More Drunkard Advice

I posted a few days back about the concept of regression to the mean and how our understanding (or misunderstanding) of that concept can affect the way in which we manage and reward employees.  Well, my stroll alongside the "drunkard" provided another important piece of information that can influence your employee's state of mind.

The book "The Drunkard's Walk" is about how we deal with randomness in our lives.  Randomness is something we humans don't deal with very well.  It makes us anxious.  If we think everything is random - and according to the book - a lot is... we get nervous.  We like to be in control.  It improves our attitude and it improves our health.

The author describes a study designed to see what the effect of feeling in control had on nursing home patients.  One group was told they could arrange their rooms the way they wanted and pick out a plant to take care of.  The other group had no control on these issues.  They also got a plant but someone else did the watering.

The results - weeks later the group with control over their environment had much higher scores on a measure of well being.  But the big surprise - 18 months later the group that had no control had a death rate of 30% versus 15% for those that were able to have control. 

In other words those that had no control died at twice the rate of those that did.

I'm not saying (and I'm sure the author isn't either) lack of control causes death - but it does affect the way we see the world and how much we put into it.  After all, if I have no control - what is the point, really.

How this applies to influencing behavior in your organization is this - want happier, more engaged employees - give them control.  Not too far afield from the post I did on "permission-based management" a little while ago where giving someone permission to explore a new idea is the same as giving them control.  If you give your employees control over parts of their jobs (if you're really adventurous - give them control over A LOT of their jobs) you are likely to decrease their anxiety about the job and allow them to perform better. 

Too often we strive to limit control in order to reduce the variability in a job - while that might make a "system" work better - it won't do much for the employee.

So my advice - lighten up - take a step back and let employees control more aspects of their job and watch engagement, satisfaction and performance jump!

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Comments

[Bob Dawson]

Thank you! I hope employers read and heed your advice. Give employees more control over their jobs and please recognize them for their achievements (and they will achieve) and wtach the Employee Engagement factor rise. That will soon produce a rise in Customer Engagement and I don't know about your readers, but very few of my clients are successful without engaged customers.