Thoughts: How do you "Enable Everyone to Flourish" in tough times?

Last week, a post in my feed popped up with a link to an article by Ron Carucci , offering some valuable insights on how leaders can create a supportive and effective culture. In it, Carucci calls out that leaders should foster four conditions in their organizations: psychological safety, emotional intelligence, purpose, and growth mindset. In such conditions, employees feel valued, connected, motivated, and adaptable.

What resonated with me was 微软 's Kathleen Hogan’s post and comments about the article:

“My favorite takeaway: Positive work cultures have been linked with increased productivity and employee wellbeing, proof positive that an emphasis on culture can create true win-wins.”

It reminded me that Brad Smith once wrote – something I’ve heard innumerable times – that...

“... we pride ourselves on our products and services, our brand, and our global reach [at Microsoft]. But unquestionably, our employees are our greatest asset.”

Processing

It occurred to me that there’s a delicate balance given the various challenges and dilemmas that could be considered, ones that impact many successful employees – a company’s greatest asset – face in today’s workplace. This is particularly true when their work-life balance is impacted by something beyond their control: the loss of or unexpected care for a family member, reorganizations, competitive pressures with their peers in performance and compensation, or even being laid off by their employer. Enabling everyone to flourish should mean everyone, not just those left behind after some arbitrary elimination of staff.

In that last example (which we’ve seen so much of in the industry over the last year), it made me wonder: how can employees flourish when they lose their job, their income, and their identity? How can they maintain a positive outlook when they are rejected, ignored, or replaced? How can they cope with the emotional and financial stress that comes with unemployment? And what responsibility does the organization have to them when it comes to maintaining those same four conditions?

These aren’t easy questions to answer.

Some strategies to consider

I believe there are strategies that can help laid-off employees to bounce back and thrive. Here are some suggestions based on what I've read, researched, encountered in my own career:

• Reframe the situation as an opportunity, not a threat. Research shows that people who view stressful events as challenges rather than threats are more resilient and perform better. They see setbacks as temporary and specific, not permanent and pervasive. They focus on what they can learn and gain from the experience, not what they lose or regret. They use positive emotions like curiosity, excitement, and gratitude to fuel their actions, not negative emotions like fear, anger, or sadness.
• Seek social support from diverse sources. It’s clear that social support is a powerful predictor of well-being and happiness: in reports I’ve read, when people view a stressful situation as more of a challenge than a threat, there’s an association with better performance and long-term health. With more positive social interactions and the ability to view stressful situations in a more positive way can lead to more positive emotions and personal satisfaction. One study that supports this idea is by John Helliwell and team, who analyzed data from the Gallup World Poll and World Happiness Report and found that living in a trusting social environment helps not only to support all individual lives directly, but also reduces the well-being costs of adversity. They also found that the greatest gains in well-being from social support are for those in the most difficult circumstances, and as such reduced well-being inequality . They argued that social environments for world happiness depend on the diversity and quality of social connections, as well as the institutions and policies that foster them. But given not all types of support are equally helpful, you need to find a variety of support from others who can empathize, validate, challenge, inspire, or connect to new opportunities.
• Explore multiple identities and roles. Research has shown that people who are flexible in regard to their view of themselves are often more adaptable, creative, and intrinsically motivated . (A fascinating book on the subject is The Creative Self: Effect of Beliefs, Self-Efficacy, Mindset, and Identity .) ?Such people don’t define themselves by a single identity or role, but can be a chameleon of sorts and adapt to the particular situation, and rely on multiple sources of meaning and value. And they don’t limit themselves to a single career path or goal, but explore different options and possibilities: I credit my own personal success (and tolerance in such chaotic situations) with being flexible and having had so many different opportunities to build a rich and exciting career. (It has been a journey and not always a smooth one, to be certain.)

• Develop a growth mindset about your skills and abilities. A lot has been written about growth mindset and that your capacities and talents can be improved over time, as conceived by Carol Dweck and colleagues. Dweck found that people who tend to have a growth mindset are more open to learning, are accepting and embrace new challenges, and do their best to overcome issues and setbacks (for more, see What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means by Dweck on hbr.org ). And in some situations, people who believe that they can improve their skills and abilities through effort and feedback are more motivated and successful. They don’t see failure as a sign of low ability, but an opportunity to learn and grow. They don’t avoid challenges or feedback, but look for opportunities and embrace them. And most importantly, they don’t compare themselves to others, but set their own high bar and strive for their own potential.

An additional thought on managing impact of layoffs

Finally, I wondered about a situation when employees lose their job, their income, and their identity? What responsibilities does the company bear when laying off an individual or entire teams? And how do leaders know that the resources and support promised to these once “greatest assets” will in fact deliver the value and support needed?

I thought about how the company’s Enterprise Resilience and Crisis Management (ERCM) effort coordinates business continuity management and disaster recovery activities across product and services offerings. With a high level of visibility and endorsement from the leadership, teams regularly assess, plans, and validate the various scenarios that can affect people, locations, and technology. I recall how Simon Pope explained in his article that the company has a critical infrastructure team and has run mock SSIRP events (and you can imagine other such drills) to practice their employee and customer-centric incident response efforts.

I wondered if any of the company’s senior leaders had ever faced or been affected by a layoff at Microsoft (or any other company) in their careers. While not technically a crisis (although losing thousands of employees in a short amount of time could certainly have material impacts), I thought of a provocative experiment they could’ve tried, and perhaps one for consideration in the future:

What if they ran a layoff simulation on themselves?

What if the senior leaders (with the support of HR) participated in a simulated layoff exercise to directly feel the impact? Could this have helped them evaluate (and potentially rethink or even rearchitect) the resources and benefits offered to laid-off employees, and how effective and supportive they were?

It’s hard to say if Microsoft’s executive management team followed their own Secrets to Growth Mindset Success when they decided to lay off a sizeable number of employees and keep others. Looking beyond the general theme of “difficult, but necessary” decisions , it’s possible that the reality of what it actually meant “to treat our people with dignity and respect, and act transparently” wasn’t well understood.

Again, this isn’t easy

I’m the first to admit that these strategies are not easy to implement and can occupy all of your time just managing through the various facets. But taken and used strategically, these approaches may help you if you have to lay off staff or you yourself are laid off and overcome the challenges and negative aspects of losing a job – and ultimately, discover new ways to flourish in your personal and professional lives.

To paraphrase Emerson, flourishing is not a destination, it’s a journey. And sometimes, the journey takes unexpected turns that require us to think again about ourselves and our work. (For more on this, read the insightful piece by Dr. Amy Young, What Flourishing Is and Why It Matters in Psychology Today .)

What have you done to your employees to flourish? What would you suggest?

#layoffs #EmployeeExperience #EX #worklife #EQ #personaldevelopment #strategy #growthmindset