Lynda Gratton: Glow At Work

What does it mean to ‘Glow’ in the workplace?
People who Glow have mastered three distinct areas of their life: they have built deeply trusting and cooperative relationships with others; they have extended their networks beyond the obvious to encompass the unusual; and they are on an inner quest that ignites their own energy and that of others. When you glow, you are able to create or find and flourish in what I call ‘Hot Spots’. These are times, places and occasions when whole groups or communities become highly energized and innovative. The challenge for us all is to learn how to Glow and then create, find and flourish in Hot Spots.

You recommend that we ask ourselves some key question on a regular basis. Which ones?
Wherever you are in your work life, you want to make sure that you stay ahead of the curve. To do that, you have to work with energy, enthusiasm and innovation. Three questions you should regularly ask yourself are: ‘Am I in a place where people are cooperating with each other and where I am learning the skills of cooperation? Second, ‘Am I developing high quality networks, both with people who have the same skill base as me but also with people that are different from me, who can help me be more innovative? And third, ‘Does my work ignite my passion? Is it helping me to Glow?’

On the opposite side of the spectrum is what you call the Big Freeze. What is this, and how prevalent is it?
The Big Freeze occurs when your energy is drained and innovation ceases. Unfortunately, many people spend their whole career in it. You have to have your eyes wide open, so that you don’t make foolish choices about where to work. My research shows that the majority of people feel energized, engaged and innovative less than 20 per cent of their working lives. What a terrible waste. It’s not because they are stupid or lazy; the problem is the way they think about their work – their assumptions about what makes for success and the habits and skills they develop (or don’t develop).

The Big Freeze doesn’t just affect peoples’ performance at work, it also affects their health and relationships. They often come home bad-tempered and disinclined to engage with the people in their lives. Worse still, it affects their long-term prospects, because they cease to develop new skills and fail to make important connections, depleting their personal capital.

If I were to look into an organization, how would I recognize a hotspot?
It’s very easy to recognize them, because people are energized and are feeling good about their work. We have a whole set of diagnostics that we use to take an organization’s ‘temperature’. Those with a high temperature -- Hot Spots -- are places where people are energetic, productive and innovative. These are places where people are really working hard to cooperate; they’ve got very good networks that span boundaries they are tackling a question or a vision that really excites them.

Is there a certain type of company that generates hotspots?
Hotspots arise in all sorts of funny places. They can arise in companies that are a hundred years old. We found hotspots in places like Nokia, where we studied a hundred teams earlier this year and found some of them to be true Hot Spots. The same is true with xx, a very old company but one that is still very energized. Of course, you will also find them in the expected places: I’m quite certain that if you looked at Google, you’d find hotspots. But sometimes they exist in places that would surprise you.

One of the core principles of glowing is the ability to ‘jump across worlds’. How does one accomplish that?
It involves leaving your comfort zone. I often ask people to think about how they spend their lives, the patterns they keep, and to consider taking pathways that are perhaps a little bit different from the ones they normally take. It can be as simple as taking a different route home from work; or try meeting people who are different from you, and giving yourself a bit more time to just wander around. I use the word flaneur in the book -- a French word meaning ‘wandering around’. We should all just let that sort of serendipity into our lives a little more.

What do you mean when you advise people to “beware of the trap of the Country Club”?
Country Clubs are places where everyone seems content and even happy, so you might infer that they are places where people are likely to Glow. But they are not. In the Country Club, underperformance is the norm, energy rarely sizzles and the mundane is venerated. Big questions are stifled, visions are uninspired and tasks are over-specified and homogenized. To quote the old song, “Never is heard a discouraging word” – there are none of the sparks of conflict that can ignite energy. The problem is, important matters are very likely being ignored.

People who Glow tend to ask ‘igniting questions’. That sounds a bit dangerous.
You’re right, and I think one of the reasons we don’t Glow is that we don’t have the courage to ask the big, igniting questions. In many ways what happens with our education system is that we don’t think we should be asking questions -- that only senior people should ask questions. But if you want to Glow, if you want to be energetic and innovative, you’ve got to be prepared to ask some of the tough questions. Not just negative ones, but positive ones that generate positive energy.

Another thing that anyone who glows does is they master the art of great conversation. What does a great conversation entail?
There are two sides to it: rationality brings structure to conversations, and emotions bring meaning. Rationality is deductive, focusing attention on tangible data and their inter-relationships. Emotions, by contrast, are holistic, dealing with your authentic feelings and ideas. The two are not easily combined, but like the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy, the most creative, insightful and energizing conversations you can have will occur when they are. The opposite of great conversation is what I call ‘dehydrated talk’, which contains neither analytical rationality nor emotional authenticity.

You are an advocate of daydreaming and making time for serendipity in our lives. Why are these things important?
They are very important. In fact, I’m suffering from a lack of them in my life right now and I can really feel it; I’ve been so busy running around the world in the last few weeks. Particularly in our current work environment, where so much of our time is spent doing what I’m doing now (going through 200 e-mails), our lives become fragmented. It’s the curse of modern society. We’ve really got to give ourselves time to think and to have proper conversations. The notion of a ‘third place’ entails finding a place that you can go to which is beyond roles. When you are there, you’re not a mom, not a daughter or a wife, not a professor, not a writer. Your third place might entail walking in the park; going to the gym, or sitting in the hairdresser’s chair, but you really need to give yourself time to be away from all your roles and responsibilities.

What steps can people take to design their organization for the emergence of hotspots?
First, I would advise managers to focus on creating an atmosphere of intensive cooperation. Cooperation is a culture, and cultures are created by how people behave, so you really need to think about it: are you encouraging people to mentor and encourage each other? In terms of networks, take a look at how people are networking in your company. Is there more you could do to encourage people to reach out into other communities? And thirdly, in terms of igniting purpose, are you giving people something exciting and interesting to engage with? Hot spots emerge spontaneously, but there are things we can do to support their emergence.

Nine Facets of Glowing
1. People who glow have five daily habits of cooperation: they have realistic and positive expectations of others, they are prepared to share valuable information with others, they act with discretion, they use the language of cooperation, and they make and keep commitments.
2. People who Glow are able to bring emotional authenticity and analytical rigor to their conversations and use the art of great conversation as the bedrock of their cooperation with others.
3. People who glow are astute at acting on the ‘smell of the place’; they know the signs of the Big Freeze and how to avoid it.
4. People who Glow are skilled at increasing the value of their networks and at balancing their networks between people who are similar to them and people who are very different from them.
5. People who Glow are skilled at escaping the boundaries that constrain them; they allow for serendipity in their lives and are prepared to meet new people and take untrodden paths to broaden their experiences.
6. People who Glow are adept at finding and moving to ‘boudaryless’ places. They know how to escape from the Fortress and connect with teams and places that encourage them to grow by creating opportunities to jump across worlds.
7. People who Glow are adept at asking the big questions that spark energy, which requires courage and focus.
8. People who Glow are able to create a compelling vision that sparks energy and is so exciting and engaging that others are drawn to it.
9. People who Glow are able to craft meaningful and exciting work that stimulates them and others.

 

Lynda Gratton is a professor of Management Practice and Director of the Centre for Women in Business at London Business School. The author of Glow: How You Can Radiate Energy, Innovation and Success (Berrett Koehler, 2009) and Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces and Organizations Buzz with Energy –and Others Don’t (Berrett Koehler, 2007), she is the second-highest-ranking woman (#18) on the current Thinkers 50 list of the world’s leading management thinkers.

[This article has been reprinted, with permission, from Rotman Management, the magazine of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management]