Guest post via Hans Hartung
“It
Isn’t Joy in Work; Joy IS the Work”
Kate
Hilton of the IHI Open School, Helen Bevan of the NHS England, Hans Hartung of
the NHS Scotland, and Marianne McPherson of the IHI 100 Million Healthier Lives
team describe how leaders can embrace their role as facilitators of joy in
work.
Improvement
guru W. Edwards Deming had a clear vision of a leader’s role: “Management’s
overall aim should be to create a system in which everybody may take joy in his
[or her] work.” Studies have shown that joy in work leads to higher service
user satisfaction, better staff engagement, more cooperation among staff,
higher productivity, and more efficiency.
But
what exactly is “joy in work,” and how can we, as leaders, elicit it? We
tackled that question during a unique session at the 2016 IHI Nationanl Forum.
As we
prepared for the session, we wanted to develop a shared understanding of joy
from our work as leaders of large-scale change efforts. We believe joy is a
lived experience, not a theoretical one. While we may possess strategies and
methods for creating joy, they must pass the “sniff” test: we know when we feel
“joy” — and when it is inauthentic or forced. We experience joy as a feeling of
pleasure, happiness, and wellbeing that results in energy, connection, a sense
of purpose, meaning, and fulfilment. In other words, we all have an internal
“joy calibration system.”
We
took that knowledge and challenged ourselves to teach about joy with joy
at the Forum, where we gathered with 20 frontline leaders of change in health
care. As pre-work, we asked participants to submit “personal anthems of joy,” which played throughout the session. As participants entered the
room, we welcomed, acknowledged, and thanked each one of them for their
presence. We asked them questions about themselves, helped them find their
seats, and introduced them to one another. We shared pictures and stories of
who we are and what brings us joy. We ignited the senses in small groups around
smell, touch, taste, sound, and breath. And during our break, we conducted a “Randomized
Coffee Trial” to deepen authentic connections.
Our
workshop’s aim was to create a Joy Manifesto that explored how we experience
joy from within, together, and across a system. The following seven design
principles for joy emerged from the group’s work. Central to these principles
is the understanding that while joy is a lived experience at personal and
interpersonal levels, creating the sustained conditions for joy is a system
responsibility. These system conditions, then, lead to personal and
interpersonal joy at work:
- Create conditions for people to identify sources of joy from within. We cannot give what we do not have. Because joy lives within, we must identify the personal practices and habits that connect us to our internal sources of joy, like journaling, being in nature, exercising, meditation, and singing. Test to Try: Notice for yourself: what makes you joyful
- Encourage people to bring their whole selves to work. This is about moving from knowing what brings you joy to living it at work. How might you bring other joyful parts of your life into the workplace? Participants offered examples like writing thank-you notes to others at work, building a quiet walk into each work day, and sharing a joke, personal stories, or pictures. Test to Try: By next Tuesday, what one joyful life practice can you integrate into your work day?
- Create conditions for
human connection. To live is to be connected to — and
helpful to — each other. Human connection is an organic process that
emerges whenever people meet. Workshop participants noted that connections
amplify collective learning by building on one another’s strengths and
recognizing weaknesses. The quality of our connections is a predictor of
our happiness. Sharing stories and facilitating a social environment help
to build authentic connections. Attentive listening without interruption,
humble inquiry, and genuine curiosity are human ways to build empathic
bridges. Test to Try: In the next week, listen to someone without
interruption and with curious interest in what they want to share.
How is it different?
- Make it safe to be
joyful. Deming also said, “Drive out fear, create trust.” Trust and
absence of fear are the foundation to go beyond “safe space” to “brave
space” where people can try new things and be vulnerable, honest, and
light-hearted together. Joy lives at the edge of taking risks and knowing
that it is okay to fail forward. Ask “open and honest” questions,
demonstrate acts of kindness, greet everyone within a 10-foot radius,
adopt an “eyes up, hearts open” hallway culture with no smart phone use,
and celebrate courage. Be nice, consistently. A culture that values
recognition and respect encourages trust. Leaders have a particular
responsibility to create these conditions by modelling these behaviors. Test
to Try: Put away your smart phone for one day and acknowledge those
around you. See what happens.
- Create a space for
others to lead. Be authentic. Don't give power and
take it away; instead, help others see and use their agency. Ignite
people’s autonomy by asking them to break the rules when the rules stop
serving the intended purpose. Empower people to refine and redefine
measures that don’t make sense. Replace micro-management with mutuality by
spending time at the front lines to speak with and listen to people. Test
to Try: This week, make rounds on the floor or in the field with the
intent of unleashing others’ capacity and will to solve their own
problems.
- Build systems for joy: When we think about joy, we typically think about intrinsic motivation: connecting with people’s internal motivation, linking with their
values and the things that matter to them at the deepest emotional or
spiritual levels. But we can also create systems of extrinsic motivation
to support joy. By this, we mean introducing levers or system drivers that
encourage specific behaviors or “prod” people to engage in particular
activities. Examples include:
- Defining joy
as a stated value of the organization, developing metrics around joy,
making joy a deliverable to which all staff dedicate a percentage of time
each month, and including joyfulness as a qualification in job
descriptions
- Creating
conditions for joy to emerge, as Swedish leaders do with “FIKA,” a break
with coffee and cake
- Backing off
if incentives are experienced as "compliance for joy,” making them
inherently un-joyful
Test
to Try: By the end of the month, explore one concrete
step for your organization to take to design for joy.
- Create conditions for
people to learn, improve, and innovate. Having fun designing
joy in work, actually enjoying the process, was one of the most exciting
insights from the workshop. Improvement and innovation stimulate
creativity and intrinsic motivation, resulting in joy. As Deming noted,
“Innovation comes from people who take joy in their work.” Co-ownership,
playful improvisation, experimentation, valuing failure, the appreciating
of stories behind the data, and a focus on collaboration make change come
alive. Joy in improvement work results from the knowledge that any
improvement contributes to the bigger picture and is connected to others’
learning. Joy builds confidence, and confidence builds intrinsic
motivation for continuous learning. As Deming stated, “We are here to
learn, to make a difference, and to have fun.” Test to Try: Have
fun! (Really!)
All in
all: It isn’t “joy in work”; joy is the work. Being an improvement
leader who creates the conditions for joy means knowing it, being it, sharing
it, and designing for it. For Deming, there was no doubt that the experience of
joy in work was a prerequisite for any high-performing organization. Joy must
be how we do business — within ourselves, together with others, and across our
systems.
Sources
and additional reading:
- Sikka R, Morath JM, Leape L. The
Quadruple Aim: care, health, cost and meaning in work. BMJ QualSaf.
2015;24:608-610.
- Sirota D, Klein D. The Enthusiastic
Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want (2nd
edition). Pearson FT Press; 2013.
- Stress in America: Paying With Our Health
- Finding joy and meaning in work: In support of the
Quadruple Aim
- Joy in Work is a featured topic track at
the 2017 IHI National
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