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February 27, 2007
Grumpy is Good
Bad moods may not be so bad after all. A new study claims that grumpy workers are the most creative; that those cranky moments can be used to identify potential problems and think of ways to improve things. However, like yin and yang, both positive and negative moods are necessary for optimal productivity.
Have you ever been told that your negativity is dampening the workplace? Well, if the irreverent but innovative Dr. Gregory House on FOX's "House" has taught us anything, it is that being irritable may be a good thing when it comes to workplace creativity.
And a new study backs the claim that coming to work cranky is probably a good idea — because grumpy workers are the most creative and productive.
"Bad moods and negative attitudes have gotten a bad rap at work," according to Jing Zhou, an associate professor of management at Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management in Houston. "As it turns out, those perennially happy, smiling employees may not be the most creative or productive at the office."
Zhou's study says that negative, pessimistic people can be good for the workplace, and that bad moods are naturally produced almost any time people work together, but the grumpiness can be harnessed to help the bottom line.
"If you want creativity that leads to innovation in your workplace, those naturally occurring bad moods can play a fruitful role — in fact, they're necessary to make things better," the Rice University professor says.
However, the professor "is not encouraging bosses to promote bad moods among their workers." Rather, those cranky moments can be used to "identify potential problems and think of ways to improve things."
Zhou, who studied the effects of good and bad moods in the workplace, found that experiencing both moods is best for worker quality and creativity.
Although this seems to go against preconceived notions about the impact of negative moods on performance, philosophers have long stressed the importance of balancing nature's darker and lighter yin and yang forces. Both positive and negative moods, Zhou's work suggests, are necessary for optimal productivity.
The Rice research states:
Both mood states have the potential to contribute to creativity in important and different ways. Managers should embrace this concept and understand how to support this duality. Good and bad moods should not be treated in isolation from each other because they work jointly to promote creativity. And creativity is a necessary precursor to innovation, which is increasingly recognized as critical for organizational effectiveness.
Good moods enhance expansive thinking, which can be particularly useful when brainstorming strategies, yet bad moods demonstrate a discontent with the status quo and a need to fix it — qualities that are useful for creative problem solving.
"Negative moods signal a problematic state of affairs and propel us to systematically address the problem and fix things," she says. "Thus, they encourage a bottom-up, detail-oriented, analytical approach to understanding the situation."
In fact, good moods can be problematic because they may prevent employees from accepting a need for further effort or change. "Positive moods inform us that all is well and the environment is unproblematic, thereby prompting looser, less systematic and less effortful information processing," Zhou says.
So while good moods facilitate creative brainstorming, ideas generated when in a good mood may not be the most suitable for the challenge at hand.
Another recent study, led by psychology professor Adam Anderson at the University of Toronto, also showed that "a bubbly mood may enhance creativity, but feeling happy can actually hinder the ability to focus on a task"; that happy subjects did well when asked to be innovative but struggled when they had to concentrate on a simple activity and ignore distractions, as The Chicago Tribune reported in December.
"Positive emotions can help you in breaking down those systems that ignore information," said Anderson in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in December. "By making you more distracted, it can make you a more creative problem-solver," The Chicago Tribune quoted Anderson as having said.
In contrast, negative moods are helpful in allowing people to focus on potential dangers or toxins in the environment. When people are anxious, for example, they tend to snap to attention quickly.
"It makes perfect sense: If for whatever reason you feel anxious, you want to close your focus of attention, whether it's a snake or a spider in your environment," according to Ian Gotlib, a professor of psychology at Stanford University who studies how negative moods influence perception.
But the occasional grouch also needs a good leader who creates a culture that allows room for the employee to operate. Without, the employee just stays cantankerous. And there is that thin line between grump and jerk.
Weigh in below and let us know if you've found positive or negative moods are more conducive to creativity and productivity.
Resources
Coming to work in a bad mood just may be a good idea.
Rice University, Jan. 15, 2007
Feeling a bit cranky today? Look on the bright side
by L.M. Sixel
The Houston Chronicle, Jan. 17, 2007
Happy is helpful, but fear fosters focus
by Michelle S. Keller
The Chicago Tribune, Dec. 19, 2006
Zero Tolerance for Jerks
by John Hollon
Workforce Management, Feb. 12, 2007
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4 CommentsI've had a perfectly interesting and amazing career over thirty years by rejecting every management maxim in the books, and instead doing the jobs no one wants to do, in environments that are by nature prickly, deadline-driven and where mistakes can lead to "sudden death" or bankruptcy of the firm one is working for.
How? By refusing to manage others and instead concentrating on the due-diligence, repetitive, time-eating "monster" paperwork aspects of mechanical contracting.
Sounds like a horrible life, doesn't it? Well, imagine a working environment where work breakdown structures and assigned timelines are the norm, where "creativity" is equated with "don't know what you are doing" and where the final job is inspected by third-party state employees who pride themselves on their total disregard for prior friendship, favours or "human factors."
These workplaces have by nature been the most calm, relaxed, quiet, confrontation free, and good-natured of any I have worked in. When one steps in and asks "What needs to be done ?" and one is greeted with a time-lined sheet of tasks with associated work hours prior to commencing (which hours one can correct and negotiate), there aren't any problems.
Young leaders can't and won't perform those basics, sir. They don't want to hear about deadlines until it is the day before it's due. It is grim to note also how often and well unsupervised workers, in the obvious lack of leadership, can soldier through based on their experience and, in many instances, do a better job than with three managers for every worker. America's workforce is accustomed to zero leadership, it's that bad out there. I've seen those hyper-managed contracts, too, and they are almost always Federal, State or County jobs, where managers are "compliance hires" to meet affirmative action quotas who are then abandoned to sort out how to justify their existence: I had one black female supervisor who had a brass plaque on her desk "I am not a quota hire. I worked like hell to get this job" and she knew what she was doing. Half my time in such environments is spent training quota hires, sometimes clandestinely, on the job and on the fly so they won't get fired for non-performance. They are hired to fail, in many instances. Women and minorities are set up for a fall if they are quota hires, and if anyone asked me, I think racism, sexism and workplace ethnic hatred are worse now than when no one knew what those words meant. "Blind resume" hiring works, advocacy is a fraud, to put it in short form.
The 1930's and 1940's paradigm works best: managers drawing up a list the night before of time-lined tasks assigned to particular people, and updating at the end of the day who got what done, and if not, why). They refuse to do this now, with predictable results. Those who do this simple task move the company forward.
Human factor management and relationship management are the company killers. Granddad and Grandma knew best. 70% of my super's have been "old-school" women, BTW: this dates back to the Seventies and before. The press outright lies about the role women play in industry. I don't know of any men running purchasing dept's, HR dept's, tech documentation op's--especially editing of doc's, or in-process job cost tracking. Men cannot do it, and never have been able to, and the type women who dominate as managers by example and shared corporate admiration are not subscribers to the "Welcome to the wonderful world of ME" either.
Companies don't fall based on high labour costs, worker inefficiency, bad sales, or management strife: companies fall because leaders don't take the rap for their screwups and can use their workforce as the scapegoat. Death-defying truthifying time: ALL company failure is due to management. All bad sales are due to management. The continued existence of a firm is due to management. Period. All company failure is due to management failure, and they are the only ones who can turn things around. The Big Issue is routinely ignored: today's leader's won't take responsibility for their actions unless they are cornered or have a figurative gun to their heads. After all they have degree's, so they don't have to take the rap, right?
As one person, I routinely handle the making or breaking of 40 million a year worth of contracts through writing estimates, presenting proposals, troubleshooting procurement and WBS issues, and general construction job tracking and PR work. I refuse to delegate, I ask what needs to be done then do it, and I am always all ears. If I can't do it myself, those I approach with the task are always all ears and glad to take it on, because I can at least provide a lucid scope of work that is clearly stated, and they always have an idea of how long the task will take. The leading reason why I can get the work done I do is that I am not wasting 70% of my time dealing with office politics and touchy-feely Montessori egoism. BTW, I usually have no fewer than 4 bosses each contract.
America needs a new paradigm for management behaviour that reflects the reality of the industrial tasks before them. In particular, newbies to management fresh from school are cheated by their instructors. They need apprenticeship time before they pick up their management sword for the real fights.
February 27, 2007 8:14 PMFabulous article, and an important observation that I have never thought of before. To me, a grump was to be avoided because you can never make them happy no matter what you do. How do know when to tell them 'enough already'? My concern would be that if you reward a grump by giving them your attention, they may just decide to that they can rule the whole place! I think the important thing is to differentiate between the person with valuable input, and the person who just gripes because it is their nature to do so.
February 27, 2007 10:13 PM
