As you know one of the regular features on NBR is its commentary segment near the end of the program. And, for as long as we have been presenting commentaries there have been questions as to the value of this segment on the program. Now, this post is not a discussion on the value of these commentaries (it can be, if you like), but to point out a recent commentary we aired from Tom Stewart of the Harvard Business Review. I’m including it in this post because I think that sometimes as managers and leaders we need reminding of what it takes to “Have A Good Day”.
- "How was your day?
There is no job-related question that’s asked more often. Chances are you and your partner just asked it of each other. Our calendars document the surface of our work life; but we also have an undocumented inner life at work. Emotions color our perceptions, motivations, and behavior. This inner life is rather like the crawl that scrolls beneath the main story on cable news- a separate but related chain of events-and it, rather than the formal schedule that appears on your Outlook, determines whether you had a good day at work or a bad one.
But what does it mean to have a good day?
- That’s not a topic that people have studied much till now. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School and Steven Kramer, an independent researcher, asked hundreds of people to keep work diaries-they ended up with more than 12,000 entries. The single biggest influence on the good-day-at-work question is this: do people feel they made progress? Big gains, little gains - it almost doesn’t matter. People are happy when they pass mileposts.
The flip side is true too - minor frustrations can be major downers.
There are lessons for leaders here. The most important has to do with setting clear goals. You can’t measure progress against unclear goals, or if someone keeps moving the goalposts. Goal setting should be a simple thing-but most managers do it badly. Better goals make a big difference in performance.
I’m Tom Stewart. Have a good day."
Thanks Tom for the reminder.
