What Makes For a Happy, Productive Workplace?

Think about your current work environment, or one from the past. Is the team upbeat and helpful? How do you feel about going to work, and about the work you do? Are you productive and motivated?

Now what if your co-workers are more aggressive and argumentative? How do you feel about going to work? Are you satisfied with your output? Do you give it 100% or phone it in?

Most organizations have a mix of these characteristics. But what tips the scales one way or the other? Can one person make a difference if he’s warm and friendly in a hostile culture?

Emotional Contagion

Each person’s emotional state makes a difference because states are contagious from person to person. Leaders are more effective in spreading states generally, because people naturally put most importance on the most powerful person in the group. 

There’s some objective data on this. Vanessa Druskat at the University of New Hampshire studies teams and productivity. She found in many different studies that the most highly productive teams have the greatest harmony and positivity. They like each other, they enjoy doing things with each other. They have fun. Work is play in a sense.

But they can also be tough and honest with each other. They can say, "You know, Joe’s not performing up to his usual today. Sue should take his place." But you need to be realistic at the same time. They don’t let issues simmer.

It’s not a kind of a “la-la” cordiality. It’s true harmony based on the fact that when they know John and James are having a problem with each other, they choose to talk about it, get it out in the open, and solve it. They don’t let it hold them up because they respect each other.

They do all of these things which overall create a huge force of positivity and cooperation because they’re not pretending to be harmonious. And only a harmonious team can be truly productive.

Review the SlideShare deck with your team.

Learn how to cultivate a happy, productive work culture in the upcoming online course, Thriving on Change by Elad Levinson.

Sign up for More Than Sound's free newsletter to learn how and when to register for my Praxis You course, Thriving on Change. Email mike@morethansound.net to sign up.

About Thriving on Change

There is a growing disconnect between traditional management techniques and the unique assortment of skills required of today’s impactful leader.

How we manage ourselves informs how we lead… on every level. Stress, frustration, and burnout from an increasingly complex, ever-changing business environment can lead to poor decision-making, strained relationships, and weakened mental and physical health. These are ruinous to thriving in a competitive landscape.

Thriving on Change is an online course that integrates the necessary proven-effective skills, tools, and practices to ensure leaders expertly respond to uncertainty, conflict, and inevitable distraction.

Unlike other leadership development courses, this program is delivered in bite-size chunks, designed to enlist all of your learning faculties. And because we all learn differently, each course offers a balance of:

• video
• audio
• animation
• self-assessments
• discussion forums
• downloadable practices
• reading on your own time.

Co-instructors include:

Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence;

Mirabai Bush, co-developer of Google’s game-changing Search Inside Yourself curriculum;

Joseph Grenny, author of Crucial Conversations;

Jutta Tobias, lecturer on Business Performance Management whose work focuses on the link between mindfulness and performance;

Jane Dutton, Professor of Business Administration and Psychology at the University of Michigan;

Theresa Glomb, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of Minnesota;

Sylvia Boorstein, founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center;

Monica Worline, co-founder and President of organizational development firm Vervago;

Juliet Adams, Director of A Head for Work, a firm specializing in leadership and workplace productivity.

NEW Praxis You LinkedIn Group

The beta version of Praxis You will launch this Spring. Join the new LinkedIn group for updates.