The Enthusiastic Employee [Book Excerpt]
How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want
By David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, and Michael Irwin Meltzer
Book Excerpt
The impact shook everything for blocks. Fire, charged by thousands of gallons of jet fuel, sucked so much oxygen out of the air around the impact zone that windows in nearby buildings blew out as the towers of the World Trade Center began to wither and then collapse. On the 32nd floor of the World Financial Center, the offices of Barron’s Magazine shook. Computers, office supplies, and equipment flew out the windows. Stunned workers held on for dear life. Then, they carefully made their way out of the building to safety. The editorial and business offices of Barron’s Magazine had been almost instantaneously decimated. The damage was so great that it took more than a year to refurbish the offices.
Yet, on September 11, 2001, as people fled the building, Barron’s employees had already turned their attention to the task of publishing the magazine on time. Months later, Ed Finn, Barron’s Managing Editor, recalled that the attack had not prevented his employees from publishing a full edition of the magazine three days after their offices were destroyed.
In fact, the idea of not publishing never even came up; the only question any employee asked was how the team would accomplish it. None of us would want to face the challenges that Barron’s—and many, many others—faced that day, but we can all appreciate what the Barron’s employees did. We can all agree that most organizations would love to have employees who display that level of enthusiasm for their jobs, their companies, and their colleagues.
This is a book about enthusiastic workers.
Managers at all levels often spend an inordinate amount of time with “difficult” individual employees—employees who are angry, uncooperative, or perhaps neurotically demanding of attention. In fact, the task of dealing with such behavior problems is often perceived as a significant human resources cost. But, the reality is even worse, because the bigger problem is the vast number of workers who are not openly troublesome, but who have become largely indifferent to the organization and its purposes. This is the greater problem because the troublemakers can be identified and dealt with; the “walking indifferent,” however, are silent killers. They have learned to expect not too much and to give not too much. Yet, these workers are normal people with reasonable human wants. Somehow, their human needs are only marginally satisfied, if at all, by the companies for which they work. In return, they give to the companies a mere fraction of what they are capable of contributing. The economic cost of this underutilization to the affected businesses is enormous.
How does a company tackle this problem? One approach is to more closely supervise employees, pressuring them to do more. On a more positive note, other managers treat their workers to a procession of “motivational” speakers, rah-rah events, and programs. Neither approach will do much good—in fact, the former will likely exacerbate the problem. We need to get to the root of the matter, the source of employee indifference, and we need to address it. The real challenge is to turn indifferent workers into enthusiastic workers. The solution might surprise you.
First, we must understand what workers want. Then, we must give it to them!
This may sound absurd to some, a sure road to insolvency. On the contrary, it is a powerful path to business success.
Why do we say this?
Our proof is the numerous cases that we have collected over 30 years of survey research into the effect of employee attitudes on organizational effectiveness. We explore what the data show, illustrating our data with case histories and comments drawn from our extensive research, and we connect the data to business outcomes.
Asking the Questions
How do we claim to know what workers want? It is not by untested hypothesis, imagination, or philosophy. It is not by thinking “out of the box” as the vogue term goes, nor is it by generalizing based on a series of anecdotes. The only real way to learn what’s on workers’ minds is to ask them! This involves asking them simply and directly using inquiry methods that assure that the results are representative and valid.
Real data are the best antidote against jumping to conclusions based only on personal biases, the latest fad, or anecdotes. By using real data, we know what workers want, why they want it, and what it means.
We have been asking workers questions for more than 30 years…or, more accurately, a talented group of industrial organizational psychologists at Sirota Consulting, along with the authors, have engaged in employee-attitude research for more than 30 years. In that time, we collected over 4 million survey responses from employees around the word. The data have been collected on various general topics or dimensions of attitudes. Over the course of time, we organized those dimensions into a model that aligns employee attitudes with bottom-line business outcomes.
Asking the Right Questions
Although it is certainly a positive thing that we have collected extensive attitudinal data by actually asking workers about their opinions, we imagine that a few readers are now wondering how we know which questions to ask. The answer to that question requires a little background.
In 1972, David Sirota organized a small business to pursue his mission of improving organization
performance through the systematic assessment and management of employee, customer, and community relations. From 1959 through 1972, David was a director of behavioral science research and application for IBM. There, David’s activities included the establishment of IBM’s worldwide employee-attitude survey program.
David has a broad industrial and academic background. With a doctorate from the University of Michigan, he was a study director at that University’s Institute of Social Research. He now serves on that institute’s Board of Advisors. He has taught at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations of Cornell University, at Yale University, the Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and as associate professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is now Chairman Emeritus of Sirota Consulting.
Co-author Louis Mischkind is, likewise, steeped in survey research, with over 35 years of experience in the field. Prior to joining Sirota Consulting, as Senior Vice President, Lou was the program director of executive development at IBM, advisor on human resources to the president of the General Products Division, and in charge of opinion surveys and management assessment for IBM’s technical community. He has taught courses in social and organizational psychology at NYU. He holds a master’s degree in experimental psychology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from New York University.
Co-author Michael Meltzer comes to the subject from a different background. Michael is a lawyer, practicing business and related law since 1976. He has been an advisor to diverse businesses, including financial consulting, real-estate development, sales and distribution, labor law, construction, and business-management companies. Michael also served as an adjunct assistant professor at Pace University, teaching business organizations, real-estate law and trusts and estates, and he has served as a New York City civil court arbitrator. Michael received a B.A. from The George Washington University in Washington D.C., in 1972, and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1975. He joined Sirota Consulting in 2001 as Managing Director and General Counsel.
As David’s reputation grew, both for superior research and for an ability to collect meaningful data that could be used for real business improvement, the small business expanded into an internationally known and respected consultancy. Sirota Consulting is now one of the larger independent privately owned companies in the U.S. that specializes in organization survey research. Sirota consultants have conducted a wide variety of surveys for hundreds of organizations around the world. The company’s mission remains much the same as it was when David first started it: to use survey data to help organizations build strong, productive relationships with its key constituencies such as employees, customers, suppliers, communities, investors, opinion leaders, and the public at large.
Our experience, although extensive, is not the only basis for the statement that we have asked the right questions. The research done by Sirota Consultants over the years has followed a widely accepted protocol for attitudinal research: individual interviews, focus groups, and reliability and validation testing. You can find more detailed information on our methods in Chapter 2, “Employee Enthusiasm and Business Success,” in Appendix A, “Administration and Composition of the Survey Population,” and Appendix B, “Reliability and Validity of the Data.”
Our years of research, experience, and testing have resulted in an enormous pool of responses from which the data for this book have been drawn.
How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want
By David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, and Michael Irwin Meltzer
Book Excerpt
The impact shook everything for blocks. Fire, charged by thousands of gallons of jet fuel, sucked so much oxygen out of the air around the impact zone that windows in nearby buildings blew out as the towers of the World Trade Center began to wither and then collapse. On the 32nd floor of the World Financial Center, the offices of Barron’s Magazine shook. Computers, office supplies, and equipment flew out the windows. Stunned workers held on for dear life. Then, they carefully made their way out of the building to safety. The editorial and business offices of Barron’s Magazine had been almost instantaneously decimated. The damage was so great that it took more than a year to refurbish the offices.
Yet, on September 11, 2001, as people fled the building, Barron’s employees had already turned their attention to the task of publishing the magazine on time. Months later, Ed Finn, Barron’s Managing Editor, recalled that the attack had not prevented his employees from publishing a full edition of the magazine three days after their offices were destroyed.
In fact, the idea of not publishing never even came up; the only question any employee asked was how the team would accomplish it. None of us would want to face the challenges that Barron’s—and many, many others—faced that day, but we can all appreciate what the Barron’s employees did. We can all agree that most organizations would love to have employees who display that level of enthusiasm for their jobs, their companies, and their colleagues.
This is a book about enthusiastic workers.
Managers at all levels often spend an inordinate amount of time with “difficult” individual employees—employees who are angry, uncooperative, or perhaps neurotically demanding of attention. In fact, the task of dealing with such behavior problems is often perceived as a significant human resources cost. But, the reality is even worse, because the bigger problem is the vast number of workers who are not openly troublesome, but who have become largely indifferent to the organization and its purposes. This is the greater problem because the troublemakers can be identified and dealt with; the “walking indifferent,” however, are silent killers. They have learned to expect not too much and to give not too much. Yet, these workers are normal people with reasonable human wants. Somehow, their human needs are only marginally satisfied, if at all, by the companies for which they work. In return, they give to the companies a mere fraction of what they are capable of contributing. The economic cost of this underutilization to the affected businesses is enormous.
How does a company tackle this problem? One approach is to more closely supervise employees, pressuring them to do more. On a more positive note, other managers treat their workers to a procession of “motivational” speakers, rah-rah events, and programs. Neither approach will do much good—in fact, the former will likely exacerbate the problem. We need to get to the root of the matter, the source of employee indifference, and we need to address it. The real challenge is to turn indifferent workers into enthusiastic workers. The solution might surprise you.
First, we must understand what workers want. Then, we must give it to them!
This may sound absurd to some, a sure road to insolvency. On the contrary, it is a powerful path to business success.
Why do we say this?
- Many years of research have established that, surprisingly, little real conflict exists between the goals of the overwhelming majority of workers and those of their employers. It is a common, but harmful, misconception that people and their organizations are in a natural state of conflict. This book starts by setting the record straight, examining the source of this confusion, and providing a fresh start to understanding what workers really want. We show that the key question is not how to motivate employees, but how to sustain—and prevent management from destroying—the motivation that employees naturally bring to their jobs.
- Workers have basic human needs that management can and should work to address. Creating an environment in which these needs are met results not just in satisfied employees, but enthusiastic employees. What is the basis of human motivation in the workplace? We discuss three key factors of worker motivation and what they mean. We also show the extraordinary effect of successfully addressing all three of these key factors.
- Employee enthusiasm—a state of high employee morale that derives from satisfying the three key needs of workers—results in enormous competitive advantages for those companies with the strength of leadership to manage for real long-term results.
Our proof is the numerous cases that we have collected over 30 years of survey research into the effect of employee attitudes on organizational effectiveness. We explore what the data show, illustrating our data with case histories and comments drawn from our extensive research, and we connect the data to business outcomes.
Asking the Questions
How do we claim to know what workers want? It is not by untested hypothesis, imagination, or philosophy. It is not by thinking “out of the box” as the vogue term goes, nor is it by generalizing based on a series of anecdotes. The only real way to learn what’s on workers’ minds is to ask them! This involves asking them simply and directly using inquiry methods that assure that the results are representative and valid.
Real data are the best antidote against jumping to conclusions based only on personal biases, the latest fad, or anecdotes. By using real data, we know what workers want, why they want it, and what it means.
We have been asking workers questions for more than 30 years…or, more accurately, a talented group of industrial organizational psychologists at Sirota Consulting, along with the authors, have engaged in employee-attitude research for more than 30 years. In that time, we collected over 4 million survey responses from employees around the word. The data have been collected on various general topics or dimensions of attitudes. Over the course of time, we organized those dimensions into a model that aligns employee attitudes with bottom-line business outcomes.
Asking the Right Questions
Although it is certainly a positive thing that we have collected extensive attitudinal data by actually asking workers about their opinions, we imagine that a few readers are now wondering how we know which questions to ask. The answer to that question requires a little background.
In 1972, David Sirota organized a small business to pursue his mission of improving organization
performance through the systematic assessment and management of employee, customer, and community relations. From 1959 through 1972, David was a director of behavioral science research and application for IBM. There, David’s activities included the establishment of IBM’s worldwide employee-attitude survey program.
David has a broad industrial and academic background. With a doctorate from the University of Michigan, he was a study director at that University’s Institute of Social Research. He now serves on that institute’s Board of Advisors. He has taught at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations of Cornell University, at Yale University, the Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and as associate professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is now Chairman Emeritus of Sirota Consulting.
Co-author Louis Mischkind is, likewise, steeped in survey research, with over 35 years of experience in the field. Prior to joining Sirota Consulting, as Senior Vice President, Lou was the program director of executive development at IBM, advisor on human resources to the president of the General Products Division, and in charge of opinion surveys and management assessment for IBM’s technical community. He has taught courses in social and organizational psychology at NYU. He holds a master’s degree in experimental psychology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from New York University.
Co-author Michael Meltzer comes to the subject from a different background. Michael is a lawyer, practicing business and related law since 1976. He has been an advisor to diverse businesses, including financial consulting, real-estate development, sales and distribution, labor law, construction, and business-management companies. Michael also served as an adjunct assistant professor at Pace University, teaching business organizations, real-estate law and trusts and estates, and he has served as a New York City civil court arbitrator. Michael received a B.A. from The George Washington University in Washington D.C., in 1972, and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1975. He joined Sirota Consulting in 2001 as Managing Director and General Counsel.
As David’s reputation grew, both for superior research and for an ability to collect meaningful data that could be used for real business improvement, the small business expanded into an internationally known and respected consultancy. Sirota Consulting is now one of the larger independent privately owned companies in the U.S. that specializes in organization survey research. Sirota consultants have conducted a wide variety of surveys for hundreds of organizations around the world. The company’s mission remains much the same as it was when David first started it: to use survey data to help organizations build strong, productive relationships with its key constituencies such as employees, customers, suppliers, communities, investors, opinion leaders, and the public at large.
Our experience, although extensive, is not the only basis for the statement that we have asked the right questions. The research done by Sirota Consultants over the years has followed a widely accepted protocol for attitudinal research: individual interviews, focus groups, and reliability and validation testing. You can find more detailed information on our methods in Chapter 2, “Employee Enthusiasm and Business Success,” in Appendix A, “Administration and Composition of the Survey Population,” and Appendix B, “Reliability and Validity of the Data.”
Our years of research, experience, and testing have resulted in an enormous pool of responses from which the data for this book have been drawn.