact, your employer may have hired you specifically for that point of view! Adaptability means you’re willing to learn and evolve or expand your thinking as a result. It means you are willing to accept that some situations require a different way of doing things.

Written by Roxanne Brown

Some quotes from recent Joy Research interviews…

“Talent is the whole game.”

“The definition of a great place to work has evolved over the last year.”

“We spend so much of our lives at work, the standards for who you work for ought to be very high.”

“People are evaluating their lives and where work fits in it. What is its proper place?”

“The silly and small things we do for people here matter because they are super personal. It’s hard to show the results of that in a formal way and it’s hard to describe, but it matters so we do it anyway.”

“People are messy and that’s beautiful.”

Written by Roxanne Brown

In a Joy Research Interview this week, a senior executive said this year one of the biggest changes that happened in her company is it became okay to talk about feelings at work. It started at the top. It started with one executive admitting how he was feeling, and then the floodgates opened. She thinks it’s highly likely that’s here to stay for them.

We’re wrapping our brains around the implications of this for the workplace. We’ve seen this trend all year but to hear it so definitively described by an executive working in an industry that’s quick to dismiss the relevancy of employee feelings, is exciting.

How can this humanness be sustained and built on in way that’s good for people and for business?

One thought: We know that change can happen in a way that’s good for people and the company. That’s why we love it. It just makes sense to us.

As a result of 2020, there may be an increased openness...

Written by Ed Cook

As we grow up, Respect is something we are taught to give. Children are told to respect their teachers and coaches and other adults. The Judeo-Christian Bible commands Respect for parents, placing the commandment, “Honor Thy Father and Mother, ” after commandments concerning God but before those concerning crimes.  “Respect your elders” has been demanded for thousands of years. Like Trust, Respect is often included in organizational statements of values.

But the direction from which Respect is demanded (consider it a vector) has changed. Respect is demanded by individuals. It is a cry of defiance against indifference. As a result, Respect appears even more frequently. Google’s Ngram Viewer shows this increase in the past few decades. There is tension between Respect for the individual and Respect for the organization (and, as we’ll see, another player), a tension at the heart of growing Joy at Work.

Respect Is About...

Written by Roxanne Brown

Have you ever felt joy in your work even though you’re doing something that’s hard, maybe even painful? That’s a consistent theme out of our Joy Research.

An initial conclusion:

Joy at Work is…

Often work that is hard and takes a lot out of you AND you can see you’re on the right track and making progress toward the goal when you’re in the middle of it. This combination is important.

Joy at Work is not…

Work that’s easy because people get bored. In fact, many people that have a job they think is too easy for them will seek to create joy for themselves in different ways. They find ways to make it more challenging, interesting, meaningful. Examples: They start to take on more work or increase the responsibilities of the job or do more to connect their work to a larger purpose. They also might just look for another job or jump to a more challenging one as soon as they can.

Written by Ed Cook

Trust shows up frequently as a corporate value, a desirable commodity.  It is inscribed on our money  (“In God We Trust”) and in our nation’s official motto.  But for something that is valued so highly, organizations struggle to explain what Trust is.  They seem unclear about how to get it,    how to nurture it, and how it erodes. They often make decisions that seem blind to the impact of Trust on their members.  

Organizations often expect their employees to think of Trust in terms of actions: 

“I can depend on you to do what you say.”

“They’ve got my back and I’ve got theirs”

“We are all in it together.”

Although these are fine statements and positive situations, they miss an important point,  an idea that has lived in the research literature about the individual but needs to expand to that of the organization --  psychological...

Written by Roxanne Brown

In every Joy Research interview with a CEO or senior leader, we always ask this question at the end…

“If we’re successful in our research, what questions would you wish we could answer?”

Here are a few they’ve given:
• Is joy the word?
• Is that the metric that will help us get the most out of our people?
• How do we help people reach this state?
• How do we know it’s happening?
• How is joy unique for our line of work?
• How do people define it?
• How is it different from happiness?
• Why are leaders afraid to talk about joy at work?
• Why does joy matter so much?

Written by Ed Cook