Archive for Happiness at Work

The Top 3 Leadership Challenges for 2023—and How to Conquer Them

A time traveler from 2019 would scarcely recognize the world today, and the workplace is no exception. Nearly three years of pandemic protocols have transformed our daily experiences, introducing novel challenges for managers that will only continue to escalate in 2023.

The hybrid work environment has become the dominant model as many employees transitioned to a combination of remote work from home and on-site activities, and that trend is expected to continue into the future.

A September 2022 Zippia article reported that 74 percent of US companies were either practicing or planning to start using a permanent hybrid workplace.

According to Pew Research, within the first year of the pandemic alone, the percentage of employees working at home jumped from 20 to 71 percent—and 54 percent said they would want to continue working from home permanently.

While the transition to working at home has been easy for most, a third report feeling a lack of motivation, with younger workers experiencing impediments to productivity.


Fifty percent of parents—30 percent more than nonparents—find working without interruptions challenging, and four in ten working mothers admit achieving life-work balance is even more difficult than prior to working at home.


By November 2021, 63 percent of high-growth companies had implemented hybrid frameworks, with 83 percent of employers saying the approach has been productive and the same percentage of employees saying they preferred it in an Accenture survey of 9,000 workers.

Work relationships and cohesiveness can suffer, however, with 24 percent of remote employees saying they feel disconnected from their colleagues and employers’ greatest concern being maintaining culture.

Surprisingly, younger generations have the strongest preference for face-to-face interactions—74 percent of Gen Z respondents versus 66 percent of Gen Xers and 68 percent of Baby Boomers according to the Accenture survey.

While the hybrid structure has its pluses and minuses, there is little doubt it is here to stay, and managers will need to figure out how to contend with issues like burnout and overwork.

A recent trend survey of 700 leaders and organizational development professionals conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies® uncovered their top three concerns for 2023:

  • Hiring
  • Retention
  • Employee experience

The survey, Enhancing the Employee Experience in a Hybrid World, revealed “76% of respondents believe hiring will be more difficult in 2023” and “79% of respondents report that employee retention will be even more of a challenge.”

Employee experience is viewed as key to maintaining and strengthening engagement, particularly in light of the variables introduced by the hybrid model.

Longtime readers of the Capiche blog will know hiring, retention, employee experience, and engagement are topics we have covered extensively over the years, and our services fostering happiness at work and cultivating a productive, inspiring culture are key to surmounting these and other challenges anticipated for 2023.

To counteract the feelings of disconnection and dissolving culture associated with working at home, why not bring everyone together for some fun, team-building organizational development exercises as well as learning and development opportunities?

The Blanchard survey also illuminated the importance of “setting clear performance expectations,” which can help boost the productivity and focus of remote workers.

Acknowledging the value of development initiatives for addressing their top concerns, survey respondents favored 10–30-percent budget increases in this area.

Survey participants identified the following skills as key to success over the next three to five years:

  • engaging and developing talent
  • leading and supporting change
  • establishing goals and priorities
  • building employee resilience
  • creating a sense of inclusion and belonging

Fortunately, Capiche can help with fulfilling all of these goals and more! Complete our Contact form, email chris@capiche.us, or call 541.601.0114 to find out how we can help you position your organization for success over the next decade.

If you would like to learn more about Blanchard’s 2023 HR/L&D Trends Survey, sign up for their free webinar, 2023 L&D Survey: Enhancing the Employee Experience in a Hybrid World, scheduled for November 16, 2022. The webinar will cover:

  • top challenges L&D professionals say they’re facing heading into the new year
  • key focus areas for creating an engaging employee experience
  • training modalities L&D professionals expect to use most often
  • top skills leaders need for managing a high expectation workforce

As 2022 draws to a close, now is the time to begin proactively planning for the challenges ahead. Don’t wait for the new year to start on your resolutions—reach out to Capiche to get started today!

Capiche Conversations: Interview with Jessica Pryce-Jones, Founder of Webpsyched

Interview conducted by Melissa L. Michaels, Capiche Contributor/Strategic Partner, Michaels & Michaels Creative, LLC

Having founded iOpener Institute for People & Performance in 2003, Happiness at Work author Jessica Pryce-Jones led this pioneering organization until leaving the company to embark on her current adventure in 2017. Today, she is the founder and director of Webpsyched, a collective that integrates hard data, soft data, and intuitive data along with the team’s diverse, deep expertise to help organizations and individuals achieve greatness. Webpsyched clientele range from health care multinationals to banks to manufacturing and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries to educational institutions to nonprofits to government agencies to creative, publishing, and engineering companies. A fellow of Harvard’s Institute of Coaching, Jessica has taught at such business schools as Cambridge Judge, Cass, Cornell, Chicago Booth, Cranfield, London Business School, and Saïd (Oxford).
iOpener Institute Logo

Q: iOpener Institute was a trailblazer in the field of organizational development. What was different about iOpener’s services at the time you founded it, and how did companies respond to this new approach?

A: What was different was that we provided tools to measure and base an intervention on and then the interventions themselves as part of that solution. So, consultants had access to a one-stop-shop of tried and tested individual and team development activities without needing to reinvent the wheel each time. That meant we quite quickly built a global community of practice.

Q: Can you give a couple examples of major organizations that benefited from iOpener Institute’s services and explain what those benefits entailed?

A: We did a lot of work at one stage with Domino’s Pizza, and that was all about engagement and looking at exactly what was going on in all the different teams and across all the different layers up and down, then devising some interventions that would help senior leaders and individuals as well. That was really exciting to do. Another thing we did was partner with The Wall Street Journal to see what we could do with the research. We got a lot of data and insights at the time.

Q: You mentored Chris Cook while she was completing her master in management (MiM) thesis on the science of happiness at work in 2010–11, right after your industry-defining book, Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for Success, was published. Chris got so excited about the research, it changed her career path and expanded her focus from marketing to defining and then actually living your brand. Can you speak to your experience of mentoring Chris and your subsequent work with her as the only person in the Northwest accredited by iOpener Institute?

Chris Cook and Jessica Pryce Jones in the UKA:  It was fun to mentor Chris because she’s up for all of it, she’s open to all of it, and she’s very thoughtful. The thing I like about working with Chris is her thoughtfulness and her willingness to get deep, and not everybody wants to do that, wants to really introspect on stuff and get to grips with it—that’s what’s special about Chris’s approach.

Q: What strengths does Chris bring to organizational development and coaching?

A: The special strength that Chris brings both to organizational development and coaching is that ability to go deep and to do that pretty quickly. And you can see when she’s thinking, and that’s a lovely thing to watch.

Q: It’s been two decades since you founded iOpener and wrote Happiness at Work. How has the science of happiness at work field evolved during that time?

Happiness at WorkA: Now it’s no longer a dirty word to say “science of happiness at work” and ask people if they’re happy. I think a lot of that is the next generation is moving on. When I first started talking about happiness at work, I’d go into a conference, and people would say, “I can’t talk about that. I can talk about engagement or fulfillment or satisfaction, but happiness, no.”

Everybody has recognized that it’s for all now. There are plenty of researchers in the field, and that’s a joy. You don’t want to be alone surfing on a wave because that tells you there’s probably a lot of coral and rocks underneath the surface.

Webpsyched Logo

Q: Since leaving iOpener, you’ve started a new venture related to intuition. What services does Webpsyched provide, and why was iOpener a perfect springboard for this endeavor?

A: With iOpener, I always thought there was something deeper. I remember when the book came out saying to some of my business partners and associates, “There’s something beyond this,” and they’re going, “No, no, Jess, this is enough.”

With this new venture related to intuition, the services are the same as iOpener’s, but we wanted to take it to the kind of level where Chris goes—a deeper level. And it’s all on the web. We’ve all discovered with COVID that we can work remotely, and it’s easy. It’s not the same as a face-to-face experience, but it does deliver close to the experience in a different way.

We’re doing organizational development, organizational health checks, senior team coaching, consulting projects, and some workshops. iOpener had become a little bit top-heavy, and this is super-lean. I really like working in a very lean kind of way, which I think is a bit more modern.
Albert Einstein (1947)

Q: You open your article Using Your Intuition with a quote by Albert Einstein, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” How does Webpsyched help organizations and individuals rediscover that gift?

A: We put together some workshops to show people how you use this skill. All leaders say they make decisions using their intuition, and people want leaders to. When did you last buy a house or pick a partner using a cost-benefit analysis? With all of our big decisions where we have either too much information or zero information, we have to use some kind of inner sense. Whether you call it your intuition, your judgment, or your experience, we use that information to make our decisions, but we don’t talk about it.

In the same way that talking about happiness is now an easy thing, I’d like to be able to bring using, talking about, and understanding how you use your intuition to the workplace to that point.

At the workshops, we just talk about it. We ask people to go with their gut feeling, what their heart’s telling them. Because if we don’t talk about it, how do we ever surface this thing? And if we don’t hear and share how other people use it, ditto.
Jessica Pryce-Jones Portrait

Q: Also in that article, you share a striking (no pun intended) example of how intuition saved you and your unborn child from injury when a ball crashed through a window. You write:

“During break, I went to the staff room to get a cup of coffee. I stood drinking it by a large glass window, watching the kids playing football in the playground. As I stood there, the thought came to me ‘a kid is going to kick that football in this direction; it will come through the window, I’ll be hit by the ball, showered in glass, and my face will get cut.’ And having had that thought, I started to take a couple of steps back.

“I’d moved about three paces when the football came crashing through came window to land near my feet; sure, a few glass shards were sprinkled on my bump and I had a tiny scratch on one cheek. But that was all. As teachers rushed up to me to see if I was OK, they commented on how calm I was. I was totally unruffled because I’d known it was going to happen.”

Q: Can you talk about other times when you intuited and subsequently averted danger?

A: Actually, the very first time I used my intuition, I remember I was four, and my mother asked me to jump over a little wooden stile. I didn’t want to jump, and she was encouraging me, “Yeah, Jess, jump, jump, jump!” I just knew that something bad was going to happen, and I was only four.

As I hit the ground, I half-bit my tongue off, and I was bleeding everywhere. It’s very sharp in my memory, but I remember so strongly not wanting to do it and then doing it. And we’ve all had that experience of not wanting to do something, not listening to our intuition, going ahead, and it’s been a mistake. That was the very first time I was aware of it, but I’ve used it countless times since then. I’ve known when cars were coming around a short bend, I’ve known when a higher-up wasn’t going to be good, I’ve known when I’ve taken the wrong job. But when I was young, I still took the wrong job. I remember walking up the steps going, “This is the wrong job. What am I doing?”—before I’d even gone in there. I was young and foolish.

I had a breast cancer experience, and I saw two separate events. One was me walking into my house and sticking the key in the door and being terribly upset and alone in my home. And the second was just getting a really strong sense that I needed to go for an unscheduled mammogram. And I didn’t pick up that the two were related, which is probably a good thing, but I went and had the unscheduled mammogram, and they did find breast cancer. If I had waited even a few more months, it would have been a very bad outcome for me, but, actually, it’s been a super outcome, so thank you, my intuition.
Microbiome Gut Health

Q: There has been an explosion of research on the gut microbiome—some call it our “second brain” or a “gut feeling”—over the past decade. Scientists have discovered our gut takes in thousands of details at lightning speed, and those who are attuned to their intuition and emotions can benefit from that data, whereas those ruled by their rational mind often override their gut instinct to their detriment. How can people cultivate their second brain for the betterment of their lives and organizations?

A: On the explosion of research and the gut biome, your second brain—and also heart—what do they say? In your gut, you carry the same amount of neurons in your gut as in your brain. It’s your gut mind, you get that instant feeling that in your stomach that you should or shouldn’t do something. Same with your heart.

How do you cultivate that? Keep a journal, write down when you’re intuiting something and what your stomach, what your heart, is telling you—or any other part of your body, because it doesn’t have to just be your gut and your heart.

I’ve been working with a delightful person, and he often says to me, “What are your knees telling you?” You can use any part of your body. Quite often, it’s good to use a part that you don’t always use because you don’t make the same assumptions. Write it down. When you make these judgments, write it down because then you can see when you’re right and when you’re not right. Who’s going to walk into the elevator first? Whose email is going to be top of your list? What’s someone going to say in a meeting? Who’s going to speak next? These are very simple ways of tuning in to how you use your intuition.
No Self No Problem Book Cover

Q: In his book No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism, cognitive neuropsychology PhD Chris Niebauer uses the left brain/right brain paradigm to describe what is fundamentally the difference between the categorical mind and the intuitive mind, which also maps closely to Western philosophy versus Eastern philosophy. Although the left-right division has fallen into disuse by neuropsychologists, Niebauer uses this simplified model to help us understand the distinction between two modes of being, noting, “the left brain is the language center and the right brain is the spatial center.” He explains:

“In the same way that the left brain is categorical, the right brain takes a more global approach to what it perceives. Rather than dividing things into categories and making judgments that separate the world, the right brain gives attention to the whole scene and processes the world as a continuum. Whereas the attention of the left brain is focused and narrow, the right brain is broad, vigilant, and attends to the big picture. Whereas the left brain focuses on the local elements, the right brain processes the global form that the elements create. The left brain is sequential, separating time into ‘before that’ or ‘after this,’ while the right brain is focused on the immediacy of the present moment.

Does this description of the right brain jibe with your findings on intuition? When your Webpsyched team is providing executive and personal coaching, how do your clients respond to the transition from left to right brain living?

A: The left–right brain paradigm, and the model there—I see that as a metaphor. And metaphors are a very good way of also using your intuition. What’s that like? And the brain will throw up some very powerful metaphors, which is a part of what I consider the intuitive experience.

The left–right brain doesn’t really sit well with me. Your brain doesn’t really work like that, but I do think that we, as a society, rely on rational judgment way too much. We talk about it way too much. And we don’t talk about this other experience that people have and use all the time, and that is the important thing.

The physical operation of it or how you perceive it doesn’t really matter for me rather than the doing of it. Any leaders who read this who are interested in talking to me, I would love to talk to them because I’m interviewing. I think the interesting thing is understanding and shedding light on other people’s experiences so we can have a conversation around this. Anybody who has had a very profound experience using their intuition and doing that at work, I would love to talk to you, so please do get in touch.

Q: Tell me about the Webpsyched leadership masterclasses. What is involved in these remote and face-to-face workshops?

Woman on Zoom Session Leadership MeetingA: I ask participants, “What’s your intuition telling you? What’s your judgment telling you? What are you thinking about this? And then what are you thinking?” Sometimes you can’t get to the intuition straight away, and sometimes our first intuitions are wrong. I think you need to get yourself to quite a grounded place to have those insights. When you’re rushing and hurrying, it’s harder to pay attention because intuition is also about paying attention, and you don’t pay attention when you’re in overload. That’s the important thing—to take yourself down to a place where you’re feeling connected with yourself so you can start listening to those signals because otherwise you miss them. I perceive them more as whispers—what are you whispering to yourself?

Another way of using your intuition is to talk to it as if it was a person sitting in front of you and saying, “Oh, hello, intuition, what have you got to tell me today about this thing?” And listen for the answer. Then you can check in with yourself because you may not be right, not all intuitions are right, just in the same ways not all decisions are right. That’s when we second-guess ourselves and go, “Oh, it wasn’t working then,” and then we mistrust ourselves. It’s to build the trust in your experience and in you.

For the website leadership master classes, like everybody else, we’ve all been working on Zoom, and I am now running everything programmatically. People spend an hour, an hour-and-a-half, two hours max, and we do something as a program. And I much prefer that than a one-and-you’re-done. When it’s one-and-you’re-done, it’s more tempting to be the sage on the stage—sorry, all these rhymes—but actually, in a program, everybody is everybody else’s guide by the side. And that’s where you get some profound learning, because it’s the continuity, it’s the building of something.

I use a WhatsApp group so we’re in touch and giving people nudges and putting information up through that and adding readings or poems or videos—just little nudges to help people and offer reminders because building new habits is hard, as we all know, and building muscle is really hard. This is the equivalent of going to your mental gym.

Q: Why should values matter to an organization?

A: Because they are how people live the culture. Mostly, people say one thing and do another, but it’s how you can hold people to account. Values are extremely important in creating an organizational culture and then holding people accountable to make that culture live.

At Webpsyched, we’ve learned from our research and experience that when values are clear, communicated, and regularly reinforced, there is greater performance, happiness, commitment, satisfaction, and motivation. There’s also less anxiety and work stress. Value congruence helps with:

  • getting support to drive change
  • reducing unethical practices
  • promoting positive work behavior
  • encouraging people to participate in challenging activities
  • instilling a greater sense of accomplishment

Glen Elder

Q: You also write about resilience. I found your reference to Glen Elder’s discovery that “children who’d grown up in the Depression were much more resilient than people who’d faced their first challenge later in life” fascinating. In The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt documents the flip side of the equation in which helicopter/bulldozer parenting has yielded fragility instead of resilience, dependency instead of independence. How can parents build resilience in their children without subjecting them to harsh experiences and undue risks?

A: The question is what’s a harsh experience and what are undue risks. Of course, it’s going to be context- and person- or child-specific. You always want to give someone a test that is going to stretch them, going to get them out of their comfort zone. Always staying in your comfort zone never stretches it and gets you any further, but children are their own natural-born scientists. They will take risks, especially when testosterone kicks in and they start hanging out in groups, so I guess it’s got to be age-dependent as well.

This helicopter-tiger-bulldozer parenting hasn’t helped. I was talking to a Gen Z, and he was saying that the education experiences that he’s had means it’s impossible for him to listen to his intuition. He’s been taught that there are “answers” rather than that there’s a range of answers, so he has no clue how to listen in.

By our education system saying, “These are answers that are correct,” students are stressed about getting the correct answer. When you’re working with clients and in business, there are no correct answers. There are some answers that are better than others.

Regarding parents building resilience—let kids go exploring. Give them boundaries. Let them operate within those boundaries and constantly ask yourself, “Are these boundaries appropriate to my child?” If everybody else has got an iPhone, you probably want to give your child one, too. If all other kids are using WhatsApp, you probably want to allow them to do that, too.

I think things are very different today. When I was a kid, I was allowed to take the London Tube to school. My nephews are not allowed to do some of those things. Are we holding our children back by not allowing them to fall out of trees and break their arms? Maybe we are, because you could also discover that you can have a bad experience, get through it, and the world doesn’t end. And you need to discover that young. It’s no good discovering that for the first time in your forties because then it’s much harder to learn. It’s much easier to learn resilience younger.
Kids Playing in Woods on Log

Q: That also makes me think of an article called Thinking About Thinking I read back in the 1990s. The authors, Alan Carter and Colston Sanger, describe two modes of thinking they call mapping versus packing. Mappers are constantly mapping knowledge from one domain to another, building a coherent mental map of the world that enables them to achieve elegant solutions with fluidity and speed. Packers horde “knowledge packets” and must laboriously assemble them to produce mediocre results. The authors describe how mapping capabilities can be “reawakened by trauma,” citing the extraordinary transformation of Japanese manufacturing following World War II (i.e., Hiroshima and Nagasaki) from “an odd mix of the medieval and industrial ages” to a world leader in manufacturing within a generation. Your article What One Attribute Do You Need in a Robotized Workplace? seems to be describing the qualities of mappers. Do you have any suggestions on how packers can rewire their brains to become more like mappers?

A: Packers horde knowledge packets, yeah! As for how packers can rewire their brains, it’s going to take some mentoring. I talk about field tests. What’s a field test you can do? It’s not saying, “I’m going to change this forever,” but it’s a field test. And maybe it’s the same about resilience. What’s a field test that you feel you can let your children do, for example, and then you can reflect on that experience together. I’m not sure that it’s rewiring, but it’s giving yourself the confidence that what you’re doing is the right thing. One field test leads to another, and if you’re mentoring somebody or coaching them, I think that is probably the best way to go about it.

Q: Out of your Ten Top Coaching Questions, which is your favorite, and why?

A: “And what else?” “And what else” is my favorite coaching question because it always leads to something else and to something deeper. If I had to take one in my back pocket with me, it would be that one.

Capiche Conversations: Interview with Tracy Kaiser, Marketing & Education Manager of Ashland Food Co-op

With Contributions from General Manager Emile Amarotico & Store Manager Barry Haynes

Interview conducted by Melissa L. Michaels, Capiche Contributor/Strategic Partner, Michaels & Michaels Creative, LLC

Ask any local what the heartbeat of Ashland is, and they’ll probably say the Ashland Food Co-op. It’s not only a place to find healthy, sustainably sourced groceries, but it’s also a social hub where you can meet with friends and colleagues while enjoying selections from the Co-op Kitchen’s 200+ menu options. The Co-op team truly puts “people, the planet, and principles before profit.”

The vibrant, joyful culture visible in the Co-op workplace reflects the fruit of labors undertaken by Capiche in collaboration with the Co-op’s leadership and staff as part of a Happiness@Work project in 2013 and 2015. General Manager Emile Amarotico and the board members fully embraced the process and eagerly sought to implement recommendations gathered from employees through Capiche’s appreciative inquiry process. Nearly a decade later, the investment is still paying dividends in both employee satisfaction and the bottom line.

Following is an interview with the Co-op’s new marketing and education manager, Tracy Kaiser, along with GM Emile and Store Manager Barry Haynes.


Tracy Kaiser with Daughter

Q: Tracy, you’ve been in the Rogue Valley since 1998—one year before I arrived, incidentally. Where did you move from, and what did you think of Southern Oregon by comparison?

Tracy: I moved from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, my college town. I was raised in Wisconsin and was the bakery buyer for a mail-order company when I was recruited by Harry & David in 1998.

My father was an outdoor nut, and I was raised with a deep love for nature and wildlife. My dad always wanted to live in the mountains, and he spoke of their beauty and strength often. I can remember flying in for my interview with Harry & David. My flight arrived after dark. I was staying at the Morical House, an Ashland B&B, and I drove directly there to rest for the evening. The next morning, I pulled back the drapes and had this warm feeling that I was home. Since that moment, I cannot imagine living anywhere else but the Pacific Northwest.

Q: Prior to becoming marketing and education manager at the Ashland Food Co-op, you were senior director of product development and innovative merchandising at Harry & David. How did this prepare you to excel in your role at the Co-op?

Tracy: Harry & David is a full circle business model. We had to excel at process procedure, product development, creativity, finances, and tight timelines as well as having or learning a deep understanding for operations and orchard management. My senior VP was my mentor for several years, and I often recall the management practices she instilled within me.

Ashland Food Co-op Kitchen Employee Prepping Food

Q: As a newcomer to the Ashland Food Co-op team, what was your initial impression of the workplace culture, and do you feel the Co-op’s mission is aligned with its brand?

Tracy: Before I started my career at AFC, I felt deeply connected with the team because I shopped there almost daily. The Co-op was my social hub! After I was hired for my position, I felt the connection deepen even more within the team. Do I feel the Co-op’s mission is aligned with our brand? Oh, yes! Spend five minutes with Lynn Scionti, one of our product managers who has been with the Co-op for 40 years! She is the embodiment of Co-op values and strives to bring our community the best products at the best price. Lynne truly inspires me on many levels, including the fact she stocks shelves like she is 25.

Ashland Food Co-op Logo

Q: You are actually witnessing the long-term impact of the Happiness@Work project conducted in 2013 and 2015 in collaboration with Capiche. Chris Cook wrote an article about this innovative work for Cooperative Grocer magazine in which she details the approach taken. This involved conducting a Happiness Works organizational assessment followed by an appreciative inquiry process. Three volunteer teams were formed to implement solutions based on the data collected: Communication & Cooperation, Renewal & Stress Management, and Learning & Development. Is this work still paying dividends today, both in terms of employee satisfaction and Co-op profits?

Emile: The Happiness@Work initiative inspired a number of communication enhancements that continue today. Until COVID precluded group get-togethers, we have produced twice yearly All Store Assemblies chock-full of updates and trainings. We routinely conduct Team Huddles to keep members informed and provide space for dialogue. A weekly Huddle News email provides storewide messaging to team leaders and desk workers. We have just launched BeeKeeper, a mobile communication platform accessible to frontline employees via mobile device as well as desktop. In time, this may replace decades-old all store and department paper logbooks. It will integrate a number of other Happiness@Work-inspired programs, including our weekly employee surveys and our shoutout board used to recognize peer successes and gratitude.

The most tangible enhancements to renewal and stress management are the outdoor break area, which has literally blossomed, and a complete renovation of the indoor break/food prep area, including new fixtures, counters, seating, and computer “non”-workstations!

We have integrated volumes of training for all employees as well as curriculums relevant to specific workers. Examples include implicit bias and cultural agility awareness, harassment, and active shooter training.
Emile Amarotico

The twinkle in Chris’s eye belies keen insights into what makes people tick, be it in the workplace or the marketplace. Perhaps it’s a twinkle of magic!Emile Amarotico

Q: What was it like working with Chris?

Emile: The twinkle in Chris’s eye belies keen insights into what makes people tick, be it in the workplace or the marketplace. Perhaps it’s a twinkle of magic!

EXCERPTS FROM CO-OPERATIVE GROCER ARTICLE

The Happiness@Work project was born out of tension created around whether or not to unionize. As the issue was resolved and the employees created their own union, the Co-op’s leadership felt it was time to realign with the Co-op’s mission and vision: “joyfully working together, providing a workplace that fosters opportunities for participation, empowerment and growth in an environment of mutual respect and cooperation.”

The Ashland Food Co-op created a Happiness@Work Team comprising board members, the general manager, and representatives from the newly formed employee alliance. After reviewing several proposals from consultants, the Co-op selected Capiche for the project.…

General Manager Amarotico says, “This work has had a positive impact on employee engagement. By implementing solutions they’ve designed, employees enliven the entire organization. It’s great that we’re making strides toward a happy workplace and have solutions being designed and implemented. The key take-away is that the results will include more productivity, happier customers, and an atmosphere with a vibe that more people want to participate in.”

Amarotico adds, “I would recommend Capiche to any organization that is truly committed to engaging with the nerve system of their organization with the intention of creating positive change.”

What Would Increased Happiness Do for Your Business? Ashland Food Co-op Aligns Mission with Culture, Boosts Financial Success, by Chris Cook for Cooperative Grocer magazine

Barry Haynes

Q: Recently, Barry Haynes was promoted from produce manager to store manager. He was part of this exploratory process and is a real-life example of Happiness@Work in action. What sets the experience of a Co-op employee apart from a typical job?

Barry: Working at the Co-op provides the opportunity to be a part of a community and family that is not usually found in the typical work environment. Management believes in Servant Leadership and approaches every day with the intent of making everyone’s workday experience a positive one.

Ashland Food Co-op Kitchen Employee Cooking Food

Q: How has your team pulled together in the face of COVID challenges? What measures has the Co-op taken to help keep the staff and community safe, and how has the shopping experience changed as a result—including the addition of curbside pickup and an online store?

Barry: The challenges of the pandemic have taken a toll on essential workers everywhere. All employees have been receiving a Hero Pay differential since the early stages of the pandemic. Additionally, we have been providing a meal to employees for every shift worked as well as numerous gift certificates and other benefits intended to maintain positive morale.

We have implemented numerous protocols and protective measures ahead of and beyond state requirements. Shopping patterns have drastically changed. Average basket size has increased, and customers are visiting us less frequently to limit their exposure.

The creation of online shopping with curbside pickup was a priority, and the team moved quickly to successfully execute this project.

Almeda Fire Rubble

Q: How did the Co-op respond in the aftermath of the Almeda Fire as community members found themselves in dire need of resources?

Tracy: From day one of the Almeda Fires, the Co-op team wanted to help the community. They reached out to vendors across the region and country to ask for their help with products, supplies, and food to get to the fire victims.

And that help came through in big ways, getting nutritious food to displaced families, home supplies in high demand, and wellness and food for first responders and firefighters. These donations and distributions wouldn’t be possible without our dedicated and well-connected Co-op team.

The other way we were able to help get resources back to the fire victims was through our new Round Up Program called Change for Good. We quickly communicated to our community about the need to support displaced families and how they could easily help the community by rounding up their change when they were at the cash register checking out. In very little time, we had over $75,000 donated from our community, and the donations were distributed throughout local organizations supporting our displaced community members.

Ashland Food Co-op Kitchen Cheese, Fruit, Baguette

Q: A lot of people are surprised to learn the Co-op Kitchen is the largest restaurant in the City of Ashland—a town acclaimed for its plethora of restaurants. The Co-op Kitchen employs 45 to 50 people and pays more restaurant taxes than any other business in the city. It offers 200+ products and a highly customizable menu suitable for any diet—from vegan to Paleo to keto. What makes the Co-op Kitchen such an attractive option for those seeking dining options in Ashland?

Tracy: As you stated, we offer a robust assortment of products that support a broad range of dietary needs. We take great pride in the quality of our ingredients. Not only are our meal offerings nutritious, they are incredibly delicious! I often express to community members that since I started working for the Co-op, I feel so much healthier, especially when I make an effort to eat at the Hot Bar. We have stepped up our culinary and production game over the last year, and even with all of the shifts in our business practices during COVID, our Prepared Foods Team and executive chef were still able to curate new products for our community.

Ashland Food Co-op Joyfully Working Together

Q: I love the Co-op’s Vision: “Joyfully working together …  Delighting shoppers … Enhancing health … Enriching community.” Often, a vision is aspirational, but the Co-op seems to be living this already. What do you envision for the future of the Ashland Food Co-op?

Tracy: Finding new ways to reach more community members with nutrient-rich food and making it approachable to all, even if you are food-insecure. We have a lot of amazing managers and board members who are visionaries and strategic thinkers, and we look forward to potential opportunities to grow our current store footprint or find other locations in Southern Oregon that support our drive to bring nutritious food to all who live in our region.

SERVICES CAPICHE HAS PROVIDED FOR THE ASHLAND FOOD CO-OP
  • Happiness@Work Project
  • Organizational Development
  • Surveys
  • Organizational Assessment
  • Research
  • Meeting Facilitation
The twinkle in Chris’s eye belies keen insights into what makes people tick, be it in the workplace or the marketplace. Perhaps it’s a twinkle of magic! —Emile Amarotico Share on X

Remember Silent Spring? Here’s Today’s Clarion Call—and It’s for Civility.

How is it that we as a society seem to be slipping into a scary model of disrespect, incivility, and creation of a culture of separateness and fear? I rue the day we lost our humanity, but when did that happen? Do we still have a chance to regain it?

Talking with residents on a recent visit to Spain and Portugal confirmed my feelings and further cemented my personal goal of encouraging civility—specifically in the workplace, as that is my professional focus. However, my wish is to see civility return throughout our culture.

Below is a reprint of a post I wrote in 2013 with some compelling statistics on the financial benefits of encouraging a civil workplace. So much of it applies today, and we know the benefits are far more than simply financial.

Please do comment—I love to hear and learn from you! What have you found? What is working at your organization?

Civility Costs Nothing—and Buys Everything

It Really Does Pay to Be the “Nice Guy”

With the science of happiness at work as a cornerstone of my business model, I am always interested in new research that illustrates how happy employees are more productive and creative, provide better customer service, are better team players, are sick less, and stay longer. These days, there is a LOT of that research, and the findings continue to be consistent with these positive outcomes.

It amazes me that I still find people who resist the idea of happiness at work—or those who believe the statistics but think they don’t have the time or resources to invest in creating a workplace where happiness is part of the culture.

“Happiness at work? I’m not happy—why should anyone else be?” or “They should be happy to have a job” or “We’re not here to be happy; we’re here to make a profit.” Then I remind them happiness at work boosts the bottom line, and their interest is piqued.

This month a new piece of research was published in the Harvard Business Review about civility and rudeness: “The Price of Incivility: Lack of Respect Hurts Morale—and the Bottom Line.” Guess what? Civility at work creates results similar to happiness at work, and rudeness at work creates results that correlate to unhappiness at work.

Did you know rudeness at work is raging and is on the rise? According to researchers, 98 percent of workers polled said they experienced rudeness at work—with half of them experiencing it at least once a week, up from 25 percent in 1998.

Like unhappiness at work, rudeness at work undermines the bottom line. In a poll of 800 managers and employees in 17 industries, the researchers found the following statistics:

Among employees who have experienced incivility at work:

  • 48% intentionally decreased their work effort
  • 47% intentionally decreased the time they spent at work
  • 38% intentionally decreased the quality of their work
  • 80% lost work time worrying about the incident
  • 63% lost work time avoiding the offender
  • 66% said their performance declined
  • 78% said their commitment to the organization declined
  • 12% said they left their job because of the uncivil treatment
  • 24% admitted to taking their frustration out on customers

Other studies have found that creativity suffers; performance and team spirit decline; and customers who witness the rude behaviors turn away. Sounds a lot like what happens with unhappiness at work.

It also sounds like a recipe for disaster—not a way to increase an organization’s profits or become known as an employer of choice. And it’s expensive! According to a study conducted by Accountemps and reported in Fortune, managers and executives at Fortune 1,000 firms spend 13 percent of their time—the equivalent of seven weeks per year—mending employee relationships and dealing with the aftermath of incivility. And just think of the costs should consultants and attorneys be brought in to help settle a situation.

So What’s a Leader to Do?

In managing yourself, model good behavior. After all, the leader sets the tone of the organization. You are on stage, and your supporting cast is taking cues from you. Ask for feedback—what do your employees like and dislike about your leadership style? How does that relate to civility (or happiness) at work? What can you do to shift behaviors that are perceived poorly?

And keep a pulse on the organization. What’s really going on, and how are people treated and treating others? You need to be connected to your workforce and constantly striving to create a culture where people feel as though they have what’s needed to succeed.

In managing the organization, hire for and reward civility. If civility is a key attribute your culture values, put it above all else. For example, at Zappos, people are hired based on fit within the culture, and the most skilled person will be passed over if their values don’t match the values Zappos has deemed essential to its core. Share those values (and make sure civility is one of them) and demonstrate what it looks like to live those values. Be specific. Tie those to individual performance assessments and rewards, and celebrate circumstances in which the values of civility and respect shine brightly.

Rude or civil? Unhappy or happy? The choice is clear. Civil, respectful cultures enjoy the same benefits as cultures where people are encouraged and given a climate where they can succeed at work—that’s when they can reach their potential.

Today’s data show creating a culture of civility and happiness is not simply the morally right thing to do, it’s also the fiscally responsible thing to do.

Contact me for more specifics or for a culture check of your organization. Let’s see how your company can become an employer of choice—a place where people feel as though their contributions matter, a place that resonates with their values, vision, passion, and sense of purpose. It is possible!

Cheers! I look forward to hearing from you!

Lots to Complain About at Work? Here’s a Better Tactic

Have you ever had a moment of realization that all you’ve been doing lately is complaining? It can happen to the best of us. With blatant disregard for schedules, increasing incivility as the norm, and an ever-multiplying pile of work on our plates, it’s no surprise. Seems there’s plenty to complain about.

So how are your complaints received? In most cases, I’m guessing your answer is “not so well.”

Here’s another idea. See if you can find a request in your complaint—and get curious. Instead of complaining about Amber’s perpetual tardiness and Jason’s curt tone in meetings, try these two tactics.

  1. Find the request in your complaint. Decide what would make the situation better and ask for it. Make the request. This is the most straightforward and emotionally intelligent tactic. And you’ll be surprised how effective it is! (e.g., Instead of complaining to whomever will listen that Amber is always late, you say directly, “Amber, your tardiness upsets the team’s workflow. Would you please be more conscientious about our starting time?” She replies, “Oh, I apologize. Sometimes I get so caught up in my kids’ last-minute needs, I forget that you are counting on me to …”)
  2. Get curious. See what you can uncover about the offender. You may find legitimate circumstances contributing to the offensive behavior. And you may find you have more in common than you ever imagined. While that doesn’t excuse the behavior, it can help you develop a better relationship so you can talk reasonably about the behavior and make the request described in Tactic #1. These relationships create long-term benefits when you have ongoing collaborations.

What’s so bad about complaining? Plenty. It derails progress, creates negativity, and amplifies the annoyance and destructive feelings already present. It improves nothing.

You may be surprised how pervasive complaining is in our culture. When legendary Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith interviewed more than 200 of his clients, he discovered something that matched previous research he had read but still found hard to believe: “a majority of employees spend 10 or more hours per month complaining—or listening to others complain. Even more amazing, almost a third spend 20 hours or more per month doing so.”

Just think what could be possible if that time was shifted to actively asking for what you need and building relationships. A lot more positivity and progress would be possible—and isn’t that what we strive for?

If you’re looking to create a more positive culture in your work environment, call 541.601.0114 or email Chris for an initial conversation. Let’s tap into your organization’s positivity and unleash its potential.

Inspired by The Next Time You Want to Complain at Work, Do This Instead, by Peter Bregman

The Success Secret Every Company Knows but Few Achieve

Adobe understands it. And Google, Apple, Microsoft. Airbnb does, too. LinkedIn, KPMG, Accenture, the San Diego Zoo—they all get it. Zappos, certainly. And these companies are paragons of it, according to Entrepreneur.

Companies who know this success secret tend to have quadruple the average profit and double the average revenue—even while being a quarter smaller than other organizations Jacob Morgan analyzed in this article for the Harvard Business Review.

If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you’ve probably already guessed what this elusive alchemy is since we’ve written about it a lot before. That’s right—employee engagement.

But why is it so hard for companies to get right—even while pouring millions into trying to obtain it?

For starters, most companies are slapping a band-aid on a broken leg and calling it good. That’s not going to do it.

Many of the problems at organizations with poor engagement are systemic, and it takes a deep cultural shift to address the underlying causes of disengagement and build a more authentic, inspiring workplace.

For Morgan, this means creating an experiential organization with desirable cultural, technological, and physical environments.

Out of the 250+ organizations he studied, only 6% were intensely focused on all three—and they had the performance upswings to show it. He also found a correlation between investment in these areas and inclusion on “best of” lists. Further, these companies saw substantial gains in stock value.

On the flip side, a fifth of the companies analyzed scored very low on all three fronts, and employees ranked over 50% of the organizations poorly in one or more of these areas. This shows how far most companies have to go.

But where to begin? Andrew Sumitani of TINYpulse wrote The Ultimate Guide to Employee Engagement to help managers take those crucial steps toward organizational transformation.

Sumitani starts by sharing this TED talk on employee motivation by Behavioral Economist Dan Ariely:

He documents the significant financial advantages enjoyed by companies with higher employee engagement—including as much as 18% higher revenue per employee. Combine greater profits with the enormous savings yielded from employee retention and less absenteeism, and you start to understand why experiential companies are raking in the bucks.

Sumitani outlines two strategies for boosting engagement:

  1. Create recognition programs that honor contributions. Don’t hand out token achievement awards for simply reaching milestones like working a certain number of years. Most will move on before reaching that five-year anniversary if you don’t have an appealing workplace. Instead, acknowledge employees for substantive accomplishments, innovative ideas, and other extraordinary behavior. This recognition should be highly personalized and spontaneous rather than generic and perfunctory. Lastly, establish peer recognition programs that give employees opportunities to honor co-workers, whose accomplishments may otherwise go under the radar of high-flying managers.
  2. Survey, survey, survey. If you want to know what matters to your employees, ask them. Don’t burden them with bloated surveys every year or so. Rather, short and frequent is the way to go here. Bolster trust and open communication by transparently sharing the data. Then do something with those results. Formulate an action plan to show you are not only listening but genuinely committed to responding to concerns.

Capiche Can Help

Are you ready to propel your company to the next level of engagement, productivity, and profit? We can help you conduct the organizational analysis, collect the data and implement the strategies that can turn your organization into the next paragon of employee engagement. Email chris@capiche.us or call 541.601.0114 today.

Critical Factors for Keeping Top Talent

Pssst … it’s all about happiness!

Last week, I got to present “Critical Factors for Keeping Top Talent” at a SOREDI event. It was fun to share one of my favorite topics—the importance of happiness at work. With Oregon’s unemployment rate at 3.8% and the country’s at 4.3%, SOREDI was smart to focus on such a relevant topic!

The 2017 PwC CEO Survey found the top three CEO challenges in the United States are talent, technology and innovation. About talent, the report states, “Talent will help an organization distinguish itself from the competition. Organizations need people who can surmount big challenges and tackle complex issues. CEOs are looking for employees who are agile, curious, and can collaborate with others to achieve the greatest results. These skill sets are among the hardest to recruit.”

I believe in two simple truths:

  1. Your people are the #1 resource that will determine your success.
  2. Happy people perform better.

There are many factors that influence success, but it’s your people who give you an absolute advantage.

Happiness is the single greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy.Shawn Achor

Happiness is a worthwhile investment. Decades of compelling evidence shows that improving happiness in the workplace delivers significant increases in profit, productivity and innovation—not to mention substantial cost savings. Happier workers are healthier and more effective team members, and they provide superior customer service. Happier businesses attract top talent and are more likely to retain their best workers.

Why worry about happiness at work? You can count on:
  • 30% Higher productivity1
  • 54% Better staff retention2
  • 3x Higher creativity3

Social economist and researcher (and all-around good guy) Nic Marks uses a dynamic model to explain which factors create a happy workplace. The model takes into account people’s “experience of work” (how they feel), which is influenced by how they are “functioning at work” (what they do). This depends on the “organizational system” (where they work) and their “personal resources” (who they are). Using an assessment developed by Nic and his company Happiness Works, you can generate your own dynamic model for your workplace.

Dynamic Model

This dynamic model is from a Portland tech company Capiche worked with. Notice the colors ranging from orange to dark green. Like a stoplight, red to orange is a non-starter, and green is a go.

Measured within each of the four components of the dynamic model are:

  • Experience of work: Positive and negative feelings, engaging work, worthwhile work
  • Functioning at work: Self-expression, sense of control, sense of progress, work relationships
  • Organizational system: Job design, management system, work environment, social value
  • Personal resources: Vitality, happiness, confidence, work-life integration

People’s happiness at work is not fixed or static; instead, it is fluid and moving, interconnected and dynamic. I like the illustration of shared responsibility between the employee and employer.

People’s happiness at work is not fixed or static; instead, it is fluid and moving. Share on X

Finders, Keepers?

The factors you need to keep top talent directly correlate with the factors needed to recruit talent.

Happiness at work isn’t something that’s reserved for companies like Zappos and Google. There are plenty of smaller or lesser-known companies like these Southern Oregon ones that have it right: Coding Zeal, Darex, Bio Skin, and Dutch Bros.

If you are ready to step up to happiness, give me a holler via email or phone at 541.601.0114. Let’s see where you are now and make plans to increase your organization’s happiness—and recruitment, retention, innovation, customer service and profits!


References

  1. “Insight to impact leadership that gets results.” Hay Group.
  2. “Engaging hearts and minds: preparing for a changing world.” Hay Group.
  3. “Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving.” Isen, A.M., Daubman, K.A., and Nowicki, G.P. (1987). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(6), 1122.

Keep Drama on the Stage—and out of the Workplace

In the requisite Stein on Writing, publisher, writer and master editor Sol Stein reveals this secret to successful plotting: create a crucible.

If you’ve ever seen Mike NicholsWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, you know how compelling a crucible can be. When you pit two forces of nature like Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and George (Richard Burton) against one another, the results are explosive.

As Stein writes, “Characters caught in a crucible won’t declare a truce and quit.… the motivation of the characters to continue opposing each other is greater than their motivation to run away.”

While such a formula makes for gripping drama, that’s the last thing you want in the workplace.

Good leaders know how to navigate conflicts, dissipate tension and redirect negative energies into positive, productive outlets. Most importantly, they themselves are not the source of drama.

Unfortunately, those leaders are rare. A recent Australian study suggests there are more villains at the top than we realize—1 in 5 CEOs may be psychopaths (versus 1 in 100 in the general population).

“Typically psychopaths create a lot of chaos and generally tend to play people off against each other,” says Nathan Brooks, the forensic psychologist who conducted the study.

A profit-driven corporate culture often propels sociopaths—who unabashedly violate ethics in pursuit of the bottom line—to positions of power, even though such behavior collectively costs companies hundreds of billions annually due to employee turnover and disengagement.

Just as the recent Wells Fargo scandal teaches us, myopic thinking may yield short-term profits but reaps incalculable damage. Sure, there are the obvious costs like $185 million in fines, $5 million in customer refunds and the potential billions in class action lawsuits from customers and the 5,300 terminated employees.

At a deeper level, however, the damage done to the Wells Fargo brand is incalculable. A bank losing the trust of its customers is tantamount to drinking Jonestown Flavor Aid.

Let’s play a word game. What do you think of when you hear Enron, Exxon and Monsanto? It’s probably fraud, Valdez and mass farmer suicides. Even when they change their names and attempt to reinvent themselves, corporations can never escape the toxic taint of corruption.

This is why it is so crucial to carefully define, protect and live your brand. From the epic to the everyday, how companies and leaders behave has lasting ramifications.

While we may not be in a position to shape the epic dimensions of our organization, all of us play a role in the everyday, and reducing drama in the workplace has widespread benefits—including boosting happiness and health, which subsequently reduces turnover, increases engagement and heightens productivity.

In this SmartBrief article, Dr. Nate Regier offers three tips for quashing office drama:

  • Practice transparency. In times of conflict, honesty is indeed the best policy. Instead of passive-aggressively venting your frustration, explain why a certain behavior is bothering you. Sidestep blame in favor of expressing your feelings. This is a common tactic in couples counseling for a reason—it reframes the concern as an expression of feeling rather than an attack and helps each understand the other’s perspective.
  • Offer your expertise. This doesn’t mean going around handing out uninvited advice. Rather, it means genuinely assessing the problem and offering to share relevant knowledge if desired—the last part being key.
  • Set realistic limits. In a conflict, identify your non-negotiables in a non-threatening manner. Once both parties have a clear understanding of the stated goals and obstacles, it’s easier to chart a path to resolution.

This kind of “compassionate accountability is key to productive relationships and communication,” writes Regier.

What are your workplace drama stories? Do you have any tips on how to cope with psychopathic bosses and smooth out tensions in the workplace?

New Agreements: 5 Ways to Transform Your Workplace

Thanks to LinkedIn, I had a chance to talk with author David Dibble last week. He read a recent blog I posted and asked to connect with me. Funny thing is I’ve been using his book The New Agreements in the Workplace for the last five years as source material for the Working with Emotional Intelligence class I teach at Southern Oregon University. I’ve summarized his work below and added a few quotes to illustrate. Thanks, David!

1. Find Your Path


“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
—Goethe


As individuals in the workplace and in the world, each of us must find our own path to personal freedom and transformation. If the release of the creative human spirit in the workplace is your passion, following a true path will accelerate the journey dramatically. A true path is a roadmap that includes proven practices, community support along the way and possibly a teacher. Most importantly, a true path will ignite your higher purpose for work based in love.

A true path will ignite your higher purpose for work based in love. Share on X

2. Love, Grow and Serve Your People


“All work is empty, save when there is love.”
—Kahlil Gibran


The workplace can be thought of as a living being. Workplaces are alive because they are made of people. To love, grow and serve your people means loving, growing and serving the organization. In doing so, you love, grow and serve yourself. This is true leadership.

3. Mind Your Mind in the Moment


“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.”
—John Milton


Science has been looking at the human mind for thousands of years, and many questions remain. Your mind creates both your individual and organizational realities. To change yourself or your workplace, you must transform your mind. Awareness of the mind in the moment when life and work take place is a central practice to nearly every true path. With awareness, you can create heaven on earth in your workplace.

4. Shift Your Systems


“Men have become the tools of their tools.”
—Henry David Thoreau


All organizations have structural components we call systems. Systems are the formal and informal policies, procedures, habits and agreements that tell you how to do things in the workplace. They control about 90 percent of the results you create in your organization. To unlock your creative human spirit, you must shift from the fear and control that drive most workplace systems to an atmosphere of love and support.

You must shift from fear and control to an atmosphere of love and support. Share on X

5. Practice a Little Every Day


“The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection—even though nothing more than the pounding of an old piano—is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.”
—Logan Pearsall Smith


Did you know the space shuttle is off course approximately 97 percent of the time? To make the New Agreements a reality, you must practice a little every day. As you practice, you will notice change. With regular practice, you embody the New Agreements. As you move from doing to being, you become the unbridled release of your creative human spirit. This is true mastery.

Living the New Agreements

How does this sit with you? How does it manifest in your workplace? If you want to work with the New Agreements, let’s talk about how coaching or consulting can help you create positive change.

Where’s the Beef? Why Customer Experience Is the New Marketing

What motivates you to try a new product or service? Is it a million-dollar ad campaign full of sound and fury? Is it that steady stream of robo emails you keep marking as Junk? Or maybe it’s those sidebar ads that pop up based on your content browsing habits.

I’m guessing it’s none of these because you—like most of today’s consumers—have a finely attuned BS barometer. In other words, you don’t believe the hype.

Instead, you probably seek out recommendations from friends. You listen to word of mouth, and you do your research. You carefully study Amazon and Yelp reviews, looking for verified purchasers and reviews that ring true.

In a consumer world where everyone is connected, shoddy quality and poor customer service have a global ripple effect that can deliver a deathblow in minutes.

That is why, according to Experience: The Blog author Augie Ray, companies shouldn’t be so much concerned with content marketing strategies as with customer experience.

Where’s the Beef?

The days are gone when a company can glide by on glitz, buying its way into consumers’ hearts with earworm jingles and inane catchphrases. We’re inured to their tactics because we see through them.

Transparency is the new watchword. If it isn’t WYSIWYG, people tune out.

As human beings, we crave authenticity. We demand substance—from product quality to customer service, every element of the experience must deliver genuine value.

Make It Real

We want to associate with organizations that possess a deep sense of purpose and values that echo our own—companies that live their brand.

One reason Thrive Market has been so deliciously successful is they began with a clearly defined mission: “to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone.” And the many people who care about eating healthy, living sustainably, and helping to feed hungry families have been recommending them like crazy.

Rather than jumping into social marketing campaigns, Augie Ray argues in a recent interview that companies should be “focusing on improving the customer experience and then activating trusted peer-to-peer word of mouth.”

Be All That You Can Be

Cultivating a positive customer experience is not a skin-deep exercise. It goes down to the bones of your organization—your culture.

As we’ve repeatedly explored in past blog posts, your culture is your brand; your brand is your culture. Creating a workplace that is a palpable example of your core values helps nurture those values in your employees.

I’m Lovin’ It

If you want your employees to deliver a WOW experience to customers as Zappos does (see How to Live the Brand), you need to create a culture where you’re wowing your employees.

We already know from research that having happier employees means greater productivity and superior customer service (see The Top 4 Employee Needs to Fulfill for Greater Happiness and Productivity). The question is how to get there.

Be More

Honing your leadership capacities will help you foster a healthy, happy culture, and that in turn, will build the “empathy, loyalty, and trust” Ray describes as crucial to a successful company.

Ray writes, “The importance of purposeful, ethical leadership is underscored in Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer report, which finds that the biggest gaps companies have are in attributes such as listens to customers; treats employees well; is ethical, transparent and open; and puts customers before profits.”

Just Do It

Like a Zen koan, the paradoxical truth is that by prioritizing employee happiness and customer experience over the bottom line, companies ultimately profit more. How can organizations not see the value in that?

Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris Cook to start building a healthier, happier organization today.

Note: Special thanks to one of our readers (Lisa Baehr) for sharing Augie’s interview and inspiring this article.