According to research published in the October 2012 issue of
6 Payoffs of Awe-Inspiring Management
The findings from this study have important implications for business.
Creating opportunities for employees to experience a sense of reverence and wonder at work can help your team’s performance by:
- Giving employees the perceptual gift of more time to do the work that matters most;
- Increasing engagement, particularly if you can tie awe-inspiring moments to the contributions that your employees make to customers’ lives;
- Reducing impatience and all of the negative consequences that can result from impatience (e.g., conflict, poor customer service, resentment, etc.)
- Boosting volunteerism and charitable giving among employees to support social responsibility initiatives at your organization;
- Increase helping behaviors among employees as a result of having an expanded perception of time;
- Increase employees’ well-being and overall life satisfaction. These outcomes have been proven to reduce sickness absenteeism, and health care costs.
So How Do I Inspire Awe at Work?
The methods that the researchers from Stanford University and the University of Minnesota used to inspire awe were cheap, easy, and produced measurable effects. They included:
- writing about an event that felt vast and overwhelming and that altered they way participants understood the world;
- watching an awe-inspiring commercial that depicted modern cities, nature, whales, waterfalls, and astronauts in space;
- reading a story about ascending to the top of the Eiffel Tower and overlooking the Paris landscape.
Does this mean that the best way to inspire awe at work is to play YouTube videos of whales mating or to subject your employees to a slide show of your last vacation in Paris? Probably not.
Here are some cheap, easy, and practical awe-inspiring management alternatives:
Tell stories that matter
Interview three clients or customers about their experience with your business. Ask them what they appreciated about their experience and what difference it made to them? Share the responses face-to-face with those who made the experience possible. Or, better yet, bring the customers in to tell their own story.
Bring the outdoors indoors
Include natural elements in the design of your office space: fish tanks, natural light, lush plants, and/or natural materials are all good options.
Shake up meetings
Find an inspirational way to start a meeting. A powerful image, video, or reading that opens spaces and creates a sense of wonder or reverence.
Just have a conversation about experiencing awe with someone on your team. As a manager if you model the behavior, your employees will be more likely to reciprocate. It’s proven that recalling an awe-inspiring moment leads increased levels of awe.
Get out of the office
Have a meeting off-site if possible. If that’s not possible, then have a walk and talk meeting outdoors. Insights and awe don’t typically happen in a cubicle or conference room.
Increases in employees’ perception of time, more volunteering, charitable giving, and employee well-being are good for business. Period. You don’t have to take your team to the top of the Eiffel Tower or feel the spray of the ocean on your face to experience awe, you just need to flex your creativity muscle a bit and be willing to stretch your comfort zone.
When was the last time that you experienced awe at work? How did it impact you?
** Rudd, M., Vohs, K.D., Aaker, J. (2012). Awe expands people’s perception of time, alters decision making, and enhances well-being. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1130-1136.
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Images: ”Awe Inspiring Grand Canyon / Shutterstock.com“
