Nancy Dixon\u2019s<\/a> blog, 63 percent of companies now permit telecommuting, but one-third of supervisors surveyed said that while they trust their colleagues, they prefer that they work in the office \u201cjust to be sure.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Discoveries in social neuroscience, a number of them from my lab, can be used to optimize employee engagement, commitment and performance for the digital age. \u00a0During the last decade, my colleagues and I have run experiments measuring brain activity in the laboratory and in for-profit businesses, developed assessment tools, and implemented interventions in order to understand how organizational culture affects business outcomes. \u00a0Laboratory studies permit us to assess causes while we control the environment. \u00a0We then take these findings into the wild to confirm that the same mechanisms hold in the messiness of real organizations.<\/p>\n
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The first question we asked was why people would devote their cognitive and emotional resources to helping an organization at all. \u00a0Yes, employees are paid, but classical economics assumes that work generates disutility and pay is a necessary salve for this pain. \u00a0This model also predicts that employees will do the minimum necessary to obtain their paychecks. \u00a0While this may have been true in the 19th century and perhaps even in some businesses today, it does not explain why we talk so much about our jobs on nights and weekends. \u00a0Nor does it explain why colleagues occasionally send me 3 A.M. emails, ecstatic about having solved some difficult problem. \u00a0These behaviors show the error in classical economics: many people find great fulfillment in their jobs and choose to work even when they are not explicitly being paid to do so.<\/p>\n
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The science my group has done has shown that work colleagues are, fundamentally, volunteers. \u00a0\u00a0If they have any skills (and everyone does), then they can voluntarily choose to work elsewhere. \u00a0Culture can be a differentiator between loving what you do, and loving leaving the building. \u00a0High engagement cultures treat colleagues like volunteers, providing an opportunity for joy at work.<\/p>\n
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So, what kind of culture creates high engagement? \u00a0Human beings are gregariously social creatures. \u00a0Unlike nearly every other mammal, we enjoy being around others of our species, even complete strangers…usually. \u00a0We will socialize with strangers as long as others appear trustworthy. \u00a0In 2004, my lab discovered an important neurochemical signal of trust, oxytocin. In the next decade of intensive research, we showed that people will voluntarily cooperate when they trust others and when there is a purpose or goal that brings them together. \u00a0Having clear goals causes everyone to pull in the same direction and provides an opportunity to demonstrate trust in teammates.<\/p>\n
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After my laboratory studies identified trust and purpose as key motivators for team engagement, we tested these drivers by taking blood and measuring brain activity at two businesses in the U.S. Midwest. \u00a0One was in manufacturing and the other produced software. \u00a0We made culture relevant by having one-half the participants discuss their company\u2019s core values, while the other half discussed a newspaper article about retail sales. \u00a0We then asked participants to perform work tasks, both on their own and in groups. \u00a0Both companies have been consistently included in Fortune magazine\u2019s \u201cbest places to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
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We found that making the organization\u2019s culture prominent in colleagues\u2019 minds reduced cardiovascular stress, improved positive mood, and increased closeness to workmates. \u00a0Both positive mood and closeness to others significantly increased productivity in a timed and incentivized task we designed.<\/p>\n
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We also measured participants\u2019 trust in colleagues at work using a survey we developed called Ofactor\u00ae<\/b>. The impact of culture was stronger when colleagues reported higher interpersonal trust and when they were aligned with the organization\u2019s core purpose.<\/p>\n
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Reinforcing an organization\u2019s cultural values and building trust among colleagues is more difficult to do at a distance. The brain is acutely attuned to social information of multiple types, from smiles to language. \u00a0The physiologic bandwidth of social interactions is higher when one physically encounters others. \u00a0Neuroscience experiments my lab has done on social media use show that electronic real-time interactions do increase oxytocin and build neural attachments to others, but not as effectively as in-person encounters.<\/p>\n
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Here\u2019s the bottom line: seek a balance between the stress (an effective oxytocin and trust inhibitor) of commuting and travel, with the benefit of sustaining in-person attachments. \u00a0Neither all nor nothing is the right solution, but as we increasingly integrate our work and leisure time, surfing at noon and working at midnight may be the best choice for some individuals and teams. \u00a0But, if team members only see each other virtually, then the culture of the workplace degrades.<\/p>\n
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Is the right balance for your organization 50 percent of the time in the office, or 30 percent or 10 percent? \u00a0I recommend doing controlled experiments to find the optimal the in-person and e-person mix. No matter what is best for your organization, my research shows that leaders can cultivate a culture of trust by building strong relationships within their teams, recognizing colleagues\u2019 accomplishments, facilitating autonomy, and investing in colleagues\u2019 personal and professional growth.<\/p>\n
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Culture, Peter Drucker reminded us, is a key competitive advantage for organizations. \u00a0By measuring culture, leaders can intervene to create cultures of high trust and high performance. \u00a0Even in the digital age.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
About the author:<\/strong>
\nProfessor, Claremont Graduate University and Chief Science Officer, Ofactor, Inc.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ah the digital world! \u00a0Email, video conferencing, and e-documents mean less travel and higher productivity. \u00a0\u00a0Electronic communication has allowed for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[99,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}