Happiness seems as elusive and subjective at work as empathy. But there is a link between the two, and we’re going to get into that today! My guest is Dr. Tracy Brower, a PhD sociologist studying work-life fulfillment and happiness.
Today we discuss what happiness at work means, how happiness is linked to empathy, and the research around what happy workplaces experience in terms of engagement, retention, and performance. Tracy shatters the myths of happiness as a constant state. While we can’t “make people happy” we can create the conditions for happiness. She shares the five measurable conditions for happiness and we discuss the Paradox of Happiness, the benefits of post-traumatic growth, the current loneliness epidemic and the role workplace cultures can play, and the two important components of what it means to thrive. Tracy offers ways you can create connections as a leader – and you’ll love the conversation near the end about how leaders don’t have to take on all the responsibility for this in their culture by themselves!
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Tracy’s Big Five conditions for happiness are: Having a sense of purpose, Connection with other people, Opportunity for learning, growth and challenge, Performing really well, and Gratitude.
- Sometimes you will have to do work you don’t want to do. Your work won’t always be fulfilling. But that doesn’t mean your career or workplace cannot be nurturing, engaging, and fulfilling despite that work.
- Thriving always includes an element of striving. There are positive challenges, and positive growth that come out of difficult situations.
“It’s actually counterproductive to measure happiness by itself, and the more we think about happiness as its own end, the less likely we are to accomplish it, statistically.”
— Dr. Tracy Brower
Episode References:
- The Empathy Edge episodes
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About Dr. Tracy Brower, VP Workplace Insights, Steelcase
Dr. Tracy Brower is a PhD sociologist studying work-life fulfillment and happiness. She is the author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work and Bring Work to Life. She is the vice president of workplace insights with Steelcase and a senior contributor to Forbes and Fast Company. Her work has been translated into 22 languages, and you can find her on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, or at tracybrower.com
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Book: The Secrets To Happiness at Work
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. Happiness seems as elusive and subjective at work as empathy, but there is a link between the two, and we get into that today. My guest is Dr Tracy Brower, a PhD sociologist studying work life, fulfillment and happiness. And she is also vice president of workplace insights at Steelcase, the well known manufacturer and global design and thought leader in the world of work. Tracy is the author of the secrets of happiness at work and bring work to life. She’s also a TEDx speaker and a senior contributor to Forbes and Fast Company, and her work has been translated into 22 languages. Today, we discuss what happiness at work means, how happiness is linked to empathy and the research around what happy workplaces experience in terms of engagement, retention and performance. Tracy shatters the myths of happiness as a constant state, and while we can’t, quote, unquote, make people happy, we can create the conditions for happiness. Tracy shares the five measurable conditions for happiness, and we discuss the paradox of happiness, the benefits of post traumatic growth, the current loneliness epidemic, and the role workplace cultures can play and the two important components of what it means to thrive. Tracy shares ways you can create connections as a leader, and you’ll love the conversation near the end about how leaders don’t have to take on all the responsibility for this in their culture by themselves. This was a great one. Take a listen. Welcome. Dr Tracy Brower to the empathy edge podcast to talk to us today about all things happiness at work. What a fun topic. Welcome, yeah, thank
Dr. Tracy Brower 02:34
you for having me. Really glad for our conversation coming up so
Maria Ross 02:38
we heard what you do and the work that you’ve done in your bio that folks have heard, but tell us a little bit about your work now and what got you into this concept of happiness at work. How did that all come about?
Dr. Tracy Brower 02:51
Yeah, I mean, I think it really started when I started thinking about work life and work life fulfillment and how we could do better than balance. I was living the dream as a mom and a wife and working full time, and, you know, being a member of my community and all that kind of thing. So my first book is called bring work to life with alternative ways to think about work life balance, how we can kind of do more than balance, better than balance. And then I was really paying attention to the negative narrative about work. You know, work is a grind. Work is terrible. Work is a salt mine. And I really wanted to research how work could be a source of happiness instead of something that occurs in spite of us, right? And so that was my impetus for happiness at work. Was thinking about how we really could create the conditions for joy when we’re working and when we’re outside of work.
Maria Ross 03:43
I love this so much because with my new book that’s out as of when this airs, it will be out the empathy dilemma, that one of the five pillars of being an effective and an empathetic leader is joy. And that can be a word that delights people when they hear it, but also like, well, what does that mean, and how do I measure it? And if it’s joyful to me, is it joyful to someone else? So can you level set us a little bit on the term happiness? How do you define happiness in your work and research, and what are some myths around happiness?
Dr. Tracy Brower 04:16
Yeah, this is really important, because I think a lot of times we think of happiness as, oh, it’s all Bon Bons and butterflies. And I’m going to be happy every single minute, constantly, you know, all the time, with no ups and downs. And I like to think about, you know, having an overall sense of joy and contentment is something that’s possible even with ups and downs. Our lives will be stressful. We’ll have good days and bad days, but we can have kind of that overall sense of rightness with the world, and we can empower ourselves to create happiness. And I think it’s really interesting. We can talk about how to measure the conditions that go along with happiness, but it’s actually counterproductive to measure happiness by itself, and the more we think about. Happiness as its own end, the less likely we are to accomplish it, statistically for two reasons. One, we’re focused on what we don’t already have, right? We’re chasing happiness, so we’re thinking all the time about what we don’t have. And two, we tend to be focused on ourselves, and that’s negatively correlated with happiness. More positively correlated with happiness is, how are we contributing to others? How are we contributing to the community? And so measuring the conditions for happiness, great idea. We can talk more about that and really thinking about how to your point. Joy is different for everybody, and it’s not going to be a constant state. It will be something that ebbs and flows. And it can absolutely be something that comes from really hard work and really challenging times. Yes,
Maria Ross 05:47
I like to say, you know, in the book, I talk about it’s not just about being happy all the time. I use the word happy, but happy all the time at work, or enjoying your work even all the time, but it’s about having a sense of of lightness and connection and joy, even when the work is hard, you know, because, unfortunately, we can’t always get you know, I still have to do spreadsheets, and I hate it with the white hot passion of 1000 suns, but I still have to do spreadsheets right as part of my work. That’s not going to bring me joy, but in the situation that I’m in, where can I find those moments of joy or create them for myself or my team. So I do want to dig in a little bit on the before we get into the myths of happiness, I do want to talk to you about what types of conditions, when you talk about conditions for happiness, that you can measure, what are some of those conditions? Yeah. So we can
Dr. Tracy Brower 06:39
create the conditions for happiness and lots of ways, there’s so much research here, but my big five, and we can dig into any of these when we have a sense of purpose, right? Just that small thing that we do, we don’t have to solve world peace or world hunger, but purpose, that small thing that we do that matters is one another, is connection with other people, whether we’re introverts or extroverts. A third is opportunity for learning and growth and challenge. A fourth is when we’re performing really well, that tends to bring us a sense of joy. And then the other of the Big Five for me is gratitude, that is so highly correlated with happiness. And so those are the kinds of things we can measure right like, to what extent do I feel like there’s a bigger picture that I’m part of. To what extent do I feel connected with my colleagues? To what extent do I have the opportunity for growth and learning? Right? All of those kinds of things can be measured, so we can dig into any of them. But that’s the key. Instead of pursuing happiness Period End of sentence, we’re creating the conditions for happiness. Yeah,
Maria Ross 07:39
and also it’s that’s not a question you want on your employee engagement survey. Are you happy? Yes or No, right? Exactly. That’s not really good, because it’s like empathy too. Though. You can’t just say, Do you think this organization, our culture, is empathetic? Yes or No, it’s It’s more nuanced than that.
Dr. Tracy Brower 07:53
Yes, exactly, right? And if you ask somebody that question, they’re going to say, well, you know, there was that thing that happened last week, and now that I really think about it, there was that other thing that happened yesterday, whereas, if you’re thinking about those conditions for happiness, and it’s a much more reliable metric, and it’s more actionable, right? Like yes, how do we give people a greater sense of connectedness? How do we create opportunities for people to work together? How do we create opportunities for development, right? All of those are much more actionable. You know, you’re making
Maria Ross 08:23
me think I’m going to put a link in the show notes to another episode, another guest, Logan Mallory, who works for a company called motivosity, and they’re all about helping companies build a culture of gratitude. Because of you know, he cited many of the studies that I’m sure you’re referring to around that link between gratitude and service and even just acknowledgement and engagement at work. And, you know, in my vernacular, I would say engagement at work is linked to that happiness that, you know, if I’m engaged, it’s because I want to be here, and there’s something I’m getting from this environment. If I’m engaged as a worker? Yes,
Dr. Tracy Brower 09:01
exactly. And you think about key elements of engagement, which are really similar to key elements of happiness, vitality, right? Do I feel energized by my work and I’m putting energy into it? Do I feel a sense of immersion with my work, like, oh, I lose track of time sometimes. Do I feel dedicated, right? Like I’m committed to doing a good job, and do I feel like I matter? Like, those are four things I think that are really helpful. And your point earlier is worth repeating. Every single minute of our work lives is not going to be, you know, wonderful, right? Like, I always like to think about kind of that Venn diagram, the intersecting circles, yes, have to do. What do I love to do, right? The more overlap, the better. But you’re never going to get perfect overlap, like I’m always going to have to do expense reports. I’m never gonna make you’re never gonna love spreadsheets. No, no.
Maria Ross 09:51
I love what you said earlier about the Bon Bons and butterflies. It’s, that’s my new puppies and rainbows. That’s, that’s usually what I say, Yeah, and that’s. The thing, because I wrote about in the book, you know, some things I was seeing coming up in the in the in pop culture around, you know, when you see this, you know you should only do what you’re passionate about and follow your bliss and all this. And that’s great. But then I saw something in it, newsletter that I am actually way too old to subscribe to. It’s for mostly women in their 20s, but I just find it hilarious and really well written. And they were talking about assessing if you’re in the right culture, in the right job. And the the crux of it was valid. But one of the things they said was, you know, you need to talk to your boss if you if spreadsheets don’t bring you joy, that’s where I got the spreadsheets analogy. You need to tell them that something has to change. And it’s like, no, if that’s the work that needs to be done, sometimes it is work we don’t want to do, but is the environment that we’re swimming in, nurturing and engaging and fulfilling. Even sometimes, when the work is not
Dr. Tracy Brower 10:54
Yes, exactly, sometimes the word won’t be fulfilling. And the other thing that I think is always really interesting is the paradox of happiness and accomplishment. When you accomplish something, if you have worked really hard for it, you will feel better about that accomplishment than if it just came really easy to you. And so I think we have this strange narrative right now about how we want to get rid of all stress, get rid of all challenge anything you don’t like you shouldn’t be expected to do, and that’s just not the case, right? Like there will be, there will be things we don’t love as much. There will also be things that are hard and hard, things can actually bring us happiness, because we’re really rolling up our sleeves and learning something new. We’re challenging ourselves. Usually, if we’re doing something really hard, we’re working with other people, and that builds our understanding for them and our respect for them, and we’re relying on other people. And so those kinds of things really add to the level of happiness, even though they’re challenging.
Maria Ross 11:52
I love that you said that because there is this idea of wanting a friction free life and to kind of get really personal. I remember when I had a major medical trauma many years ago, and coming back from that, I was actually I had always been a type A goal setter, and I was scared for a few years to set goals, because I felt like I was setting myself up for failure. But what I will say is, in that period where I was trying to make my life friction free, as I like to say, I also wasn’t challenging myself the way that I like to challenge myself in a way that makes me feel good about overcoming the challenges. And so there’s kind of a mixed message in the in culture today of we do want we obviously want to work on our mental health. We want to be balanced. We want to feel fulfilled. But it doesn’t mean it’s not with any friction, exactly. So there’s, there’s, there’s this idea of,
Dr. Tracy Brower 12:50
like, gliding through everything because we want flow. But there’s also something to be said about the grit. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And there’s actually, actually a thing called Post Traumatic Growth. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder we’re all familiar with, right? But post traumatic growth is also a thing. When you go through something really, really hard, you wouldn’t invite it. You wouldn’t want that trauma or that difficulty. But when you go through something really difficult, you, number one, get a renewed sense of your own capabilities, like, oh my gosh, I never thought I could have gotten through that. Number two, you get a renewed sense of your people. You know who your people are, that you can rely on, and you get a renewed sense of your priorities, because when you’re going through something really hard, everything else falls away. So those are the friction points that you don’t necessarily invite, but they can have positive outcomes and positive consequences. And then I think there’s friction points that we want right like when we’re stretching anywhere, we are stretching everywhere. So when we go and invite the friction of learning a new language, invite the friction of doing something hard physically, invite the friction of a cognitive challenge, invite the friction of putting ourselves in a situation where we’re learning more about people who are really different than we are, those are really positive for us, and we thrive on friction thriving. Actually, there’s wonderful research on thriving that comes out of both elite athletes and child development literature, and thriving always includes two aspects. One, we’re reaching our personal best, right, like I did the sprint, and my personal best time. And thriving always includes an element of striving, like, what am I going for next? What’s my goal? What’s What am I excited about achieving next? And so those are positive frictions, and I think we need to understand the differences between those. It’s like the concept of eustress, right? Eustress is the just right amount of stress. It keeps us getting out of bed in the morning, keeps us challenged. Yes,
Maria Ross 14:52
so I know we’re probably touching on a few of these, but what are some other myths about happiness, especially when it comes to the workplace, if you’re a. Leader going, I really want to create a happy culture. What are some caveats you would say for folks to look out for that you know that it’s like The Princess Bride? I don’t think that means what you think it means kind of situation
Dr. Tracy Brower 15:12
exactly. Tell
Maria Ross 15:13
me, I know we’re it sounds like we’re talking about some of them. But can you sort of summarize for us what some of those myths are and why they can be dangerous, actually, yeah, for sure.
Dr. Tracy Brower 15:22
You know one of the first things to know is that happiness has incredible business benefits. There’s so much research on this, when people are happier, it is not about a fluffy outcome. People perform better, they’re physically healthier. They tend to be a more positive influence on the culture. They tend to be retained longer. They tend to be more innovative. So one myth to be aware of from a work standpoint, is that it is really a business benefit to focus on, how do we create the conditions for people to be happy around here? Another myth of happiness is that it should be constant. We talked a little bit about that. In reality, we’re going to see ebbs and flows, so we are not looking to remove all friction from everybody. Another really important myth of happiness is about choices. We tend to believe that if we make the right choice, we’ll be happy all the time, and if we’re not happy all the time, maybe we chose wrong right. Like we choose the partner that we want to spend our life with. We choose the place we want to live. We choose the place we want to work. In reality, every choice we make is a set of conditions. There’ll be things you love about your job, like we talked about things not so much, right? There’ll be things you love about where you live, but maybe not every single thing. So the myth of choice can be freeing when you realize you’re just going to do your best to make your best choice. Right? Now, another myth of happiness is kind of a silver platter myth, where you believe that you know when the silver platter arrives and all the things are right, right? You’ll,
Maria Ross 16:48
you’ll, you’ll be content
Dr. Tracy Brower 16:49
for yes, yeah, when I get through this hard project, when I get through this hard time, when I deal with this hard situation. But there will always be things that get in the way of our happiness, and so we’ve got to remind ourselves that we’re empowered to create the conditions for happiness no matter what’s going on outside of us, like we don’t want to give away the power to create our home happiness. So those are some of the those are some of the myths that I think are really important.
Maria Ross 17:14
Okay, I love all of that, because there’s so much to unpack there. And I think number one, I want to just point out, and again, I’ll put a link in the show notes. It’s always when I talk to guests, they always remind me of other guests. But I had a great guest on Jamie Greenwood, who’s a women’s leadership coach and a women’s coach, and she talks a lot about what would happen if you organized your your life around joy, meaning in in the day to day, in the mom, errands, in the work, errands in all that. What would it look like to have joy as an organizing principle? And I think that’s getting to what you’re saying in that it’s and what I’m saying too is it’s not it doesn’t always just happen. Sometimes you have to seek it out in the situation you’re in and being realistic about the situation you’re in and going, where can I find the levity? Where can I find the joy? And so I think that’s really important, that it doesn’t, you know, you can’t look at your culture and just expect it to happen. It’s, are you creating those opportunities? You talked about it earlier? What are some of those, those measures that you can put in place that can optimize for joy? And so I think that that’s that’s something that we miss because we think it is fluffy, we think it is unimportant. We think it detracts from us performing at our best, or innovating, or doing all the quote, unquote important things we have to be doing. But if we organized for joy in the midst of the challenging goals, in the midst of the high performance expectations, I think we’d be a lot better served. And the other thing that struck me about what you said is how much the data around happiness and empathetic cultures and leaders are similar how people perform at their best, how they’re able to be more creative, be more collaborative, be more innovative, be more trusting when you have empathy. And that’s why I think empathy and happiness can sometimes get get wrapped together. So can you explain for us what might be that link between empathetic whether it’s an empathetic leader or an empathetic culture and happiness?
Dr. Tracy Brower 19:15
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things you said that’s really important to start with, is just an intentionality, right? Like we want to be intentional about at an individual responsibility, creating conditions for happiness, and then at an organizational at a leadership level, creating the conditions for happiness. Like I always say leaders, leaders aren’t responsible for other people’s happiness or well being, but they’re responsible too, so we are each responsible for our own well being, happiness, joy, but leaders have a responsibility to create an organization where we can connect with each other, where we can learn and grow, where we feel understood, where we can bring our whole selves and the relationship between empathy and happiness, I think, is a really solid one. So like one of the things we know is that when we have a few good friends, when we feel connected to colleagues, that is incredibly correlated with happiness, and it is one of the main indicators for health and well being as well. And thing that’s really important, there’s some amazing research out of BYU having a few good friends is more important to health outcomes than your habits around diet, exercise or drinking, and not hard with smoking, like it literally affects dementia, cancer, mental health, heart disease, longevity and so having a few good friends is critical. 75% of people say they make their friends at work, even if they’re not like BFFs. But yeah, like you feel did you feel seen? Somebody knows if you’re showing up. And the thing that’s really fascinating about happiness is it’s very correlated with focusing on others instead of ourselves. We talked about that, but that means I’m tuning in, I’m attending to you, I’m asking you questions, I’m thinking about how you might be feeling. I’m respecting your point of view. I’m seeking you out in order to understand where you’re coming from, right? And those are fundamental links to empathy and an empathetic culture. So that connectedness, that’s happiness and well being, even for introverts, is so fundamental to empathy as well.
Maria Ross 21:27
Yeah, absolutely, it’s that. It’s, it’s, there’s an inside job that needs to be done to help you practice empathy in terms of you need to kind of get your own house in order and be be solid and be stable and make room and space for someone else’s point of view. But then eventually it has to go outward. And then there’s then there’s this virtuous cycle that happens, because when you put that out there, you get back and again, thinking of another guest. Shasta Nelson is a friendship and social relationship expert. She wrote a book called The business of friendship that cites a lot of these studies that you’re talking about, and one of the ones she and I’m probably going to cite it wrong, but it was one also cited by the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy Murphy, about loneliness, the loneliness epidemic, and how being lonely can have just as Much of a physical impact on our body as again, I’m going to get this wrong, something like smoking two packs a day of cigarettes or something like that. Is that accurate? Okay, great, yeah. In
Dr. Tracy Brower 22:29
fact, I’ve just, I just did a segment on CBS News. I’ve written a couple of articles, more than a couple articles on loneliness for Forbes, and absolutely, it’s a really significant epidemic right now, and this actually, interestingly, goes back to friction. We don’t talk to each other in our day to day life, as much as we used to, we’ve elevated convenience over connection, but I don’t talk to the barista. I order on the app, I don’t talk to the checkout person. I get the delivery at my door. And so work ends up being a really important place that we feel connected, we feel seen, we can empathize with others and get a reduced sense of loneliness because of that connection. That doesn’t mean we have to be in the office eight to five, Monday through Friday. It doesn’t mean we have to connect face to face every single time, but it does mean that work has an expanded role to create those opportunities for connection. So yeah, like in the secrets to happiness at work, I really talk about how how we show up has a very significant influence on other people. Sociologically speaking, we learn from other people. We learn most from other people, from listening to what they say, from watching what they do, from drawing conclusions about their choices and so how we show up has a huge impact on other people, no matter what role we’re in and whether we realize it or not. So when we are feeling more grounded ourselves, when we have those conditions in place for us to have solid mental health, we can be helpful to others as well, and we can reach out and ask for help when we need it. Of course,
Maria Ross 24:03
of course, of course. And I always say, you know, empathy is not about coercion, it’s about connection. And so in order to have that connection, there’s got to be a relationship where I’m, I’m getting curious to try to understand you, just as much as you’re trying to get curious to understand me. Otherwise, we’re just talking at each other, right? And so it’s very the link is there. I think no one’s articulated it so well as you have, in terms of the link between empathy and being an empathetic leader, being an empathetic colleague, and happiness and your own fulfillment and thriving at work. And so, you know, this is why I wrote the first book the empathy edge was to show the business case for empathy, and, quite frankly, to speak to selfish motives, if I had to, to get people to understand what’s in it for them, because then once you’re empathetic, you can’t unsee that. You can’t once you decide to see someone else’s point of view, you can’t unsee it. So I was like, whatever is going to get people. People there to help them understand and so it’s very similar of like, hey, let’s embrace this, because the moral imperative doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. So let’s embrace this in terms of what is in it for you, what is it? What is in it for your organization? If you pay attention to this and you’re thoughtful about it, I want to just ask one other thing related to what you’re talking about. We’ve talked a lot about the responsibility of leaders in creating this environment. And the pushback I sometimes get is, when am I going to have time for this on top of my work? Like it’s just seems like I’m just getting more added to my plate, and now I have to be responsible for my team members happiness. What is your response to that? Yeah. I
Dr. Tracy Brower 25:44
mean, I think it’s really critical that this is how we do business. This is not additive, right? This is not, this is not about organizing the team lunch. This is not about organizing that extra thing where everybody has to go out and bond, right? If you’re doing something, that’s great. I mean, if it’s authentic, yeah, if it’s authentic, right? But, but what leaders can do is they can be present and accessible. Statistically, one of the main things you can do to drive trust and positive culture is to be accessible, visible, present. And that doesn’t mean you have to be available. 24/7, but it means that you’re responsive to emails, and you make decisions when people ask and when people have questions, you’re responding to them. Another thing that leaders can do is is really connect team members with each other. It’s it’s a myth that we bond best through social. We do bond through social, but we also bond through task. So how can we give people opportunities to maybe get outside of their swim lane and work together on projects closer and then I think the other thing we can do is give people wonderful learning and growth opportunities, right? And ask them, this is the empathetic part, right? Ask them, What are you most interested in? Because everybody doesn’t want to necessarily climb. Everybody isn’t necessarily interested in the same things, and life stage will dictate what feels rewarding at any point as well. So when leaders can ask questions and really, really understand that, I think the other thing that I mean, it’s really hard to be a leader today, there’s some brand new research that 69% of people say that their leader has a greater impact on their mental health than their doctor or their therapist and on par with their partner. So the average leader hears that and goes, Oh my gosh. Like, what? What else? Right? I’m
Maria Ross 27:32
all right. What else? Yeah,
Dr. Tracy Brower 27:34
but it’s a wonderful opportunity, right? Like you have a positive opportunity to impact people in the course of the day, in the course of the work, how you’re listening, how you’re paying attention, how you’re asking people questions, how you’re giving people opportunities to do work that they enjoy as much as possible, all of those things are just part of leading but can be positive for the culture and positive for happiness and employees
Maria Ross 28:01
and positive for performance. Quite frankly, if you, if you invest the time and the energy, I think you know, my answer is always, but this is the job. This is that. This is actually why you’re a leader. Now. It’s not about you doing the work per se anymore. This is the work is to mobilize and inspire and connect your team so they perform. And what I loved about what you said, and I think it’s an important point to highlight, is that it’s not just about the leader giving of themselves all the time to every person, because that’s a recipe for burnout. I talk about this in my book, right? It’s you when you people please, and you just give of yourself and you never recharge. That does no one any favors. But what you said that was so important is also about taking the time to create the structures and engaging everyone else in the process so that it’s kind of operating a little bit without you in terms of you know, if you’re able to set up a really great targeted mentoring program, for example, or you’re able to set up a tradition within your team where people are paired up every month and they go out to lunch together. You know, whatever it is, create the systems and the structure. And I know sometimes those are dirty words, right? But that will enable you to offload it a little bit off of you having to do the one on one, even though that’s important. But can you create an environment where everyone is helping to connect everyone else, and not just you, one to one, connecting with everyone on your team, and they’re not talking to each other. Yes,
Dr. Tracy Brower 29:29
exactly. You’re creating that culture, right? That culture of connectedness, that culture of mental health, where people seeing, that culture of respect absolutely and and a really important way we do that is by thinking about the systems for how we are assigning tasks and how recognizing performance, and, frankly, how we’re holding people accountable, right? This isn’t just about, hey, let’s just be super nice. This is no really we we need you. We need your deliverable. We need your brain in the room. And that’s really. Validating. So performance is correlated with happiness when people have the opportunity to perform at their best through the systems that you talked about, through the opportunities that leaders are creating and providing those absolutely will move the needle when, and I said this over and over in my first book, it was a really big theme in my first book, bring work to life when we do the right thing for people, we do the right thing for the business, they are not right. There are business benefits to doing the right thing for people within the
Maria Ross 30:29
culture. It’s definitely both and, and that’s why, you know, that’s why I love having this conversation with you. But I just again, to emphasize that point, it doesn’t all have to come from the leader. It’s modeled and sort of put in place by the leader. But as an example, if you create a culture of gratitude or a culture of acknowledgement or a culture of happiness, now you’ve got all these other bright lights doing their thing and sparking things and acknowledging people in meetings, it doesn’t all have to come from you as a leader. And I think that’s the thing that stresses leaders out is I’ve got to do all the connecting and the happiness and the getting to know each other myself like I’m the one that has to thank everybody on my team. No, create a culture and model it, and then let them go, let them take over and do it for each other, which is so important. And not a lot of people on this show have talked about that. So I really wanted to call that out. Yeah, I
Dr. Tracy Brower 31:22
love that. Just one other thing about that that I always talk about the leadership laser, like you don’t even mean to be a model as a leader. You don’t mean to be a model. You don’t mean to be all that. But people over index on watching leaders, paying attention to what you say, how you behave, the choices you make, so you can have a significant influence just by the choices that you make. And you know, the way that we the way that we interact, sends a message to people. And the other thing that I hear from leaders a lot on this topic is, I want to check in with my team member. I want to ask questions, but oh my gosh, I’m not a social worker, and I’m afraid that I’m going to ask the wrong question or TMI, right? But I think you just need to be ready to provide resources. This is your point, right? The leader doesn’t have to do it all, but if the leader can ask questions and then be ready with, ah, here’s a resource, or, boy, here’s something that you can be aware of. And just the process of asking questions, tuning in listening is actually really helpful for people. So it’s a great call that, you know, it doesn’t have to be all on the shoulders of the leader, right?
Maria Ross 32:27
And I love that idea, because it is you, whether you like it or not, you are in a position of modeling, and it’s just like parenting, right? Your actions are going to speak louder than words. And so if you are modeling that behavior, and people go, Hey, that’s something I want to do, because my leader is doing it, whether it’s everything from you actually take your paid time off to every Wow. I noticed, you know, my leader, Tracy, in every meeting, she always thinks someone in the meeting, I’m going to start doing that. You know, I can see how success is possible here, because they’re watching what you do and not just what you say exactly. I love it. I love it. I love it. All right. Well, this, we could probably talk for another hour, but I definitely want folks to check out the book, the secrets to happiness at work. It is out now and then potentially go back and look at your other book, bring work to life, and we will have all your links in the show notes. But for folks that are on the go or exercising right now because it makes them happy. Where’s the best place they can learn more about you and your work.
Dr. Tracy Brower 33:24
Thank you for asking. So you know that I work for Steelcase, which I love. So steelcase.com I’ve also got Tracy brower.com with lots of information, or they can look me up on LinkedIn. Tracy Brower, PhD, so would love people to reach out and tell me how they’re thinking about this. I love that, and as I always do, my PSA for LinkedIn is, if
Maria Ross 33:43
you reach out to Tracy, please put a note that you heard her on the podcast so she doesn’t think that you’re selling her something. This has been wonderful. Tracy, thank you so much for your insights and for this important work and for writing this book. I feel like I’ve met a kindred spirit in talking with you. But thank you so much for your time today. Yeah, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it, and thank you so much for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate and review and share it with a colleague and friend, and until next time, please remember, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive, take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events, please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place. You.
