The power of small events: understanding Inner Work Life so you can lead your teams better
Traditional schools of thought about how to manage and lead teams focus on productivity and outputs — a very scientific way of evaluating employee performance. This approach was pioneered by Frederick Taylor in the 1910’s, who emphasised efficiency and productivity through task specialisation. Taylorism, as this approach came to be known, influenced and still does influence the way companies operate.
The problem? This approach works well for production lines and automated tasks, but does not work for knowledge work and creative work.
Psychology-informed management
Over the past 100 years, management approaches have become increasingly informed by psychological research. This started with the famous Hawthorne studies in the 1920s, was built upon by David McGregor’s Theory X and Y and Frederick Herzberg’s Two-factor Theory. These theories started to incorporate motivation and mindset into how to manage people.
Fast forward to 1970 where Dan Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s Prospect Theory emphasised the importance of understanding cognitive biases in decision-making (and started the super exciting field of behavioural science — yes I’m biased!), Dan Goleman’s promotion of emotional intelligence as being as important as IQ and Carol Dweck’s concept of growth mindset in the 1990s.
The way we lead teams and organisations is increasingly based in psychology, focussing on motivation, psychologicaly safety and team dynamics.
The Progress Principle
I’d like to share a fascinating piece of research that I believe deserves a place in the history of management. And that is Teresa Amabile’ and Steven Kramer’s work on Inner Work Life (2011).
About the study
Aim: to understand the psychology and performance of employees who work on complex and creative work.
Some stats:
12,000 days of data (daily diary entries)
238 people
26 project teams
7 companies
Findings in a nutshell:
* High pressure and fear do not result in best performance
* Happy, intrinsically motivated staff perform best (called Inner Work Life)
* There are negative and positive factors that influence positive or negative Inner Work Life.
Inner work life
Amabile coined the term “Inner Work Life” to describe an employee’s mental state in relation to work. This is similar to the concept of ‘psychological climate’ and ‘organisational climate’ — basically, what is the weather like inside your head?
Inner work life is the set of emotions, perceptions, and motivations that do interact with small daily occurrences of events.
Inner work life refers to the constant flow of emotions, perceptions, and motivations that individuals experience as they react to and make sense of their work environment.
Emotions — Feelings that affect how employees view their work, ranging from happiness and pride to frustration and sadness.
Perceptions — How employees perceive their work environment, colleagues, and the tasks they perform.
Motivation — The drive that pushes employees to work, which can be intrinsic (driven by interest or enjoyment in the work itself) or extrinsic (driven by external rewards or recognition).
So how does your workplace affect your inner work life change?
Well it turns out that small events and interaction have a disproportionately large impact on inner work life.
That’s right — those little, seemingly mundance daily interactions and events in your work day have a huge impact on your overall workplace satisfaction and performance.
And more than that, Amabile has codified the factors that contribute to positive and negative inner work life. I’ve illustrated them here for you:
Basically, there are 3 factors that influence your worklife
Progress vs setbacks (breakthroughs vs feeling stuck)
Catalysts vs inhibitors (clear goals, automony, resources, help, idea flow)
Nourishers vs toxins (interpersonal things like respect and encouragement)
Which one of these factors do you think is most important?
Of course they are all important and we as leaders should try to create workplace environment that have as many nourishers and catalysts as we can.
But Amabile’s study showed that the number 1 most impactful factor for positive inner work life is the Progress Principle. Fascinating, right?
So even small set backs can have a big impact on how badly we feel, and small wins can boost how we feel about work.
The so-what
I love this study because it crystalises something that we all probably inately know and experience — that your overall perception, motivation and performance at work is a cumulation of the little things you experience.
If your project gets put on hold, your boss doesn’t listen to your ideas, your colleagues don’t help when you ask, and you are under time pressure — chances are you, you will have a negative inner work life. And you will perform badly.
On the flip side, if you have a breakthrough on something you’re working on, you have sufficient time and resources to do the job, you can bounce ideas around with colleagues and feel respect — you will have a positive inner work life. And you will perform well.
I like Amabile’s work because it not only gives useful terminology with which to understand these factors, but also the rigorous research backing behind these.
So, if you’re working in or leading a knowledge worker / creative team, consider how you can create an environment that gives progress, catalysts and nourishers.
You can do this by:
Giving a sense of progress and celebrating small wins
Setting clear goals
Giving autonomy
Fighting for resources and time
Offering and giving help
Overtly reflect on and learn from the past
Allow ideas to flow
Being a good human — showing respect and emotional support
If you’d like to read more about this fascinating study, you can check it out here:
https://uc.cinepoliscorporativo.com.mx/wbt/cursos/GAP-SA/TEAM-LEADERSHIP/THE_POWER_OF_SMALL_WINS.pdf