A few weeks ago I drew attention to a new book I had read called The
Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity
at Work, written by husband and wife team Teresa Amabile and Steven
J. Kramer. Their book discusses how even seemingly humdrum events can make huge
differences in employees' emotional and intellectual well-being and their
involvement in and enjoyment of their work. According to their research, the
single most important factor is simply a sense of making progress on meaningful
work. Their research also shows that people who feel good and positive about
their work are also likely to be more creative and to take more risks in trying
out new things.
How we feel about our work has a strong influence on our inner
work life - 'the confluence of perceptions, emotions and motivations that
individuals experience as they react to and make sense of the events in their
workday' (Amabile and Kramer 2011:20). 'Inner work life is inner because it goes
on inside each person. Although it is central to the person's experience of the
workday, it is usually imperceptible to others. ...part of the reason [for this]
is that people try to hide it' (Amabile and Kramer
2011:21).
According to psychological research, the three processes that affect performance (and
influence inner work life) are: perceptions about what is happening (thoughts -
maybe impressions or well developed theories), emotions (or feelings - both
sharply defined reactions and more general feelings like moods) and motivation
(a person's grasp of what needs to be done and their drive to do
it).
What struck me about these ideas about our perceptions, feelings and
motivations at work, was their relevance to our daily lives that are not necessarily to do with
work. We do have an inner life that for the most part we keep hidden from others and that inner life does affect the
way we see the world and interact with it. And that sense of making progress is
something we want to do whenever we take on something new or we want to achieve
something regardless of the context. That sense of making progress also inspires
us to try to do more and to try and be more adventurous and
creative.
Amabile and Cramer identify seven major catalysts for making progress and when looked at
from a lifewide perspective they seem to be relevant to any achievement or
goal driven activity in life. These factors are listed below together with some
commentary relating it to lifewide development.
1. Setting clear goals: People have to understand what they're doing and why
they are doing it.
Lifewide development is predicated on the goals that people have in different parts of
their lives. The personal development activity plan invites people to identify
their goals and to say which aspects of themselves the person would like to
develop in order to achieve their goal(s).
2. Allowing autonomy: People need to know have to the autonomy in order
to enable them to reach their goal in the way they believe is
necessary.
Lifewide development is predicated on the idea that individuals are responsible for their
own development. In their own lives they have the freedom to chose how to react
to the situations they encounter or create so personal autonomy lies at the
heart of the developmental process.
3. Providing resources: The resources have to match the project and have to be available when they are
needed.
Lifewide development requires individuals to create their own resources or structure the
environment to enable them to achieve their goals. Alternatively, people put
themselves into environments where the resources are more likely to be secured -
for example into a formal education or training environment to access teachers
and learning materials.
4. Giving enough time—but not too much—to complete a project. Deadlines are important, but only if
employees understand how the deadline benefits the mission. "Extreme time
pressure is bad for creative productivity, but low-to-moderate time pressure is
good."
Lifewide development involves learners managing their own lives and prioritising the
times they have for different projects. They have to manage their own time and
allocate sufficient time to achieve their goals. How time is used in a flexible
but productive way is one of the important dimensions of self-awareness
cultivated through the lifewide development award. Setting time scales in
open-ended life projects is often not possible - by their nature they go rolling
on. But setting timescales around particular tasks that have to be accomplished
(like searching for and booking a holiday) is something that we have to do all
the time. We call it 'prioritising'. Juggling lots of balls and deciding the
timing of when we have to focus on a particular thing. Here the ideas of
'deciding what to do' and 'making a start' would seem to be relevant.
5. Being able to find help with the work. People feel inhibited if
they don't feel comfortable asking for support or, worse, if they feel that
others are deliberately blocking necessary information from them.
One of our most important resources is the help that other people give us be the
family, friends, work colleagues or anyone else who we feel has the potential to
help. Lifewide development is formed around the idea of a community that helps
other people to learn - 'it takes a village to raise a child' - it takes a
community to help an adult develop themselves.
6. Learning from both problems and successes and not being blamed for
trying and not succeeding
Lifewide development is all about learning through your own life experiences - good or
bad. Often the more challenging experiences we encounter do not work out as we
thought they might work out and therein lies important learning. The reflective
process that lifewide development promotes, and the conversations it fosters
between mentors, peers and members of the community are all intended to
encourage people to learn from their experiences and to share their experiences
so that others might offer their perspectives. Trying things that are not
successful can lead to negative emotional states that can restrict our ability
to learn. The importance of being able to change such states - perhaps through
rationalisation or analysis of what went wrong might help to mediate negative
emotions.
7. Allowing ideas to flow: Good managers know when to shut up and listen and not
interfere.
Valuing your own ideas and finding ways of bringing them into concrete existence is an
important part of being and becoming the person you want to be. Lifewide
development values participants' ideas and encourages and supports them to make
them flow and overcome obstacles that stop them from flowing.
The book also details the four nourishers necessary for a healthy inner
work life: respect and recognition, encouragement, emotional support, and,
finally, affiliation—any action that serves to develop mutual trust,
appreciation, and even affection among co-workers will nourish a healthy inner
work life.
These nourishers are all important to the concept of lifewide education, learning and
personal development and we actively search for recognition and feelings of
being valued, we enjoy being encouraged and trusted, and we seek affiliations
through our need and desire to belong to family and friendship groups and
communities.
Lifewide development respects and values participants' commitment to their own
development and through the Lifewide Development Award (LDA) provides
recognition for their efforts and the capabilities they demonstrate.
'Encouragement' 'lies at the heart of the LDA and also the mentoring
conversations and the idea of a supportive community. Similarly, the role of
mentor and peers is to provide emotional support and the very idea of lifewider
community is all about engendering the idea of belonging to a social group that
is supporting personal development.
Amabile T and Kramer S (2011) The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity
at Work. Boston: Harvard Business Review
Press
Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity
at Work, written by husband and wife team Teresa Amabile and Steven
J. Kramer. Their book discusses how even seemingly humdrum events can make huge
differences in employees' emotional and intellectual well-being and their
involvement in and enjoyment of their work. According to their research, the
single most important factor is simply a sense of making progress on meaningful
work. Their research also shows that people who feel good and positive about
their work are also likely to be more creative and to take more risks in trying
out new things.
How we feel about our work has a strong influence on our inner
work life - 'the confluence of perceptions, emotions and motivations that
individuals experience as they react to and make sense of the events in their
workday' (Amabile and Kramer 2011:20). 'Inner work life is inner because it goes
on inside each person. Although it is central to the person's experience of the
workday, it is usually imperceptible to others. ...part of the reason [for this]
is that people try to hide it' (Amabile and Kramer
2011:21).
According to psychological research, the three processes that affect performance (and
influence inner work life) are: perceptions about what is happening (thoughts -
maybe impressions or well developed theories), emotions (or feelings - both
sharply defined reactions and more general feelings like moods) and motivation
(a person's grasp of what needs to be done and their drive to do
it).
What struck me about these ideas about our perceptions, feelings and
motivations at work, was their relevance to our daily lives that are not necessarily to do with
work. We do have an inner life that for the most part we keep hidden from others and that inner life does affect the
way we see the world and interact with it. And that sense of making progress is
something we want to do whenever we take on something new or we want to achieve
something regardless of the context. That sense of making progress also inspires
us to try to do more and to try and be more adventurous and
creative.
Amabile and Cramer identify seven major catalysts for making progress and when looked at
from a lifewide perspective they seem to be relevant to any achievement or
goal driven activity in life. These factors are listed below together with some
commentary relating it to lifewide development.
1. Setting clear goals: People have to understand what they're doing and why
they are doing it.
Lifewide development is predicated on the goals that people have in different parts of
their lives. The personal development activity plan invites people to identify
their goals and to say which aspects of themselves the person would like to
develop in order to achieve their goal(s).
2. Allowing autonomy: People need to know have to the autonomy in order
to enable them to reach their goal in the way they believe is
necessary.
Lifewide development is predicated on the idea that individuals are responsible for their
own development. In their own lives they have the freedom to chose how to react
to the situations they encounter or create so personal autonomy lies at the
heart of the developmental process.
3. Providing resources: The resources have to match the project and have to be available when they are
needed.
Lifewide development requires individuals to create their own resources or structure the
environment to enable them to achieve their goals. Alternatively, people put
themselves into environments where the resources are more likely to be secured -
for example into a formal education or training environment to access teachers
and learning materials.
4. Giving enough time—but not too much—to complete a project. Deadlines are important, but only if
employees understand how the deadline benefits the mission. "Extreme time
pressure is bad for creative productivity, but low-to-moderate time pressure is
good."
Lifewide development involves learners managing their own lives and prioritising the
times they have for different projects. They have to manage their own time and
allocate sufficient time to achieve their goals. How time is used in a flexible
but productive way is one of the important dimensions of self-awareness
cultivated through the lifewide development award. Setting time scales in
open-ended life projects is often not possible - by their nature they go rolling
on. But setting timescales around particular tasks that have to be accomplished
(like searching for and booking a holiday) is something that we have to do all
the time. We call it 'prioritising'. Juggling lots of balls and deciding the
timing of when we have to focus on a particular thing. Here the ideas of
'deciding what to do' and 'making a start' would seem to be relevant.
5. Being able to find help with the work. People feel inhibited if
they don't feel comfortable asking for support or, worse, if they feel that
others are deliberately blocking necessary information from them.
One of our most important resources is the help that other people give us be the
family, friends, work colleagues or anyone else who we feel has the potential to
help. Lifewide development is formed around the idea of a community that helps
other people to learn - 'it takes a village to raise a child' - it takes a
community to help an adult develop themselves.
6. Learning from both problems and successes and not being blamed for
trying and not succeeding
Lifewide development is all about learning through your own life experiences - good or
bad. Often the more challenging experiences we encounter do not work out as we
thought they might work out and therein lies important learning. The reflective
process that lifewide development promotes, and the conversations it fosters
between mentors, peers and members of the community are all intended to
encourage people to learn from their experiences and to share their experiences
so that others might offer their perspectives. Trying things that are not
successful can lead to negative emotional states that can restrict our ability
to learn. The importance of being able to change such states - perhaps through
rationalisation or analysis of what went wrong might help to mediate negative
emotions.
7. Allowing ideas to flow: Good managers know when to shut up and listen and not
interfere.
Valuing your own ideas and finding ways of bringing them into concrete existence is an
important part of being and becoming the person you want to be. Lifewide
development values participants' ideas and encourages and supports them to make
them flow and overcome obstacles that stop them from flowing.
The book also details the four nourishers necessary for a healthy inner
work life: respect and recognition, encouragement, emotional support, and,
finally, affiliation—any action that serves to develop mutual trust,
appreciation, and even affection among co-workers will nourish a healthy inner
work life.
These nourishers are all important to the concept of lifewide education, learning and
personal development and we actively search for recognition and feelings of
being valued, we enjoy being encouraged and trusted, and we seek affiliations
through our need and desire to belong to family and friendship groups and
communities.
Lifewide development respects and values participants' commitment to their own
development and through the Lifewide Development Award (LDA) provides
recognition for their efforts and the capabilities they demonstrate.
'Encouragement' 'lies at the heart of the LDA and also the mentoring
conversations and the idea of a supportive community. Similarly, the role of
mentor and peers is to provide emotional support and the very idea of lifewider
community is all about engendering the idea of belonging to a social group that
is supporting personal development.
Amabile T and Kramer S (2011) The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity
at Work. Boston: Harvard Business Review
Press
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