I was in a meeting recently when an executive openly discussed his feelings about having to make drastic cuts to his operating budget. He said, “I feel like an out of shape person that was just asked to run a marathon. I finished, but I am very tired. Please don’t ask me to run another 100 yards.”
Like a lot of people in his organization, this leader is surviving, making the best of a terrible situation, but clearly not thriving.
Thriving is the psychological state in which individuals experience both a sense of vitality and a sense of learning at work. Vitality refers to the positive feeling of having energy available. Learning refers to the sense one is acquiring, and can apply knowledge and skills. (Sprietzer & Sutcliffe, 2007).
If you feel like you are learning and growing, but are burned out in the process, you are not thriving. And if you feel a sense of energy and drive to succeed, but your learning and growth is for some reason thwarted, you are not thriving.
There is not much evidence to support the causes and consequences of thriving at this stage, but I like the concept. I think it is more useful to be concerned about the extent to which your people are thriving, instead of how engaged or even how happy they might be.
You should follow me on twitter here.
I think the distinction between “surviving” and “thriving” is a good one. My impression is that “thriving” would accurately describe both the individuals and the teams in the great teams I’ve studied.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Wally, you bring up an interesting point about collective thriving. I think we can see this in the aggregate, organizations that are or are not thriving because of how well their people are thriving. This is another reason to like this concept better than stuff like engagement and happiness. Thanks! Bret
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This is very consistent with the way we define a healthy workplace — that is, one that optimizes outcomes for employees and the organization. It’s not just about survival. It’s about creating an environment where both employees and the organization can perform at their best.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 15th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
David you made a point on Twitter about success being more than the absence of failure. I strongly concur. As you know, so much of what we know about individual and organizational health is firmly rooted in the disease model. We need to know much more about the positive. Thanks! Bret
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