When work teams flourish, productivity increases

Why are some work teams happier and more productive than others? Because their members agree to interact in ways that promote well-being in themselves and others, says James Ritchie-Dunham, clinical associate professor of strategy at Texas McCombs.

Ritchie-Dunham is co-lead of the Leadership for Flourishing project, an ongoing study of well-being in the workplace across 59 countries, and a lead author for the Global Flourishing Study, an interdisciplinary, five-year initiative to survey over 200,000 people across 22 countries and 1 territory on six continents. The study is now gathering a third wave of data. Nature Portfolio published dozens of papers on the first wave in April.

Based on the first two data sets, Ritchie-Dunham discusses what flourishing looks like on the job and what managers can do to foster it. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is human flourishing?

Well-being in all aspects of life: good mental and physical health, a sense of meaning and purpose, social relationships, material and financial stability, character and virtue, and religious beliefs and spirituality.

Our survey and others have identified that there are many people doing very well all over the world. Data gives us a better idea of where to find them and what they’re doing so that we can learn with them.

How does flourishing show up in the workplace?

Every year, our team asks the same people — across diverse cultures, ages, education, and countries — how they are doing in these key areas in their personal life and in a business context. We have learned that most people would like to make a contribution, and they feel better when they do, when it’s a contribution that’s theirs to make.

This happens on high-performing teams. These are relatively rare positive outliers. They are head and shoulders above everyone else — and our traditional models for explaining success don’t explain this flourishing. We wondered: What are they doing differently to be able to do things that the rest of us think are impossible?

What did you find?

It’s not that they’re smarter or better. They’re just making a different choice, relative to lower-performing groups, about how they work together.

They have protocols that form agreements that shape how they interact. Their actions and decisions are centered on the question: Are we all better off for interacting? I call this out in my recent book, “Agreements.”

All interactions start with the individual. Each takes responsibility for their own work, and they listen to one another’s ideas with respect and support.

Is this flourishing dynamic confined to work teams?

Not at all. When nurtured across the enterprise, this strategy also benefits their customers, their communities, investors, and other stakeholders. From a straightforward business sense, it has a massive impact on productivity.

We call this ecosystem-wide flourishing: Are our stakeholders better off because they interact with our company? We describe this in our book, “Leadership for Flourishing.”

My focus is on creating a strategic framework for system changes that support flourishing. This starts with making the choice to give individuals the freedom to do what you hired them to do.

Do you have an example of a company doing this?

We have five years of data studying a microfinance company that provides microloans for small businesses. The company promotes well-being among its employees and clients.

In wave one, we collected survey responses from more than 70,000 clients and 9,500 employees in hundreds of service offices. We found the mean level of flourishing and organizational impact was high relative to the average levels found in groups surveyed worldwide. In these offices, employees were free to manage their work, and leaders nurtured quality relationships.

We found that a strategy of seeking the deepest good for others is possible through organizational processes. Furthermore, a correlation exists between this approach and substantial productivity increases that then drive stronger financial results.

What practical lessons can managers draw from this work?

Leaders of flourishing teams foster an environment of trust and a greater sense of purpose for everyone. This expands possibilities for the individual, the team, and the enterprise. Here’s how:

First comes respect. If you’ve hired good people, let them do their good work. Your role as a leader might be to help remove barriers to making the contributions you hired them to make, versus micromanaging them.

Next, be curious. People are learning all the time, and they pivot based on what they learn. Encourage teams to bring new ideas. Most businesses find this disruptive. They see productivity inhibitors rather than possibilities. Instead, ask questions and learn.

Finally, be agile. Try a new idea and see if it works. Learn what changes lead to the greater flourishing of everyone involved. This requires trust in others’ ideas. It doesn’t require that you change everything. You can stop if it doesn’t work, but it could produce a net-positive result, an ecosystem-wide flourishing.

“The Global Flourishing Study: Study Profile and Initial Results on Flourishing” is published in Nature Mental Health.