Knowledge workers need their managers' support!

People don't leave their personal feelings at home when they come to work. It's about time for managers to recognise that. If you expect employees to be smart, their inner work life can't be denied. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer did an extensive research on how employees experience their life at work. They were curious to learn more about the day-to-day life of people at work and how that affects performance. In their extensive research (238 professional in 26 project teams in seven companies in three industries participated in the study and they collected 12.000 diary-reports!) on inner work life of employees they related people's perceptions emotions and motivation. Their research considers knowledge work. In settings where people must work collaboratively to solve vexing problems, their performance depends on creativity, productivity, commitment and collegiality.

They conclude that for knowledge work (the work that leads to improvements and innovations) management's engagement and behaviour is crucial. Not by giving people pats on the back but by 1) enabling people to move forward in their work, and 2) treating them decently as human beings. With respect to the 1st: This can best be done by setting clear goals and make sure that people know why their work matters to the team, the organization and the organization's customers. With respect to the 2nd: Appreciation without progress has no positive impact and leads to cynism; When people experience good work progress but no recognition (or even worse: criticism about trivial issues) this causes anger and sadness. "Far and away, the best boosts to inner work life were episodes in which people knew they had done good work and managers appropriately recognized that work".

Other findings:

• The more positive a person's mood, the more creative thinking he or she did the next day. People were more creative when they interpreted the going-ons in their organizations in a positive light - that is, when they saw their organisations and leaders as collaborative, cooperative, open to new ideas, able to evaluate and develop new ideas fairly, clearly focused on an innovative vision, and willing to reward creative work.
• They were less creative when they perceived political infighting and internal competition or an aversion to new ideas or to risk taking.
• People are more creative when they are motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself - not by external pressure or rewards.
• The findings for productivity, commitment and collegiality also increased when people held positive perceptions about their work context.

Read more:

• Amabile, T.M., & Kramer, S.J. (2007). Inner work life, understanding the subtext of business performance. Harvard business review, May 2007.
• On the site of HBR you can find more infos.
• A Dutch website on social innovation wrote about this article.