Positive Psychology Rules: Always

David J Paul Project Management Professional, Management Professor, Author and Small Business Manager

Imagine if the subjects that Herzberg and others studied had the benefit of managers who cared for them? The time is right, and the concept of a program of positive, strategic caring helps create a good fit between the person, the psychological or work environment and the goals and objectives of the work. This line of reasoning has also led to the “person-environment-fit” studies of Eccles (Eccles & Midgley, 1993) and her colleagues at the University of Michigan. The expectancy value work pioneered by Eccles is generally credited with changing the face of achievement-oriented studies of the development of children and young adults, ages 4-20.

Hackman and Oldham (1980) eventually extended Eccles’ work to show that if people are motivated positively by autonomy and skill variety, that the value of that autonomy and skill variety declines as employees receive negative feedback in the workplace. Hackman and Oldham found (1980) that when they received negative feedback, either personal or professional feedback, individuals were much more likely to avoid engagement, withdraw emotionally from others and from the work environment and wait for instructions. This is exactly the ‘lack of strategic caring’ that creates the kind of wasted time that lean manufacturing seeks to eliminate. Kaizen studies identify waiting waste as one of the key elements of “muda” or waste in the workplace. The identification of factors that cure waiting waste is one of managements’ key jobs. Robert Sutton’s (2007) work looks at the cost of bad behavior in the workplace and provides a number of valuable recommendations to help employees create an environment where bad relationships are replaced with high quality relationships.

Research suggests that in higher-quality relationships people experience vitality, positive regard, and mutuality (Dutton & Heaphy, 2003). This is one of the first uses of the words “positive regard” in the literature that links jobs, psychology, and engagement and speaks to the importance of managers who intentionally encourage employees to embrace a culture of high mutual regard and respect for one another. 

Positive regard denotes the extent to which individuals experience a sense of being known or loved (Rogers, 1951). In higher quality relationships, levels of positive mutual regard are greater. Mutuality indicates that individuals in a high-quality relationship actively contribute to the other’s development (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991). Together, positive regard and mutuality in a relationship mean that individuals in higher quality relationships find the connection to be pleasurable and motivating, keeping them in a state that is likely to make them more willing to process information and work through problems. “Although researchers have noted the importance of interpersonal relationships as a facilitator of productivity and learning at work, its nature has often been left understudied” (Carmeli, 2007, p. 41)