High-performance work systems (HPWS) are a group of separate but interconnected human resource (HR) practices – e.g. selection, training, performance appraisal, and compensation – designed to enhance employee effectiveness. Employees should have better skills, more motivation, and more opportunities to excel when these high-performance HR practices are aligned and working in harmony.

A study by Jake Messersmith, Pankaj Patel, and David Lepak recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (full citation below) helps us understand how HPWS contribute to group performance. This study of employees and managers in 119 service departments of local governments in Wales examined both the direct effect high performance HR practices have on departmental performance, and how these practices affect departmental performance indirectly by influencing employee attitudes and discretionary behaviors.

The employee attitudes they examined were job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and empowerment. The study found that HPWS had a significant, positive effect on these attitudes, and these attitudes in turn enhanced the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of the employees. Departmental performance was affected both directly by HPWS and indirectly via the citizenship behavior of employees. Here is how the authors explain the findings:

The study demonstrates that building an effective HR system may have a powerful influence on the attitudes and behaviors of individual employees. Not only is this likely to create a more positive work place environment but it also seems to have an influence on departmental performance. Investing in the selection, training, information sharing, compensation, and performance management processes may have a positive effect on employee attitudes and behaviors and may pay further dividends with higher service quality and performance. This highlights the importance of not just managing based upon results but also paying attention to the role that attitudes and behaviors play in creating better results. (p. 11)

This study further reinforces one of my core beliefs about how to change the behavior and improve the performance of your employees. Attitudes are strong drivers of behavior, especially job satisfaction and organizational commitment. You are making a big mistake if you don’t consistently measure and evaluate the satisfaction and commitment of your employees.

If your employees are not performing as well as you would like, it’s very likely because they are not very satisfied with their jobs and committed to the organization. Their lack of satisfaction and commitment is most likely a result of a crappy HR practice or system of practices. Stop blaming employees and fix the systems if you want to improve attitudes, behaviors and performance.

Bob Sutton’s point is once again proven by this study – the law of crappy systems trumps the law of crappy people.

Full citation: Messersmith, J.G., Patel, P.C., & Lepak, D.P. (2011) Unlocking the Black Box: Exploring the Link Between High-Performance Work Systems and Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology

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The evidence for work engagement got a big boost from a study just published in Personnel Psychology (full citation at the end of this post). The authors first defined what engagement is and is not, identified several key antecedents and consequences, and then tested their model in a meta-analysis of 200 previously published studies of six different measures of engagement that met their criteria.

I was disappointed that the authors did not provide a concise definition of engagement. In their two page definition of engagement (darn academics), they do identify two characteristics that must be present in any valid approach to work engagement (pp. 91- 94):

1.     Engagement should refer to a psychological connection with the performance of work tasks rather than features of the job or organization. “Thus, a measure such as the Gallup Workplace Audit does not conform to this conceptualization because it refers to work conditions not the work task” (p. 91). Did you catch that? Gallup does NOT measure engagement – something I’ve stated here previously.

2.     Engagement involves the simultaneous and holistic self-investment of physical, emotional, and cognitive resources to work. Engaged folks experience a connection with their work on multiple levels.

The results of the meta-analysis first showed that work engagement predicts work performance over and above job satisfaction and organizational commitment – the two most consistent predictors of performance. The effect of engagement beyond satisfaction and commitment is not large, but it is significant.

Both characteristics of the job and characteristics of the individual are significant predictors of work engagement. The characteristics of the job that enhance engagement are task variety and task significance, and the characteristics of the individual are conscientiousness and positive affect. An interesting finding of the study was that autonomy, feedback, and transformational leadership have little effect on employee engagement.

Good quality evidence is mounting that work engagement does matter. Please understand that this conclusion is only valid if you have defined and measured engagement correctly. There are a lot of very popular measures of engagement being peddled by consultants (e.g. Gallup) that cannot claim support from this evidence. And please keep in mind that if engagement is not your cup of tea, this research confirmed once again that good old employee satisfaction and commitment are still some of the best drivers of employee performance.

If you want engaged employees at your workplace, you must first assume responsibility for providing jobs that give employees the opportunity to perform a variety of tasks that they perceive to be meaningful. It’s very difficult for employees to be engaged when their jobs are mundane and they have not been shown how what they do really matters. With good jobs in place, now hire conscientious and positive employees. Please don’t miss the fact that unless and until you make informed decisions as a manager, employee engagement will remain elusive.

Full citation: Christian, M.S., Garza, A.S., & Slaughter, J.E. (2011) Work engagement: A quantitative review and test of its relations with task and contextual performance. Personnel Psychology, 64: 89-136.

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My new post at The Leader Lab looks at new evidence about the relationship between age and job attitudes. Contrary to negative age stereotypes, the evidence from 800 previously published studies on 35 different job attitudes shows that in general, older workers have more positive work attitudes than their younger colleagues. Most of the effects were only modest, but they were significant for 27 of the 35 job attitudes examined in this meta-analysis.

Please visit the link above to read the full text of my article, or check out the link below to hear me read the text. And please share your thoughts – I’d love to know what you think!

Do Older Workers Have Bad Attitudes by BretSimmons

My new post at The Leader Lab is entitled “Well-Connected Leaders: Who Cares?” In this post I present the findings of new research on the importance of networking for leaders. If you network well, your employees are likely to think you have higher status at work, and for most employees that will motivate them to have a good relationship with you. But employees that are themselves well-connected will be less impressed.

You can read the full text of my post by clicking this link, or you can listen to me read the full text at the podcast below.

In his excellent new book, “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age,” Clay Shirky argues quite persuasively that we always have and always will find time and effort to do the things that interest us. Any single individual might not have a lot, but in the aggregate the potential cognitive surplus of a large group of people can be significant and powerful. The internet and the proliferation of social sites that are increasingly easy to use create opportunities for huge numbers of people to spend their cognitive surplus in a multitude of ways. Some opportunities create productive value; many others are simply fun.

How do you spend your cognitive surplus online?

Do you spend your time mostly playing around or gathering with relatively small numbers of people to share photos, stories, and laughs? If you are spending your cognitive surplus in ways that primarily create personal or limited communal value, you are part of what Shirky calls the Invisible High School.

Or do you spend your time and energy committed to working hard with others, ignoring distracting or entertaining material, to stay focused on projects that create organizational, public, or civic value? If your cognitive surplus is spent organizing and working with others to create productive value, then you are part of what Shirky calls the Invisible University.

Getting an Invisible University means mastering the art of creating groups that commit themselves to working together outside existing market and managerial structures, in order to create opportunities for planet-scale sharing. This work is not easy, and it never goes smoothly. Because we are hopelessly committed to both individual satisfaction and group effectiveness, groups committed to public and civic value are rarely permanent. Instead, groups need to acquire a culture that rewards their members for doing that hard work. It takes this kind of group effort to get what we need, not just what we want; understanding how to create and maintain it is one of the great challenges of our era. (pp. 180-181).

Do you spend your cognitive surplus at the online playground, or do you invest your cognitive surplus providing leadership in a group that is trying to make some kind of a difference?  I submit to you that to be a real leader in your organization and community, you must graduate from the Invisible High School and begin the more rigorous but rewarding work done by colleagues in an Invisible University.

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Our Purpose Is Our Best Guide

When today’s SmartBrief on Workforce arrived in my e-mail, I took notice because the headline of one of the stories was “Is The Link Between Satisfaction and Productivity A Myth?” The SmartBrief e-mail contained this quote:

“There are several myths that persist about performance, including the notion that employees with high job satisfaction are more productive, Harold D. Stolovitch writes. “[K]knowing an employee’s job-satisfaction level can actually bias performance-appraisal ratings,” he writes.”

Click the link and read the article by Dr. Stolovitch at the website Talent Management and you will find this quote:

Research has found the correlation between job satisfaction and performance to be illusory. Satisfied workers are not necessarily more productive, and knowing an employee’s job satisfaction level can actually bias performance appraisal ratings. Managers tend to rate the performance of employees they hired more highly than those hired by others. Support of more intensive work and job challenges appears to produce better performance than job satisfaction.

That is a very misleading statement. As I have reported here, an extremely well done meta-analysis published in The Academy of Management Journal, one of our top research journals, concluded that a sound measurement of job satisfaction and organizational commitment is one of the most useful measures an organization can have about its employees. I have also confirmed in my own recent research a link between employee satisfaction with supervision and co-workers and supervisor rated job performance.

In his book “Becoming The Evidence-Based Manager,” Gary Latham has this to say about job satisfaction:

Many managers believe that among the best ways to motivate employees is to focus on increasing job satisfaction. Yet..focusing on job performance actually boosts motivation far more than focusing on satisfaction. (p. 77)

And

Job satisfaction increases organizational commitment. Commitment is a powerful source of motivation in that it leads to persistence in a course of action, even in the face of obstacles. People who are committed to their organization continue to set and commit to high goals. (p. 83)

The evidence-based truth is that the efficacy of job satisfaction is NOT a myth. While the direct link between job satisfaction and task performance is not always there, job satisfaction drives important intervening variables like commitment and citizenship behavior, which aggregate to extremely important outcomes at the organizational level. I will bet my money on an organization full of very satisfied employees outperforming an organization full of dissatisfied employees any day of the week.

The problem with Dr. Stolovitch’s statement was he claimed it was supported by research. Anytime you do that, you MUST give us the citation so we can check it out ourselves. I publish a lot of stuff on my blog about leadership that is essentially my informed opinion, but when I claim something is evidence-based, I always invite my readers to examine the evidence firsthand.

I am a huge fan of SmartBrief, but today they did their readership a tremendous disservice by putting their brand on bad advice. All of us would do well to remember that while information provided by a website can be entertaining and often valuable, there are times when it can be subtly misleading, even bullshit.

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I got my copy of “Be Bodacious: Put Life In Your Leadership,” by Steven D. Wood free of charge from the publicist. When this thin book with a goofy title arrived, I was glad I did not pay for it. To be completely honest, I did not look forward to reading it.

But now I am going to recommend it. I did not love this book, because I prefer evidence-based books on leadership over anecdotes and stories. If you are someone that loves stories more than research, this book could be for you.

Even though I did not like the style, I did love the message – a lot. The message boils down to these six words:

• Be extraordinary
• Be unrestrained
• Be bold

We’ve all heard this message before, but few of us actually live it. Through the stories Steven shares in his book, he reminds us how important it is to doggedly pursue an uncompromising commitment to others by holding ourselves to very high personal standards. It’s impossible to be the leader others need you to be if you live an ordinary, constrained, and timid life.

“Change your future by changing what you do today” (p. 89).

This book would be an especially good read for young people or new leaders, but even the most seasoned among us need to constantly remind ourselves how easy it is to become complacent and comfortable with our own mediocrity. It’s not a new message, but it is an excellent message – one I bodaciously recommend.

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Samuel Culbert recommends getting rid of performance reviews and replacing them with performance previews. I wholeheartedly concur with eliminating performance reviews, but frankly I’m still chewing on the idea of how to replace the system.

Whatever you want to call it, I like his suggestion for three simple questions bosses and subordinates should be asking each other. With these three questions “you affirm the positive, you own your annoyance, and you tell the person what you lack that you believe would be useful” (p.180):

1. What are you getting from me that you like and find helpful? If relevant, comment on the bigger picture: how we are organized and how people and units interact.

2. What are you getting from me (and/or the system) that impedes your effectiveness and would like to have stopped?

3. What are you not getting from me (and/or the system) that you think would enhance your effectiveness, and tell me, specific to you, why do you need it at this time?

It does not have to be this exact wording, but you get the picture. I think you need to give some thought to how to make a conversation like this systematic (e.g. how often to discuss, how to document, how to follow-up). He does not give any specific suggestions, and I don’t have any, but I am confident that you can figure that part out on your own.

The key will be to really care, to really listen, and to really change your behavior based upon what you learn. If you don’t do anything different to become more helpful to your employees, then don’t bother asking again.

They will know it was all just more of the same bullshit.

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Want Your People To Care More? Help Them Perform Better

Leadership 3.0

I just witnessed a remarkable exchange between a customer and a service provider.

My favorite local coffee spot during my stay here in London is Sacred Coffee on Torrington Place. The same guy (let’s call him Danny) works the booth every day, and he takes great pride in his work. Even if there is a line, and there often is, Danny takes great care to craft your cup of coffee as if you were sitting in his own kitchen. I can see the design he puts on the foam of my flat white even through the lid. He knows he is going to put a lid on the cup, but he makes the effort to leave a design in the foam anyway.  I’ve told him before that he makes the best coffee in the area and after thanking me, acknowledged that he knew it. He is the best because he wants to be the best.

Today Danny was in a very down mood, and the customer behind me in line noticed it. She asked him what was wrong, and he told us he was late to work today and his crumby boss chewed his butt out. She told him “Don’t worry about it; I’m sure your boss has also been late to work a few times.” She continued her encouragement of him “Let it go, Danny. We need you smiling. This place is better when you are smiling. Come on, cheer up!”

Wow.

The exchange I witnessed between the encouraging customer and the exceptional service provider was a perfect example of the cycle of success spiral that I discussed in my post entitled “Service-Profit Chain: There Is Something Right With This Picture.”  People – your service providing employees – create loyalty with your customers. Your people (not you, Mr. Manager) delight or disgust your customers, and when the impact is positive, your loyal customers create a powerful virtuous cycle that can enhance your service climate. But never forget (Mr. Manager ) that you create the service climate that delights or disgusts your employees, thereby affecting their ability to serve your customers.

Yes, Danny should have been to work on time. I’m sure his boss is oblivious to how much money he would lose in sales if it was no longer Danny working the booth. Sure, the coffee is great, but there are at least 8 coffee shops (including 2 Starbucks) within 4 minutes and I can get pretty good coffee cheaper just 2 minutes down the street. Customers line up at the Sacred Coffee booth for Danny as much as they do for the coffee. As good as Danny is, his manager’s behavior is a systemic factor that limits what the business is capable of achieving.

Are you aware of how your customers behave when they come in contact with your service providers? If you have to hesitate to answer this question, I guarantee you that YOU have not provided the service climate your employees need to impress the socks off your customers.

Stop scratching your head wondering why your top-line sales are evaporating. No amount of wishful thinking or exhortation is going leave your employees impressed with you and your business, which is exactly what is necessary if you want your employees to impress your customers. And if you don’t realize that you need to enable your employees to impress every customer with every transaction, you deserve the competitive parity that you have imposed upon yourself. Unfortunately, your customers and employees don’t deserve you.

When you return from your vacation in La La Land, get to work partnering with your employees to design the systems that enable them to delight your customers. Only then will your company reap the benefits from the virtuous cycles of success that you and your employees earned because you created them by design.

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Enablement

There is no substitute for performance. Your fundamental responsibility at work is to be really good at your given duties. You can’t suggest ways to improve the process unless and until you begin to master that process. And your ability to perform is one of the most important things people want to know about you when they evaluate your trustworthiness.

The most important thing they want to know is your intentions toward them. Because we simply don’t trust people that we think don’t have our best intentions at heart, there is no substitute for caring. If you can’t build trust, you can’t lead, and if you don’t care about your followers, they will never trust you.

But caring is a luxury for those that can’t perform. When I first started teaching, I was basically thrown into the classroom. I honestly didn’t care too much about my students because I just wanted to survive the semester. It was only as I began to master my new job that I developed the capacity to care about those I had been given the privilege to serve.

Leaders, master your jobs, then help your people move up the learning curves at work and master their jobs. Without performance mastery, they will have little capacity to care about what they do, who they do it with, and who they do it for. As they become purposeful performers that care, the work they do will become more meaningful to them and they will become more satisfied with and committed to you and your organization.

You will reap the benefits of better task performance, less withdrawal behaviors (e.g. tardiness, absenteeism, turnover) and more interpersonal citizenship. Don’t just tell them to get better and to care – help them develop the capacity to make it a continuously developing reality.

Leadership is caring about how well your people perform and being really good at helping them perform better.

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