Joy to the World? How About Joy in the Workplace?

I know we all experience joy in our personal lives.  Weddings, the birth of children, graduations, new jobs and personal growth certainly create a sense of joy. I know things like this do so for me.

However, do you experience joy in your professional life?

That may take a minute to process, and with regret I would guess many of us would have a hard time answering a resounding “YES!” to that question.  Certainly, milestones like getting a long sought-after position, annual bonuses, meeting and exceeding tough goals, being recognized for achievement, all can create a sense of happiness and fulfillment, if not outright joy.

We are coming into the season where gratitude can play a key role in keeping up our spirits.  A sense of joy in what we do can offset many of the challenges we face in staying positive, especially in challenging times.

Last month I wrote a blog about the importance of trust in the workplace.  At least one study has shown that a sense of trust can increase the productivity and motivation of both ourselves and the teams we work with.

Recently I came upon another article from the Harvard Business Review titled “Making Joy a Priority at Work” by Alex Liu (Harvard Business Review, July 17, 2019, read it here).

Why joy as a priority? Liu says: “Amid the dazzle and hopes of the digital age, it is easy to forget that old-fashioned human desire is as essential to achieving business goals as ever.”  But, as he notes, “…many companies struggle because their cultures get in the way — too many layers and silos, too many colleagues who prefer to stay in their comfort zones, bask in their KPIs [Key Performance Indicators], and resist new ways of connecting and working.”

What to do?  “…joy can be a big part of the solution. Why? For two reasons. People intrinsically seek joy. And joy connects people more powerfully than almost any other human experience.”

He uses sports as an example. Who among us has not witnessed the raucous celebrations that erupt after our favorite team wins?  And winning seems to breed success, if for no other reason that feeling the joy of accomplishing something meaningful feels pretty dang good. Don’t we all want to keep feeling like this?

Liu suggests that business leaders can build joy into their organizations by focusing on three key behavioral elements:  Harmony, Impact and Acknowledgement.

  • “ On winning teams, each player has a distinct role in achieving the goal. One player might be a great passer. Another is a great scorer. Yet another may bring a certain intensity and competitive fire. When the diverse skills and strengths of teammates are really clicking together, it feels great.”

 

  • “Impact. Team harmony leads to impact, which further fuels joy. Even if the result is just a single sublime play or golden moment, the palpable joy of each teammate rises.”

 

  • “Acknowledgment. Great coaches instruct their players to, when they score, immediately point to the teammates who created the scoring opportunity. Acknowledging each player’s contributions and cheering for each other powers the entire joy-success-joy cycle.”

Is the impact of joy in the workplace quantifiable?  Yes, according to Liu.  A.T. Kearny did a survey in December 2018 that dealt with employee’s experiences of joy in the workplace.  The results?  There is a direct correlation between feeling more joy in work and being able to work in harmony, have impact and thus being acknowledged for accomplishments.

All roses?  Not quite.  “…[T]he survey also points to a pronounced “joy gap” at work. Nearly 90% of respondents said that they expect to experience a substantial degree of joy at work, yet only 37% report that such is their actual experience.”

The consequence: “Business leaders tend to think a great deal about success, but rarely about joy. Chances are, few are even aware of the joy gap in their organization and the resulting lack of interpersonal connection and team aspiration. That must change.”

How to do that?  Liu has three key steps to enhance workplace joy”

  • “Set the agenda. Make the experience of joy an explicit corporate purpose. Strengthen your inclusion agenda to incorporate meaningful efforts toward ensuring all employees feel heard, recognized, and acknowledged.”

 

  • “Set the stage. Staff your new digital/culture programs with true cross-unit, cross-silo teams, where joint teamwork delivers maximum impact, shared success, and fun.”

 

  • “Set the tone. Encourage and celebrate individual and corporate social impact efforts. Authentically express more of the joy you personally experience in your role. Joy begets joy.”

How does A. Alliance try to create that sense of joy in our workplace?  Especially in an industry as tough and challenging as debt collection?

Well, each year the management team designates the entire month of November as Team Appreciation Month.  You will hear more about that in the weeks ahead, but suffice to say the intent is to show intentional appreciation for the superlative efforts our team puts forth during the year.  Working as closely as we do, working as a team is imperative, and when we achieve our goals, we all feel pretty joyful.  That, of course, in turn, becomes high quality service and results for you our valued clients.

Thank you for being our valued clients and for bringing us a sense of joy when we are successful for you!

 

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 14 years.

 

 

What’s Your One Thing?

If you’re like me you’ve probably heard the buzz around the catch-phrase: What’s your one thing? Wondering how it all got started I did a little research. Turns out it’s from a self-help business book, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.

When I first heard the question I knew our one thing right away.  Since we are a collection agency you might think the answer is a no-brainer: to collect money.  And yes, you’d be right, we certainly collect a lot of money. But honestly that’s not our one thing.

Is it compliance?  Another good guess. The debt collection industry is highly regulated at both state and federal levels. Compliance is extremely important to us here at A. Alliance. We spend a lot of resources and work hard to stay abreast of all regulations and what’s happening with court rulings and proceedings. But that’s not our one thing either.

I could go on and on, but will cut to the chase.  Our one thing is caring! Everyone here at A. Alliance cares about our clients, consumers, patients, communities and each other.

We are blessed with excellent, caring leadership which binds us together as a team and keeps us focused on our goals while providing a terrific work environment marked by intelligence, compassion and kindness. Our Mission Statement includes values of honesty, balance, integrity and fair play. Our leadership team lives these values every day.

By caring about what we do, who we do it for and each other together we are committed each and every day to doing our best to collect each and every dollar owed to our clients, professionally and in a timely manner.

This is a tough industry, oftentimes it is difficult working with situations that are inherently negative. By always focusing on being helpful we all maintain a positive outlook which translates to better experiences for patients and consumers as well as outcomes for our valued clients.

One of the passages in the book that spoke to me was, “Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.”

Don’t get me wrong, A. Alliance knows we must never stop trying to find creative solutions, advanced technologies, or services that create value for the Company or our clients. But if extraordinary results are what you are after first and foremost you gotta care!

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded innorthern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 14 years.

Wasting Away in the Pit of the Perfect

Last week we published a blog written by my colleague Harry Stoll focusing on the optimal time to turn placements over to a collection agency.

Harry shared some very good guidelines to help the process, but sometimes it just boils down to someone waiting for the ‘perfect’ time.  Rarely is there a ‘perfect’ time to do anything, however.  Optimal, yes.  Timely, yes.  Perfect, highly unlikely.

Perfectionism as an attribute can be a blessing and a curse.  In the medical profession perfect is the goal and often times ‘good enough’ just does not cut it.  However, in other businesses, close is often the best choice as the penalty for waiting is lost business, market share and competitive advantage.

So, when does close enough roll over into too perfect, or perfectionism?

In an article titled “How Perfectionists Can Get Out of Their Own Way” by Alice Boyes, PhD, (Harvard Business Review, read it here) she wrote about ways of mitigating the negative impacts of trying to be perfect.

She writes “…perfectionism can be a double-edged sword. Having high standards and being hardworking can help someone stand out in a crowded field, and their tenacity can help them improve their skills over time.”  Yet these traits also cause perfectionists to “get in their own way.” She lists the following as just a few of the challenges being, working with, or for, a perfectionist can have:

  • Struggling to make decisions or take action: “Perfectionists are motivated to make the absolute best choice — even when doing so isn’t strictly necessary. This can lead to decision paralysis.”

 

  • Worrying excessively about sunk costs: “Since perfectionists tend to ruminate over even tiny mistakes, they’re strongly motivated to attempt to recover situations involving sunk costs…they can spend too [much time] working on marginally productive activities before moving on.”

 

  • Avoiding challenges to avoid failure: “Perfectionists want to feel absolutely ready before taking on challenges. This can lead to holding back from advancement or leadership roles.”

 

  • Applying their high standards to others: Sometimes the “…perfectionist also expects others to conform to their standards…being too demanding can harm relationships and sometimes lead to…being socially excluded because they’re emotionally hard…to deal with.”

 

  • Ruminating about weaknesses, mistakes, and failures: “One reason perfectionists are so strongly motivated to avoid small mistakes is because making them triggers their tendency to ruminate… [this can lead to] irritability and feelings of depression, and can disrupt the person’s performance and relationships.”

 

What can we do about it?  She suggests several things:

 

  • Learn from successes: “The idea of learning from your mistakes is likely to feel too confronting to a perfectionist, and trigger rumination. An alternative is to learn from your successes. By reflecting on the pathways that led to your successes, you’ll be able to see that you achieved a meaningful end despite not doing everything completely flawlessly…”

 

  • Develop heuristics to enable faster decision-making and action taking: “Heuristics or rules of thumb are aimed at producing good decisions most but not all of the time. They help balance the benefits of faster decision-making against any incremental gains you might get from delaying action and continued thinking.”

 

  • Ask yourself “How could I improve by 1%?”: “Because perfectionists want to be flawless, they’re typically dismissive of incremental gains. By looking for how you can improve your behavior by 1%, you’ll start to see that there are easier ways to improve than what you’re imagining.”

 

  • Learn strategies to disrupt rumination: “It’s a lot easier to tolerate making mistakes and having flaws if you know how to curb rumination. Notice when you are starting to mull over something, and ask yourself if obsessing over it is really helping you. Often, rumination feels like problem-solving — but it isn’t. If your thoughts are just going in circles, or you’re noticing that your rumination is putting you into a bad mood, let it go.”

 

There is, of course, no perfect plan of action.  We are human after all.  Sometimes it is just better to try ‘ready, fire, aim’ to achieve at least some progress. And after all, since none of us is perfect, progress over perfection is often the best path to follow.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 13 years.

Image provided by: : Alpha Stock Images – http://alphastockimages.com/  Original Author: Nick Youngson  – http://www.nyphotographic.com/