Dare to Care: How High Mutual Regard Increases Engagement and Productivity

By Dr. David J Paul

This book contains a prescription for a healthier workplace that can result into a sustainable competitive advantage for your firm. Based on recent research, you will be able to rearchitect your company, give up sleepless nights, and help yourself and others experience new levels of productivity, health, and engagement at work. Whether you are a CEO, a supervisor, an employee, or someplace in between, knowing and applying these techniques and ideas will change your life. It is built on the notion that people want to contribute to the success of their workplace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984524706

Dr. David J Paul

A retired Colonel in the United States Air Force and a retired adjunct professor of Management, Dr. Paul has over 30 years of experience in leadership, management, and the study of motivation. He has published extensively and presented at numerous conferences. This is his first book on this subject. After a Chemical Engineering degree from Princeton, Dr. Paul entered active duty in the Air Force where he began his study on the subject of Leadership. During a 30 year career in the aerospace business he continued to study systems engineering and the psychology of human interactions. Understanding the complexity of the human equation was more interesting than any other subject in engineering. After Masters Degrees in Meteorology and Business Administration, Prof Paul taught at Cal State University, East Bay and San Francisco State as well as overseas at Fudan University in Shanghai, PRC as a guest lecturer. His doctorate in Organizational Development led him to survey and quantify the impact that feeling cared for had on an individuals engagement at work, their delight at being at work, and whether they flourished in the work environment. The more general question is how anybody is motivated to do anything, or why and how can we create an environment in which people will WANT to do something that we need done? Early research developed the theory that people Do Work That Matters for People Who Care. People at more than 30 companies in Californias Silicon Valley expressed what it meant to feel cared for in the workplace and how engaged they felt at work. By explaining the surprising results of this research, Dr, Paul wants you to understand the difference between motivating people to DO something versus creating an environment where people WANT to do something.

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Copyright © 2018 by Dr. David J. Paul.

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Library of Congress Control Number:     2018905494

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CONTENTS

Dedication and Acknowledgements

Why I wrote this book

Author’s Notes

Chapter 1   Introduction

Chapter 2   Getting Engaged

Chapter 3   How Caring Impacts Work

Chapter 4   Being Intentional about Caring at Work

Chapter 5   Exploring Engagement at work:

What are possible results of my Caring Program?

Chapter 6   Impacts that Cared for People Create at Work

Chapter 7   You Need to Inspire and Motivate

Chapter 8   Best Practices for Implementing Caring

Chapter 9   Conclusion

Bibliography

DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is the result of 10 years of research and another 8 years of analysis and manuscript preparation. I am dedicating it to my two grandsons, Otto and Ivan, who are beginning to learn Respect and Regard in their young lives. I am grateful to my wife, Bonnie, for her long term support of this project and to my editor, Susan Chipman, whose insights and re-writes have contributed immensely to the clarity of each paragraph. The errors that remain are mine.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

I want you to know why people work for you. I also want you to see the benefit of taking action to care for others at work. This book is not written to make you more popular, although that may happen. Reading this will help you strengthen your team, which will inevitably happen if you follow the processes we outline in Chapter Four. You can improve the way your company works. A lot has been reported about improving employees’ engagement at work, but the problem is that managers can’t demand engagement and they don’t know how to encourage it. As a result, rather than connecting with the lives of the people we work with, we measure employees’ output. It is the connection between life and work that we call ‘Caring’. When Caring at work becomes a culture, we call it Regard.

This book addresses being ‘Regarded’ at work, and it reports how people get the feeling of being Regarded. Research shows that being Regarded is more important than being Rewarded. As long as they are doing work that is meaningful to them, they are more willing to work in a caring environment for smaller rewards than in a non-caring environment for larger financial rewards. As a result, you can touch peoples’ lives, increase productivity, influence your employees’ ethical stance, and contribute to their overall well-being by knowing and doing the Caring concepts presented here.

This book contains a prescription for a healthier workplace that can result in a sustainable competitive advantage for your firm. Based on recent research, you will be able to re-architect your company, give up sleepless nights and help yourself and others experience new levels of productivity, health, and engagement at work. Whether you are a CEO, a supervisor, an employee, or someplace in between, knowing and applying these techniques and ideas will change your life. It is built on the notion that people want to contribute to the success of their workplace.

Key Words: Respect, Regard, Reward, Engagement, Belief, Caring and Recognition

AUTHOR’S NOTES

During active duty in the Air Force, I was often selected to talk on the subject of Leadership. I found the psychology of leadership fascinating. Understanding the complexity of the ‘human equation’ was more interesting than any other subject I studied in engineering. The questions of motivation haunted my everyday thinking—why do those other students do that, what makes them act that way, or why do they work so hard. I developed a leadership definition which linked to motivation. A good leader was one who clearly communicated and discussed goals, ideas, and plans with their team. As a result, my job focus became, Understand my job, improve my job, and teach it to the next person. This idea of ‘passing along the passion’ for work and motivation became the hallmark of a career which eventually spanned almost four decades. Quoting W. Edwards Deming, the transformation of our current system of management is our real work (Deming 1988).

Later, while teaching at Fudan University, Shanghai, PRC, my students and I crafted an answer to the question of Why does anybody do anything? They said, Respect, Regard, and Reward. The more interesting question, is how anybody is ‘motivated’ to do anything, or why and how can we create an environment in which people will WANT to do something that we need done? My students initially thought that people prefer doing Work that Matters for People who Care. What did it mean to feel cared for at work, and how does that relate to productivity, innovation, speed, cost-competitiveness, quality, and advanced technology? We took those questions to more than 30 companies in California’s Silicon Valley during 2006-2015. People told us what it meant to feel cared for in the workplace and how engaged they felt at work. We want you to understand the difference between motivating people to DO something versus creating an environment where people WANT to do something you need done. This key connection to what other researchers consider as intrinsic motivation held the answer to the quest for the Holy Grail of Caring, which we have subsequently crafted into this book, Dare to Care. Enjoy.

Introduction

You will find that most of this book represents common sense, but not common practice. While Caring for others is considered ‘common sense’ at home, Caring for others is an uncommon practice in the workplace. Part of the problem is that we have left behind what our mothers taught us in kindergarten, Be kind, let others go first, wash your hands, be polite, don’t yell, take it easy. It seems time honored advice has become ‘too touchy feely; for the real world. Too often we take our ethics and values from work instead of taking our home grown values to work. Do you understand the difference? How would your workplace be different if you didn’t get yelled at? Repeatedly?

Many of our corporate cultures need to be more deeply rooted in Respect and Regard for our colleagues. We need to emphasize ethics and fair play. Do you create an environment where people can flourish at work? What would be the outcome if we felt so cared for at work that we were not only more productive but we were also proud of the high level of quality and integrity we experienced? Although some employees may feel a sense of Reward, we have a lot of work to do to attain a sense of deeply held Respect and Regard. Does your work environment place stress on other people? Let’s look at the workplace environment experienced by Jennifer and her friend, Olivia.

During an interview with Jennifer about her work experience, she commented,

I’ll tell you where my company f’ed up for me. I found out early on that I was being paid a $1.00 less an hour than the ‘boy’ who worked there and he got promoted to supervisor. Yet I was the only one with a Master’s degree in Art and Art History in the entire company and I knew more about pop culture.

If you manage any Gen-Y or Millennial people, just let that sink in for a minute!!

Jennifer felt disrespected, and she felt that the male-centric network was grossly unjust. She continued by mentioning her friend, Olivia who worked in an art frame shop. Olivia complained that she had to do the work of three framers, felt she was being ‘used’ and felt trapped at work, as if she had no alternatives. I interviewed Olivia the following week. She had to work to pay her school tuition, and she couldn’t complain or she would get fired.

I was so mad, she said. The boy (her words) who worked part time got $12 an hour, was the lead framer, and had less experience or about the same as I did. He was not working full time, only 1 or 2 days a week at that point. I single handedly kept that frame shop running. I had been there about a year longer than him. I wanted the raise which my boss had promised, and I wanted some respect. I never got either the respect or the raise!! First chance I got to get out of there, when I got another job offer, I left. I felt totally abused, used, disregarded and dis-respected.

Then I asked Olivia, What’s the difference between being disrespected and being disregarded. Her answer rings in my ears to this day. She said, Respect is when they give you what they said they would, Regard is when they listen to you. Olivia understands the value of Regard, and what it means to feel cared for. All of your employees do too.

Listen to Junior’s story. He owns a large food brokerage business and employs a number of immigrant workers in his warehouse. His son, Steve, is a great big guy and runs the warehouse. One afternoon Steve and his warehouse team were walking out of the warehouse and talking about Jose’s upcoming trip to Las Vegas. Jose was one of the warehouse workers. They turned the corner to see Junior’s brand new supercharged, light green Jaguar gleaming in the parking lot.

Do you think your father would let me take the Jaguar to Las Vegas? Jose joked to Steve.

I don’t know, why don’t you ask him directly, said Steve as he saw his Dad emerge from his office.

Oh, NO, I was just joking, Jose said.

Go ahead—you ask him! said Steve forcefully.

After much stammering and some jostling, Jose approached Junior. Haltingly, head down, probably insecure in his boldness, he broached the question,

Please, sir, I’m sorry, but Steve told me to ask you, may I use your car to go to Las Vegas this weekend?

Jose expected (maybe) a polite laugh, but certainly no serious consideration of his request and was surprised when Junior listened very carefully to the young man and looked him directly in the eye. He reached in his pocket, and tossed the Jaguar keys to Jose.

Just bring it back full, Junior said, with an amazing, heart-felt kindness. Jose was stunned and nearly speechless, but managed a soft, Gracias, Thank you so much, sir.

Never ever before had Jose encountered Respect, Trust, and Regard at this level.

But that’s not the end of the story, Junior said. Do you think the car came back on Monday?

Sure, I suppose so, I said, already impressed with his insight into how he cared for Jose.

That car was not only full of gas, it was in the parking lot at 6 a.m. when I came to work. It had the best detail job I have ever seen. There wasn’t a speck of dirt for 50 feet around the car, Junior replied. His voice spoke of the pride he had in Jose.

Jose was proud of the look of the car as well! You can imagine that he had a great time in Las Vegas. Jose was a great warehouse worker, and became even greater after this caring event in his life. Junior’s competitors heard how fine a young man he was. Six months later, he reported that Steve got a call in the warehouse office and the caller asked for Jose. Steve summoned Jose into his office and stepped away so Jose could have some privacy. All Steve could hear was an increasingly loud series of

No, no, NO! Then he heard, I’d be crazy to work for anybody but Junior!

Junior’s competitors had just offered Jose a $2.00 an hour raise. Jose turned down what amounted to a 20% wage increase so he could work in an environment where he felt cared for. This is the level of loyalty and commitment Junior’s actions had instilled in Jose (an immigrant warehouse worker with two young children).

Junior concludes, Caring for people not only improves people’s performance, but it also inoculates your company against ruthless competitors and other nasty things!

When was the last time people on your team demonstrated commitment and loyalty like that because you had previously demonstrated Trust, Respect, and Regard to them?

Following the precepts in this book moves you ever closer to real Regard for people and puts you on the path toward a much more engaged and productive life, both at home and at work.

Caring for people is so important that the strategic management experts at Harvard, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton identify the power of motivated and prepared employees as the very foundation of competitive advantage and process improvement. In their Balanced Score Card ™ work, Kaplan and Norton (1996) relate motivated, prepared and engaged employees to improved and more efficient business processes, then to greater customer satisfaction, and finally, to increased profits. In other words, engaged employees fuel the fire of improved productivity.

In Figure 1, below, which we call The Productivity Triangle, you can see that the base of the pyramid has motivated and prepared employees. This is important for your strategic caring program at work. If people are cared for, valued, and connected at work and they feel trusted, that their opinions matter and are safe, they are more likely to be engaged, to be loyal to your firm, to not quit, and to work hard. Most researchers call that ‘engagement’. Kaplan and Norton further explain that motivated and prepared employees also improve the processes at their work. Nobody likes to waste time, re-do work, fix mistakes repeatedly, or work with faulty processes. If they are cared for, then they will create improved processes. My friend’s son, a fabulous welder and process guru stepped out of the welding booth just as the owner of the company walked by. He explained some of the concepts in the Profit Volcano to the owner, and said to me, The Owner of the company Listened. I felt so empowered. The next thing the owner did was meet with the supervisor of the welding shop and ask him if he could arrange to make the sub-assemblies the way my friend’s son described!! This is a perfect example of motivated and prepared employees improving the ‘welding’ process so that customers are much more likely to pay a premium for their product. Customers from all industries want to be served efficiently, with quality products and low error rates. In fact, these customers are willing to pay a premium for your newly revised products, delivered on time, as promised, with low error rates. Not just acceptable products. Outstanding products. The premium that customers will subsequently pay for your product translates directly into profits. In other words, that productivity triangle is really a profit volcano!! And it all starts because you showed you cared—repeatedly.

How do employees become engaged? We have already seen how the power of feeling cared for (or not) didn’t work for Olivia and worked beautifully for Jose. How can this feeling of being cared for create engagement in your life and at your work? Managers who adopt the Balanced Score Card™ Management System can still struggle to find effective, systematic and proven ways to motivate and engage employees. We offer those same managers a strategic and systematic approach to creating their firm’s ‘caring’ strategy.

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CHAPTER TWO

Getting Engaged

Your general experience in business reveals that good businesses work well when employees are flourishing in the work environment. The teams and individuals at these businesses exhibit vigor, dedication, and absorption. Good business thrives because people are deeply engaged in what they are doing. If they’re engaged, they take their work problems home with them and think about solving them. If they’re not engaged, they are more likely to take home personal and professional problems such as disagreements with other employees or with their boss. As a manager, employee, or researcher reading this book, you are undoubtedly aware that elements other than caring contribute to engagement—elements such as self-efficacy, esteem, connection, autonomy, leadership, and job satisfaction. The question is, How, exactly, do people feel cared for at work?

To assure you get the best advice possible, I have received and analyzed thousands of responses to the question, Tell me about a time when you felt cared for (valued, appreciated, connected) at work. My team and I have performed thousands of hours of computer analyses on these results so that whether you are a manager, researcher, Human Resource professional, or employee, you can have the confidence that the advice in this book represents rigorous process and clear methodology. This cutting edge emphasis on the strategic value of creating a caring atmosphere at work shows the strongest correlations between Regard and Engagement. There are other, large-scale longitudinal studies with different kinds of organizations and a wide variety of industries designed to prove that Caring at Work causes engagement. Don’t wait for those results. Take action now to create a competitive advantage for yourself and your company. Take the first steps to establish a caring environment—a culture of high mutual regard. Let the research results come later, after you’ve soared ahead of your competition in all the measurables at the top of the Balanced Score Card ™ pyramid. A warning is in order. To be truly transformational, Caring must be combined with values, vision, leadership, a plan, the power to execute the plan, as well as the communications ability and persuasive skills to motivate others.

Here’s something to consider in transforming the culture