← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
541. The Power of Employee Well-Being
00:44:00
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer welcomes Mark C. Crowley, author of The Power of Employee Well Being. This enlightening conversation explores the critical shift from traditional engagement metrics to prioritizing employee...
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- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Welcome to episode 541 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Mark Z. Crowley, author of the Power of Employee well Being. Ready?
- [00:15]
Molina
Let's get started.
- [00:20]
Podcast Announcer
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.
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Molina
Hello. Hello everyone.
- [00:38]
Melina Palmer
My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Here's a tough question for any leader. If you asked your team anonymously whether they feel like their well being is a true priority at work, what would they say? Today's guest, Mark C. Crowley, believes most leaders wouldn't like the answer and the.
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Molina
Data backs him up.
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Melina Palmer
You may know Mark as the best selling author of Lead from the Heart.
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Molina
And host of the podcast of the.
- [01:05]
Melina Palmer
Same name, but in this conversation we're digging into his brand new book, the Power of Employee well Being, which makes a bold and urgent argument. It's time to move past engagement as our Go to workplace metric. The future of leadership is about well being. Drawing from decades of research, including a University of Oxford study of 17 million workers, Mark shows that well being isn't soft, it's not fluff. It's a strategic imperative tied directly to profitability, retention and long term performance. And perhaps most importantly, it's something most leaders think they're doing but often aren't. In this episode, we talk about why so many engagement initiatives fail, how to build real psychological belonging, and what it takes to reshape leadership mindsets in today's workplace. Mark also shares practical science backed ways managers can foster emotional safety, recognize unseen stressors, and make daily choices that truly support their teams. As you listen, I encourage you to reflect on this. Where might your leadership style be unintentionally signaling that well being is optional instead of essential? And what might shift if your team actually believed you cared and have the structure to back that up really quickly? Before we get into the episode, I want to be sure you know there are links in the show, notes for related past episodes, books, ways to get in touch, and more.
- [02:33]
Molina
It's all within the app you're listening.
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Melina Palmer
To and at the brainy business.com541.
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Molina
Now.
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Melina Palmer
Let'S jump right in. Mark C. Crowley welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.
- [02:46]
Mark C. Crowley
Thank you very much Melina. Nice to join you.
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Molina
Yes, I'm so excited to be chatting with you today. And full disclosure, the audience knows this happens. Like, we've already had a great conversation and I know that you and I could talk all day long and I'm excited to be able to do some of that recorded so people can listen in on our chat. So for people who don't yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
- [03:11]
Mark C. Crowley
So I'm the author of two books, one that was originally published in 2011. And, and, and, and it's ironic what I'm going to tell you in a second here about the title of the book, but it was written in 2011 and then again a second edition in 2023. And it's called Lead from the Heart. And so the, the, the, the premise of this is that we're not all that rational, that a lot of our behavior is driven by feelings and emotions. And if we understood that, then we should be managing people in a way that supports their emotional experience and like out gives them a higher ratio of positive to negative emotions from an experiential standpoint than just applying, hey, if you work really hard, you know you're going to get a bonus. Or if you work really hard, we're going to get our customer Service scores from 3.4 to 3.42. Isn't that going to be great? Matter. So, but when I say lead from the heart, I'm not saying all heart, I'm saying balance it. It's a form of intelligence that we ignore in leadership. And so I'm saying put them in balance, use them both. If we're the mess that we're in in terms of engagement and how unhappy people are, why people just keep changing jobs and turnover and all that has everything to do with the fact that everything that we think we need to do in business to manage people rationally versus managing their feelings and emotions. So that book has been taught in 11 universities. But it was interesting. Was resisted like mad in business education, picked it and said, the guys like can see the future. This is exactly where we need to go. And business was like, he's a spiritualist, a religious nut or somebody who doesn't get business. And what I was able to show, and the reason that it's called Lead from Heart, is that there's actual science that shows that the heart and the minority communication all the time, the heart sends more signals to the brain than the other way around. And the heart is influencing our choices and our behavior and decisions all day long. So is our body. And so if we understand that, then we would be thinking about managing people in a very different way. So coincidentally, I started seeing research that showed that simply asking people how they feel has a direct relationship to how they perform. So in other words, from a wellbeing standpoint, if at the end of the week, Molina, let's say you work for me, if I say to you, on a scale of either like emojis, where bright green is super happy and bright red is angry, everything in between, or you can do 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I like the emojis, just pick one. Tell me where you are this week and what. There's a researcher at Oxford University, actually went and met him in December, and what he's able to show is that there's a direct relationship between how people assess their well being on a week to week basis, month to month basis, and not just their individual performance, but the organization's performance. So, you know, we have all this engagement metrics and it's 12 questions and we only do it twice a year. Nobody ever follows up on it and nobody's ever accountable. And all you need to do is ask people, how do you feel this week? How did you feel about your manager? Is your manager, do you feel your manager is supporting you and your career goals? Ask that one question on a scale of 1 to 5 to 1, whatever. And you can then start to drill down and say, hey, maybe if we do some things differently here, we can elevate well being, knowing that it's going to translate into higher performance for us. And my new book is called the Power of Employee well Being and it's move on from employee engagement to build flourishing teams. Because I'm saying it's time to stop talking about engagement. The numbers are the same. They haven't changed in 13 years. They're not going to change tomorrow either. And so if we just. I'm hoping that there are people that hear that saying, it's about time we owned up to the fact that this has been very insincere. The system hasn't worked, it hasn't really improved anybody's condition, hasn't done anything to help organizations. And so what I'm saying is that if you buy into that, well being is really a win win solution because as an employee, I'm interested in it. I want my own wellbeing, you want my own well being. Unlike engagement, I never cared if we have a win win where you're trying to support me. I'm going to work really hard for you because you're giving me what I need. And so the book is a primer on if you buy into that premise, then how do you support it? Like, what do you do as a manager? And so the book is a primer on do these things and you can elevate people's performance while you're focusing on the goals that you have to achieve. That's me.
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Molina
I love that. And it was, it was really interesting. I, of course, loved reading the book. And if we can. So at the beginning, kind of early on in the book, which, you know, setting a stage as we do, you talk a little bit about that kind of the difference between that engagement and well being, right? And being able to know that it's not just about that engagement piece and being able to say, like, so much where I think people are going to need a little bit more and kind of understanding the difference between engagement and well being and knowing that, like, because someone would probably argue, like, but if.
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Melina Palmer
They'Re engaged, that means they're happy, right?
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Molina
Like, because those things kind of go together. And to say, but we've been focusing on engagement. We've been talking about it. So how have those numbers, you know, not changed?
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Mark C. Crowley
So I'm not here to argue against engagement. In other words, fair enough. It's important that people understand that because there's nothing wrong with engagement. It's a proxy for, ironically, how people feel. And we ask them 12 different questions and forget how they, how they assess those. Those 12 elements gives us an engagement score. But, and to underscore that, I will tell you that in 2013, I, on an impulse, reached out to Gallup and just was telling him, this is two years after my book came out, and I had realized, okay, I'm up against a lot of resistance. People think that what I'm talking about is the same in business, but I'm being heartened by education, which is saying, hey, we're teaching your book. And I'm like, you are? Could you help the business people understand this? Because. So I reached out to the head researcher at Gallup and I just said, here's my thesis. This is what I believe. And he goes, well, we have a lot of research that validates what you're talking about. In fact, we have what's called the American Workplace Study that's coming out in a few weeks. And he starts to share the data. And the principal conclusion of the data is that only 30% of Americans are engaged. And I'm like, you know, my reaction was. And this is the reaction, you know, I called my article, I wrote an article for Fast Company that gave me permission to be the first one in the world to, to announce it before they did. And it was sort of the shot heard around the world in business. People were like, only 30% are willing to put in discretionary effort. It was like, how much better could our worlds be if people, if we got it to 60 or 70. Right. So people started doing initiatives, and people made careers out of it, wrote books and spoke and did all that. That's 2013. Do you know where engagement was in 2013? 30%. You know where it is today? 31%. So anybody that wants to argue, we've been working to try to support engagement. You're the rare exception. And a big part of it is that a companies monitored it no more than twice a year, right. So they do a survey twice a year. By the time they digest the data and get it out to people, it's like two or three months old. And the feedback, a lot of times managers will look at it and go, oh, this, this employee is complaining about something happened like seven months ago. I'm not going to be concerned about that. But it's a concern employee. They haven't forgotten it. Right. You're only surveying people twice a year. Right. And then, then on top of it, there's no accountability. So you work for me, Alina, and you're asked, how supportive is Mark Crowley? We're going to name the guy in Ohio instead of Mark C. Crowley. So, all right, so I'm kidding. But how supportive is Mark to you as your manager? And you go, this is the most toxic person I've ever worked for. He doesn't care about me, never thanks me. Whenever things get bad, he's yelling and screaming. And so what happens with that data? Nothing. There's never been any accountability where we hand it off and we go, somebody needs to talk to Mark about how he's managing Molina. And we don't know that it's Molina, by the way. It's. It's like, you know, it's anonymous feedback, but somebody needs to go deal with Mark. So people just grew to think that it was just an HR initiative and so based. No. And by the way, Wall street has never thought that this mattered at all. They never cared about it. So CEOs didn't care about it. So I can go on and on and tell you all the reasons why engagement hasn't worked, but if we kind of own up to the fact that it hasn't gotten better in 12 years and it's not likely to change, then why wouldn't we want to look for something better. And what I'm saying is a, an economics professor, you know, not a humanist, although I've met him and he is one. But he's like a numbers guy, you know, and, and basically what he did was he started to measure how people performed in light of how they evaluated their, their well being. So what I love about it is it's really simple. How do you feel, Molina, about your growth opportunities? How do you feel about the support you get from your manager? How do you feel about the benefit package that we offer you at XYZ Company? And so you can drill down and ask those 12 questions that they ask, you know, a friend at work, like those kinds of questions, whatever Gallup asks, but you do it in real time. So you know, there's technology now where I go out. So I have a company, let's say, of 500 people, and I send them an email and say, melina and you 499 other people tell them, you know, we have one question for you, for you, you know, for this bi weekly survey. And the survey is, how do you feel about your work being meaningful? I phrase that horribly. But you know, on a scale of 1 to 5. Right. How meaningful do you feel your work is? Okay, so I give you till the end of the day to do this. Tomorrow morning when I come in, it's already processed, the data is there, the comments are there, and it's distributed to everybody who needs to see it. So now within 24 hours of you saying, you know, we'll go back to my manager is a jerk and isn't supportive of me and I have that data now, the company can do a couple of things. They say, well, generally we're not really getting very good feedback on this, so we need to figure out what we going to do. So this is a recalibration in real time. So your feedback now is being addressed 24 hours after you gave it versus nine months after it happened. Right. Which is much more. But the other thing is that you can drill it down and say, well, all the negative feedback came from one guy, Mark Crowley in Ohio. We need to deal with him. We need to work with them. So one of the things that Gallup has always said that I obviously believe is that everybody deserves to have a good manager. So if you're asking people on a regular basis about their well being and you're starting to see that there's a consistency of red coming from a handful of managers, then you work with them and you say this is a problem. And you can't go back to your people and browbeat them into giving you green. You have to manage them better. And here's how. So this is why I wrote the book. But the benefit of this is that if those people don't improve, then the company can weed them out and give everybody a good manager. And guess what that does. It not only elevates well being, but it elevates engagement. So engagement will never go away. It's just this is a simpler, cleaner, and far more effective way of tapping into how people feel week to week and making adjustments as needed.
- [15:42]
Molina
Definitely. And it feels like it's lean. It's leaning into some of the, like, leading and lagging indicators. Right. So if we're doing this on a regular basis and we're able to be adjusting, you know, more in real time like you're talking about, then engagement can follow. But it clearly isn't enough like just to talk about that because it's. There are many other things that are feeding into that engagement piece and focusing on that. Well, being in real time can be helping people to feel like they're being heard, like they're part of the process. And then they can start to see things happening and go, hey, people are listening to me. And like, naturally we get, you know.
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Melina Palmer
More engaged in that process.
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Mark C. Crowley
I think we can put engagement aside and use it as ultra sure as a piece of language, you know what I mean?
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Molina
Right.
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Mark C. Crowley
But it's really, it's the translation is that if you focus on well being, you're going to have more committed, productive, loyal people. As simple as that.
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Molina
Definitely.
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Mark C. Crowley
You know, there's a translation that we've formally used is engagement, but I'm saying it too. It complicates things. Just focus on people being. You implied something, Molina, that's really important. Which is. So I think back on certain times. You know, I'm actually, before we started, I'm writing an article about the importance of pulse surveys. Fast Company asked me to write this and I could write this in my sleep because they're so vital. Right. However, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking there were times when I know that I would have gotten some really bad feedback from people. And it was partly because we were going through a very stressful time and the company was asking us to, you know, basically climb mountains with no gear. You know, it was that kind of get out there and do war. And so, you know, I'm thinking, okay, so if I. They'd done a snap snapshot, you know, of me at that point, I would have gotten guys a jerk. He's asking for so much. But you know, the, what you get though is the ability to re. Ask the question three months later or you know, you've, you rotate questions and then you can go back and you can say, was that an anomaly with Mark? You know, was that and how is it comparatively within the company? So if the company is going through a stressful position situation rather, and all the managers are getting lower scores, you can say, okay, we're going to have to live through this and you're going to have to tell people we got really bad feedback on how we're managing you. And we know it. But so, you know, part of it is like just acknowledging, yeah, we're going through a really tough road right now. We know your well being isn't great, but we're going to go, we're not going to be living here forever. So it's, you know, so I think it just, there's just something really powerful about saying, how do you feel about this? And coming back and telling people this is what we learned and this is what we're doing about it.
- [18:38]
Molina
Yeah, I really like that. And like you said, there are some times where it's like you got to kind of push through it, but by being able to acknowledge it and say, hey, we get it and there is a light out there at the end of this tunnel. This isn't forever can help people to like looking for those opportunities to rally together as a team. That can actually help people to feel more, more nurtured. And there's a lot of value that comes in the trust that's built through that process. That, that's really great transitioning a little bit. And as people are thinking about themselves as leaders here, one of the things I really loved in the book is, you know, talking about whether it's leaning into optimism bias or anything else, like no one really thinks that they are the bad leader.
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Melina Palmer
Right?
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Molina
It's easy to say like, oh yeah, well, for all those other bad managers out there, they need to work on this. And I'll look at a couple things for myself, but you know, I'm a good leader. You give some good stories and examples, you know, in the book and some advice for people at knowing themselves better. Can you share a little bit about that?
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Mark C. Crowley
I mean, there's all kinds of studies that show that we think we're better than everybody else and pretty much everything, you know, even down, even down to how well we drive our car, you know, that we're motivated to go, well, I'm better than most people are driving. You know, it's like, why, what do you, what, where does that come from? Right, but it does, it does sort of, you know, put a framework around the, the human condition that we all tend to look around and go, I look better than he does. You know, I bage better. My career has gone better than theirs. As you know, I got more money. Like, we're, you know, we're assessing people very quickly and go, loser, winner. You know, I. What competition? This is just unfortunate, but this is kind of how we act, you know. But when it comes to leadership, there's been some very sad studies that show, you know, when they ask people, you know, assess yourself amongst the leaders in your company, where do you think you rank? And like, disproportionately people put themselves in the top 10, 15, 20% of all managers in the company. And if everybody sees themselves that way, the problem is that we have no motivation whatsoever to get better. If I, if I see myself, I look around and I go, I'm better than that guy. Her, him. I'm better than pretty much all of them, then you have no reason to say, what if I'm not? What, what if I have some limitations here that are holding me back? And we all do. I think, you know, that you can't operate as a human being in a leadership role and assume that you have all holes plugged. Like, we all have our limitations. It might be incompetency. You know, the interesting thing is in my career, starting from when I was 27 years old, through my entire career, I managed people doing work that I'd never done before. And in my last job, my national level position, I'm running the brokerage business. So these are people that are selling, you know, retirement funds and stocks and bonds and insurance products. And I've never sold any of them. Like, I'd never done it. They just put me in that position because they thought, well, he's a really good leader and we think he could run the business. And guess what? We had record profit and record record sales my first year and I was named leader of the year. But I left that job never having done any of the jobs that they were doing. So you could say, well, this market, like, lacks some competency. Yes, there's no certainty. Like, I, I mean, I have a general understanding of it and I could coach people on it. But you want to get into the detail of how a mutual fund works. This one specifically compared to another one can't help you. Right. So that might be a limitation, but what's more, often the limitation is our blind spots, our unwillingness to see that there are behaviors that we are doing that annoy people or are worse than that, that undermine people. Right. That. That make people feel like I don't want to work for this person. So in the book, I tell the story about, and I'm going to share this for two reasons. One, because it's so illustrative, and the other is because it gives people a really, like, a way they can actually do this themselves.
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Molina
Yeah.
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Mark C. Crowley
So we had a team of people. So I had been in my job for a year, and again, I have no background in this. I came from a whole different world, got all my securities licenses. So I, you know, demonstrated basic competency to get through some very rigorous examination exams. But still, I'm from a different world. Right. So my boss brought in all my peers and an HR business partner and her. And it was not just focused on me, it was focused on the whole team. So the HR business partner handed out index cards and said, say, write two things about every person in the room. So if I think I remember, there was like 13 people in the room. So, which meant that separate from me, I was going to get. And so is everybody else going to get 24 pieces of praise. So she read them, the HR business partner gets the cards, and now she's coming to me, and she goes, okay, Mark, we're going to focus on you. So she reads them and they're like, he's an exceptional leader. Like, this is somebody that we don't understand how he does what he does, but everywhere he goes, he's like, on and on and on and on. And I'm like, almost to the point of tears. Like, I'm just so grateful that people can. Can see that. I mean, I'm working really hard, and I've tried to work on my own development for a really long time. So none of this feedback was a surprise to me. It was hugely gratifying. However. Right. So then she says, okay. So we've gone around the room, everybody's gotten their praise. She says, okay, so now write one thing on a card that you don't think this person knows, but if they knew about themselves, could make them infinitely better as a leader instantaneously. And so I'm like, I've just heard all this incredible praise. Like, you know, throw a pray for Mark Crowley, you know, like, whatever this criticism is. And to a. Like, you know, out of the. Out of the 13 people, whatever they. They were like, he's so. He's so sarcastic sometimes, and it really hurts people. And my father was a. I mean, just. I mean, I won't say a horrible person, but he leaned in that direction, and he did a lot of harm to his family and to me growing up. And I observed him being that guy, sarcastic with people as a means of criticizing them harshly, unfairly, meanly. And so I'm like, hearing this and I'm, like, being crushed. Like, the last thing I want people to think is that I'm sarcastic. And I'm like in real time going, where did that come from? And then I instantly realized I picked this up from my father, this horrible habit. You know, it's horrible behavior when I'm under stress or something. These sort of, like, you know, hurt people that way. And the objective was to point something out that we could improve. I improved on the spot, like, I'm never going to drink again kind of a thing, you know, like, I'm never going to do behavior. But I. As I wrote in the book, it was like, had that not happened, I would have continued to be sarcastic and hurt people, the very people. Like, I'm the heart guy. I'm leaning into supporting people and caring about them and appreciating and then sabotaging all that by being brutally critical in a way that I couldn't see. And so this idea of knowing myself and really investing a lot of time to figure out what is motivating you, and, you know, I'll leave it with one less punctuation here. Somebody said to me many years ago that most people operate out. Operate out of their childhood cells most of the time. And when she said it, I was like, is that accurate? And we don't realize it. So, you know, so I get into a dispute with some guy at work who's just being a jerk to me, and we're, you know, we're now in a real fight and, you know, not liking each other and calling each other names or whatever you get into in dispute and work. And it's. It's about something that my brother did to me 30 years ago, not what he's doing. He's just triggering. My brother did. Right. So it's. It's spending time to say, why? When I get upset with something, why am I getting upset? Where's that coming from? Because if you know yourself, you can lead other people. If you don't know other people, if you don't know yourself, it's almost impossible to figure out how to Manage others.
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Molina
I really love that example. And thank you for sharing it. And especially, like you said, that I think for people being able to see something they can go do with their teams right away, that it doesn't take a lot to be able to do the two pieces of praise, which then makes it to where. And you. You phrase it nicely in the book, and as we said, I'll end up kind of butchering it here. But this idea of, like, once I've given that praise to people, I feel okay giving the piece of the. The feedback that's on the more negative side because. And you just saw they. They got a lot of positives. And also, it's not just say, like, and what's one bad thing? Right? But it's saying, like, what's a thing that they don't know that if they did, they would make this. That they would want to change right away and it could have a huge impact on them and their career. But you think they don't know it. That framing is going to set people up to give different feedback that we.
- [28:16]
Melina Palmer
Can see is like, I'm digging for.
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Molina
Something and there's this space to be able to share it. And it is anonymous, but it's a group and everybody's getting the same kind of feedback. I think it's a really great exercise that a lot of teams will benefit from. So. So thank you for sharing that.
- [28:31]
Mark C. Crowley
I've done it where let's say you work for me. So I say, hey, Molina, do me a favor. Like, I did it at review times. I'm just giving you a review. And I get done and go, hey, before I go, Paula Colombo, I have a question for you. Is there one thing that you think that I do really, really well, or two things that you think that I do really well as a leader? Of course, they're your support and your point. They're like, you're the greatest, Mark Crowley, you're the greatest. Right? All that. And then you go, tell me one thing that I am not good at. Well, they don't want to do that because I tried. I go, hey, you gave me two really good things. But I'm like, it's like pulling teeth out of people to get them to do it because they don't want to offend you. They don't want to hurt you. Ultimately, they will, and they will hurt you because the feedback is always painful, which is a key. Right? You have to be open to it and willing to suffer in order to get better. But I think what I loved about the Exercise. The point I wanted to make is the anonymity of it. So the problem, writing down he's sarcastic on the index, if they had to say, say it publicly, they probably would have said, oh, you know, he doesn't. His office isn't always very clean. You know, like. Right. It would avoid the real critical feedback for sure.
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Melina Palmer
Right. And it's not saying, well, Molina says that, Mark.
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Molina
Right. Like that.
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Melina Palmer
No, no.
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Molina
Nobody wants to be.
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Mark C. Crowley
I don't know what else feels that way.
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Molina
Show of hands.
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Melina Palmer
Everyone that believes it.
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Mark C. Crowley
Just her.
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Molina
Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, we can see where that goes awry. But, like, when you have that team in that safe space and its peers, you know, it's a little bit of a different process that can be helping in that way to be more open. And so it did lead me into, you know, so we've got the two positive and one negative thing. And I know from the book that that's not necessarily the full balance of what we want, but for people that feel like, oh, can I. Am I going to be gushing too much? If I'm giving too much positive stuff? Do I just need to say two nice things so I can say the one bad thing that I want to say? Or is there evidence to show that we should actually be giving even more, you know, positive feedback to people to.
- [30:45]
Melina Palmer
Help those relationships to really flourish?
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Mark C. Crowley
Well, I mean, in this case, the HR business partner did not tell the process. Right. She surprised us with the third card. Right. So, and this is great. I got clear validation, green lights all the way. I'm doing a great job. And then she goes, hey, just one more thing. I got another card for everyone. So if you tell people up front that we're going to ask two in one.
- [31:09]
Melina Palmer
Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:11]
Mark C. Crowley
Probably don't get, you know, and all of them are going to be, oh, well, you know, he's got a nice car and he wears nice suits, and the guy's a real jerk. You know, like, they want to get to the criticism. So the other way, the other thing is that we're all human. Right. So if I say to you, you know, tell me one thing you think I need to do better or I can improve upon, well, that's a piece of criticism right out of the gate. So it does make it feel better if you have two pieces of praise from that same person. Because it's. You're giving me two pieces of praise and one thing, I'm trusting it. Right, Right. If I go, hey, just tell me one thing that I can do Better. I'm like, I'm not so sure I want to listen to her. You know what I mean? We can dismiss, we get the positive from that person. We know we can trust the feedback. I think that's really powerful.
- [32:04]
Molina
Definitely. And then as you look to teams and kind of in the day to day work, right. You talk about this, the 5 to 1 ratio of the positive elements and reinforcement for people. And I think that some people. Well, I know. Not think, I know there are people that feel like you shouldn't be friends with your, your employees, you shouldn't be even like friendly with them. There's like holding a line of being more stoic but knowing that the research kind of shows that being able to have those positive moments is really valuable in that long term wellbeing of employees.
- [32:42]
Mark C. Crowley
So what we're really saying, I'll, I'll, I'll make it personal. I, I found this very interesting. There's a guy named John got, he's at the University of Washington where you are and he's an emeritus professor of psychology and he wrote a book that has sold over a million copies. And it's really about how marriages, partnerships. So you know. Right, either partnerships or specifically the book is about marriage, but long term relationships. So there's something, his name is John Gottman and there's something called the Gottman ratio. And there's been a ton of research to validate this, which is that human beings need a ratio of no less than 4 to 1. Positive to negative experiences, or in my language, positive emotions to negative emotions. So there's a professor at the University of Chap. Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Barbara Fredrickson, and she has proved that human beings in her language are hardwired to thrive on positive emotions. And so what Gottman is saying is the same thing. If you're hardwired to thrive on them, then you're going to wither if you don't get that, if you don't have that relationship. So what he's saying is if people aren't attentive to their spouse, if they're not sending messages to each other, if they don't work well to each other, if they don't hug each other every once in a while, like there's, you know, those elements of a positive relationship. Good job, Molina. I love you. I'll see you tonight. We'll have a fun time. You, you know, that kind of intimacy. He goes, if you're not getting those positive emotions in your relationship, he, he goes, I can sit down with a couple and in 10 minutes know whether they're going to survive or not. It's that simple. So it's different in leadership. This is the point is that when it, if my premise is feelings and emotions drive human behavior. So if that's the case and we know that people are hardwired to thrive on positive emotions, then what we should be doing is paying people with what I call emotional currency. So stop thinking that every solution has a hundred dollar bonus attached to it. Like we just give him 50 minutes, an hour, he's going to be much more engaged and that's, that'll solve our problem. When person feels like you never appreciate them, they have no view of where they're going in their career. Nobody's coaching them, nobody's training them, nobody's, you know, doing anything for them. No one appreciates them. They don't feel close to their colleagues. So we're like, we're going to give that guy, that person that unhappy, another 100 bucks a month thinking that that's going to solve the problem. Right. And I'm saying no, what's going to make the difference for someone is that if you change your leadership practices in order to ensure that people have a sense of well being at work, which ironically, no surprise comes from paying attention to their emotional experience.
- [35:33]
Molina
Definitely. And what I really love about that and you know, in my own books and work, really looking at those little things that anyone can do that can make a difference. And so in that way to say like for people that don't feel like they have power in the organization, right. They maybe they're not at CEO level or maybe they can't influence the entire executive team and all the managers to change behavior. And so it feels like there's nothing you can do do if you're in a culture that's like kind of reinforcing some of this negativity.
- [36:04]
Melina Palmer
But if you have, you can be.
- [36:06]
Molina
A positive influence, you can be putting those positive ripples out into the world and give, saying nice things and giving praise in a way that can start to multiply and amplify across an organization just by. We've talked on the show before about where people that wrote a moment of gratitude to the team at the end of the week and three things that they noticed that they appreciated and how that started to ripple through organizations. And so just knowing there are little things that anyone can do kind of regardless of how high up you are in an organization that can start to have that positive impact and hopefully be reciprocal in a way that you feel better each day, and then those around you feel better. And it might kind of rub off.
- [36:50]
Mark C. Crowley
One of the chapters in the book is be a positive force. And you use the word little many times in. In what you're experiencing, expressing. And that's how people perceive them a little like they don't matter or they're not important or know how I feel about them. And the. The evidence is really clear. You know, you go up to a manager and you say, how much do you appreciate. You know, do you appreciate your people? Do they feel recognized and that. That you care about how you. You express how much you're. You appreciate what they're doing and what they're accomplishing? And they, of course, every manager in the world knows that, like, you know, yawning. And then you go out to their people and you say, when was the last time you felt appreciated? And they're like, never. Like, never. Like, you know, so the. It's really making a decision that you're going to be a positive force because the evidence really clear. And so I'll give you one example of this. So let's say you have 12 managers, and 10 of them are killing it, and two of them are not, right? So. And the two of them are annoying you because you want all 12 to be hitting the goal. So you get up in front of all 12 managers and you go, you know, there are some people in this room that are just really skating, and we're and are not contributing, and our team is failing because of this, and I've had it. And what they think they're doing is getting the two people to turn around. And instead what they're Getting is the 10 people to go, f you like, we're killing. And you know, pardon me if that's how they're thinking, right? It's like, how about praising me? How about thanking the 10 of us who are doing what you want them to do? So what I heard a long time ago is you get up in front of a meeting and you can say, hey, we're like 90% of goals, so we really need to pick it up, you know, if we want to get to the end of the month. But in front of the team, whether you have those two, including those two people that are not performing for whatever reason, you go, we're an amazing team. We are incredible what we're doing. I'm so proud of you. And then you deal with those two people individually that they never see. And they see it because either their behavior turns around or they're no Longer part of the team so people can realize, why are you thanking all of us when these two people aren't doing anything? It ultimately comes out. But the point is that you create this culture of positivity where people feel like, this is fun to be here, this is great. And we, you know, we need four to one, so there's no point in missing opportunities. Four is the minimum, by the way. And you read the book that if it's three to one or two to one, you're into mental health issues of a very severe nature. If we're not getting those positive emotions, we're in trouble. So saying lavish people with praise if people are doing what you want them to do.
- [39:41]
Melina Palmer
Yes, 100%.
- [39:42]
Molina
I love that. And you here at the brainy business, you know, I end every episode of the show with be thoughtful. It's signature line on my emails. It's really what we are all about. So you and I are definitely kindred spirits. And as I said going into this, I know that you and I could talk all day long. But as we are getting to the end of our time together, for everyone who I know is now so excited to go go get their copy of the book and to follow you connect and whatnot, you know, we'll put links in the show notes, but what is.
- [40:10]
Melina Palmer
Their best path to do?
- [40:12]
Mark C. Crowley
So we've talked about this offline, that there's another Mark Crowley in the world. Right? When I, when I wrote Lead from the Heart, I had to come up. I had to change my name to Mark C. Crowley. It was my name, but I never used it before. So my, my website is mark C. Crowley.com two C's and that's all roads lead to me there. You can find me at Mark C. Crowley on Twitter, you can find me at Mark c. Crowley at LinkedIn. But if you just remember markccrowley.com, you'll get there. And if you can't remember that Lead from the heart also gets you there. So, Lee from the Heart. So hopefully I haven't complicated it. And thank you for promoting my book. I'm very excited about it. With, with no humility. I'm expressing that it's really good. I'm very, very happy with it and I know that will help managers elevate the performance of their team. I'm absolutely certain of it.
- [41:09]
Melina Palmer
Oh, agreed.
- [41:11]
Molina
And I really enjoyed chatting with you about it. And for everyone listening to To Know it is a, a quick read. You very thoughtfully put everything together to make sure it's what you need without a bunch of fluffy stuff that you don't. So it can be helping people to get through. But it's still very interesting with really great stories. I know that people are going to really enjoy and get value out of the content. So thank you of course for writing it. Thanks for joining me on the show and talking about it. It's been really delightful to have you.
- [41:39]
Melina Palmer
Here with me today.
- [41:40]
Mark C. Crowley
This hour flew by. Thank you so very much.
- [41:42]
Molina
Yes, thanks.
- [41:45]
Melina Palmer
So what got your brain buzzing as you listened to Mark C. Crowley today? For me, I keep thinking about how disconnected most well being strategies are from actual daily work life. If we are serious about well being, and we should be, it has to live in how we set expectations, how we manage workloads, how we give feedback, how we listen, how we celebrate, and more. It's in the real behaviors that leaders model every day. This isn't just a leadership nice to have, it is a business mandate. You got gotta do it if you want you and your teams and your businesses to be successful. And now that you've had a chance to listen to the full episode, I want to bring back the reflection question I asked at the beginning of the show to see how it might hit different now that you hear it again, where might your leadership style be unintentionally signaling that well being is optional instead of essential? And what might shift if your team actually believed you cared and had the structure to back that up? Beyond that, how might your team's performance shift if you spend as much time managing the emotional climate as you do managing goals and timelines? Come share your thoughts with me on social media. You'll find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, as well as top related past episodes and books, including the Power of Employee well Being, ways to get in touch, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthebrainybusiness.com 541. And just like that, episode 541 with Mark C. Crowley is done. Join me next time for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and and remember to be thoughtful.
- [43:43]
Podcast Announcer
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.