Tag Archive for: Community

The Happiness Choice

A Happy Worker is a Productive Worker (870 words)

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By Marilyn Tam, Ph.D. & Ed Rigsbee, CSP, CAE

The Happiness ChoiceUnhappiness among workers in America is costing a shocking $300 billion per year in lost productivity, the Gallup-Healthways estimates. Their recent Well-Being Index shows that Americans are increasingly unhappy with their jobs and work environments. When people aren’t happy about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less, and their work quality suffers. A recent Harvard Business Review article stated that the level of happiness has a profound impact on workers’ creativity, productivity, commitment and collegiality.

Current American Psychological Association research findings show that people want contentment, love and happiness derived from meaningful work. They want nourishing personal relationships, a healthy mind and body, a spiritual core, and a reason for living. But with only 24 hours in a day and all of the competing demands of modern life, the question is–how? Is it even possible? How can you as a manager facilitate your employees’ happiness and consequently increase your company’s success as well as your own?

First you as well as your company need a defined mission/reason for being. With an established purpose, you can manage and prioritize the energies and resources to best fulfill the mission. Work and life have meaning when we feel what we are doing creates worth and is in alignment with what we value. There are five life factors that need to be kept in dynamic balance to achieve and maintain happiness and productivity. Understanding people’s motivators will help you structure the work environment and to develop products and services that truly serves your customers.

  1. Money and other Means of Value Exchange

In today’s world, money is the primary, and sometimes the only form of work compensation. Yet surveys have now shown that the most effective motivator for increased performance and creativity is when one feels that their work have meaning and value. Understanding what drives people is helpful in the design of incentive programs to increase satisfaction and consequently performance. Show people how their jobs impact the overall success of the company’s mission, and tie their remuneration to their contribution to the objectives of the organization. That way they can comprehend how their efforts are intrinsic to the wellbeing to company and be motivated to fully contribute to its success.

  1. Relationships

Human beings are inherently social, we need honest and positive connection with others to survive and thrive in the workplace as well as in our personal lives. Healthy relationships will build trust and enhance openness and collaboration instead of fear and reluctant compliance. Structure a participatory workplace environment and allow for some flexibility in work hours so that your associates have the ability to adjust their schedules when it is needed. When people feel that they are respected and trusted to perform at a high level, it encourages them to strive to do even better. Understanding human relationships we can plan and act accordingly in business and life for greater productivity and satisfaction.

  1. Body

The American Psychology Association tells us that stress is the biggest cause of illness today, and oftentimes workplace stress is the primary culprit. Sick or unhealthy workers are unable to function optimally and their performance suffers. Unhealthy workers also cost the company more in healthcare costs and absenteeism. Encourage everyone to take their allotted vacation days; time away rejuvenates the mind and body, and they will return refreshed and energized. Ensure that the mission of the company is clearly shared with everyone so that they understand that their work has meaning. People are happier and can do more when they feel that they are contributing to a worthwhile purpose.

  1. Community

Human beings need community in order to survive and thrive. When your company is actively involved in the surrounding community you have a source of local support. Your community is also an excellent place to get input and feedback on your products and services. In today’s global economy, your community encompasses the whole world, and that perspective will help you develop your company’s offerings to best suit the market. Encourage and support volunteerism in the communities your company works in. Connect with nonprofits and other organizations that serve your market. For example, if your company sells products or services to small businesses, volunteer and affiliate with SCORE, the SBA’s non-profit consulting arm to small businesses. This will contribute to the wellbeing of your community, and also give you valuable input about your customers’ needs and concerns while strengthening your business network.

  1. Spirit

A belief in something greater than ourselves sustains us when we are in pain, scared or in dire need. That same power enhances positive experiences and gives us more joy, compassion and energy. Recognizing the power of beliefs can guide your work policies to honor others’ beliefs and facilitate their practice of them. When people feel respected for who they are and what they believe, they are happier and more productive individuals.

Increased productivity through happier employees can be realized with a modicum of energy exerted, by you and your organization’s leadership, in the above five areas. To help you better achieve success and balance for yourself and for your organization, several resources have been made available to you at no charge, please visit http://www.marilyntam.com/gift.aspx

Copyright © Marilyn Tam & Ed Rigsbee

Ed Rigsbee, top speaker on Membership Growth

Member Engagement: Foster Communities of Reciprocity (776 words)

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When your members are actively engaged in your association or society, there are two important benefits to the organization. First is what usually comes to mind—member retention. Second, might not be so top of mind and that is member recruitment. When a member is enthusiastically engaged, he or she will aggressively talk about the organization to colleagues, suppliers and customers. There is no better source for member recruitment, which will have the follow-up member assimilation factor included, then member evangelists.

Fostering communities of reciprocity within your organization is the number one most important activity of association and society leaders and paid staff for encouraging high-level member engagement. However, there are frequently self-generated internal control issues that can easily squelch this kind of valuable participation. If a particular community is not, an association officially sanctioned and developed community, the leadership can all too easily consider the community a threat, menace, or danger to the organization’s traditional power structure. This is truly a disappointment to mature organizational value seekers.

Member Generated

There are no better organizational communities of reciprocity than the ones that are member founded. While these communities are all too frequently feared by the ensconced organizational leadership, they are nevertheless conduits of high member value. Dynamic individuals drive the creation of communities that they want, need, and desire.

If a contingent of your members want a particular community and develop it, they will value it and remain engaged as long as the community delivers value to them. It would only be a low-esteem, paranoid personality that would want to squelch this kind of community participation. Association leadership must embrace these emerging communities or chance the repercussion of member anger and drop-off.

Since these members generated communities deliver additional organizational value to members, association and society leaders really should be looking to put in place strategy and tactics that foster these communities rather than try to limit them. Frequently, geographical communities can evolve into formal “chapter” structure far quicker and more successfully than can or does organization developed structure.

Organization Generated

As I mentioned earlier, control is one of the primary reasons that organizational leadership will squelch member generated communities in favor of official organization created communities. Organizational created communities are fine and can deliver high levels of value if created for the correct reasons; primarily to deliver additional value to members. If revenue generation is the primary organizational driver, the communities have a higher propensity for failure.

Organizational created communities must serve the needs of members rather than the needs of the organization.  There also is the important challenge of relevance. Since member created communities are relevant to member needs, organizational created communities must do the same. The challenge with surveying members using an online system like Survey Monkey to determine wanted communities is that all to often members will state, give me this—and when created by the organization, the members never participate. This is because they have no skin in the game. Then association leaders surmise that members really do not want the communities.

Better, is for association leaders and staff to listen intently to off-handed remarks made by members during a variety of events and when enough members make a similar remark about a needed community—build that. This method is much more effective than the traditional leadership structure saying, “We need X, Y or Z” and then going out and building those communities without a champion.

Organization Assisted

Regarding a community that I personally built, even though the entrenched leadership of a particular association continually tried to kill the community; my good friend, W. Mitchell, frequently said to me, “The market decides.” With this in mind, the leadership could have and should have embraced a community being developed that gave scores of members an additional reason to attend the annual convention but fear of absolute control paralyzed any thoughts of collaboration, much less cooperation. Is this what you want?

A valuable hybrid approach will generally serve most organizations and their members well. This is where member generated communities are encouraged and assisted through a flexible support system put in place by the board of directors and administrated by the organization’s staff.

My urging to all association and society leaders, volunteer or paid, is to embrace communities of reciprocity that sprout within and around your organization. These communities should not be feared but rather embraced, nourished, and encouraged. The natural byproduct is additional perceived value your members will experience from membership in your organization, additional reasons to be engaged, and the organic development of member evangelists, singing the praises of your organization. Gosh, isn’t that so much better than animosity, distrust, and ambivalence?