What Weddings Can Teach Us About Our Careers
My best friend got married over the weekend and, in keeping with the superlatives, I had the honor of serving as his best man. Though the particulars of the best man role may vary from wedding to wedding, one constant is typically the toast or speech made during the reception.
The groom in this case was born in New Jersey, and thus when sourcing material for my speech, it was all but inevitable that Bruce Springsteen would make an appearance. “We love those in whose company brings out the best in us,” Springsteen once observed, and I thought it was an appropriate line to include in my remarks as the bride and groom truly seem to bring out the best in one another.
In marriage and in our careers, most of us have the good fortune of choosing whom we enter into relationships with. Loving those in whose company brings out the best in us, therefore, is not just an important observation at a wedding, but can be equally impactful when we think about the relationship we have with our employer.
Working for an organization that brings out the best in us is, unfortunately, often the exception rather than the rule. For instance, in our upcoming book we share how an overwhelming number of job applicants seek to work for an organization that is capable of bringing out the best in them, but less than a quarter of these new team members, once hired, feel their new employer actually meets that expectation.
It’s shocking because companies are leaving unfathomable amounts of money on the table. There is a significant performance argument for an organization striving to bring out the best in their employees. According to a study by the American Psychological Association, 93% of employees who feel their company brings out the best in them “are motivated to do their best at work” and 88% said they feel more engaged.
This stands in stark contrast to team members who feel their company does not bring out the best in them, with just 33% saying they are motivated to do their best work. These findings are backed by a separate Gallup study, which found that “organizations with low employee engagement scores…experienced 18% lower productivity, 16% lower profitability, 37% lower job growth, and 65% lower share price over time.”
What, therefore, can an organization do to bring out the best in their employees? Here’s a good checklist to start:
1. Build a psychologically safe culture – study after study after study has shown psychologically safe environments, where team members feel free to share ideas without judgment or reprisal, are essential to individual and organizational growth. (Think Talk Create your way through this!)
2. Walk the values walk – we’ve all seen commercials for companies that market themselves as “human” or “people-first” or “values-driven” only to open the news the next day and see they poisoned the town’s local well. Companies can talk the values talk, but they need also to be sure they walk the walk and live up to their values.
3. Light the road ahead – while there is mixed data on expected career longevity for any given company, what is abundantly clear is employee desire for upward mobility. Just as the organization wants to grow, so too do employees. Team members should be clear on the road ahead and what opportunities are available to them if they excel.
Remember, we love those in whose company brings out the best in us… leave it to “The Boss” to provide us with terrific workplace advice.
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Co-authored by David Brendel and Ryan Stelzer, Think Talk Create: Building Workplaces Fit for Humans will be published by the Hachette Book Group under the PublicAffairs imprint on September 21, 2021. Now available for pre-order!