Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do

"Alive at Work" is a practical book for leaders who want to unleash the seeking systems in people's brains, so they bring their best skills, creativity, enthusiasm, and ingenuity to work. But it won't suit leaders who aren't prepared to look beyond their current practices and take a few risks.

The book explains clearly how to activate people's seeking systems, illustrating this with examples of organizations that have done so. But Cable is clear that there's no "one size fits all." You'll need to find a route that fits your unique organization. When you do, the rewards can be substantial, in terms of better employee engagement, higher performance, and greater success all around.

As a researcher, teacher and consultant specializing in employee engagement, leading change, and leadership development, Daniel Cable is eminently qualified to help us achieve this. He's Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School, and he's worked with global organizations such as Google, Coca Cola, Ikea, McDonald's, and Siemens. He's also a prolific writer and editor, and his work has been featured in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review.

So, keep listening to find out how play helps people problem-solve, why humble leaders create better teams, and why managers should give workers time to do whatever they like.

Part One is all about the "seeking systems" in our brains. Here, we learn about the three triggers that activate our seeking systems. These are: Self Expression, Experimentation, and Purpose. Cable devotes the rest of the book to explaining how these triggers work.

So, what is a seeking system and why is it important? The seeking system is a part of the brain that's curious and wants to explore the world. The good news is that it's innate – we all have it. Think about a time when you've been caught up in the search for a solution, or you've had an idea that filled you with enthusiasm. That's your seeking system in action. When you follow the urge to explore and be creative, your brain releases the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is linked to motivation and pleasure.

So, we're hardwired to explore and experiment but, unfortunately, a lot of jobs don't reflect this. Organizations often shoehorn people into narrow tasks that don't allow for self-expression and exploration. And Cable says that when performance is controlled by incentives and punishments, people feel anxious and wary. Our fear system overrides our seeking system, our urge to experiment is zapped, and we disengage from our work.

The irony is that today more than ever, organizations need employees who are engaged, motivated and willing to learn new things. So triggering people's seeking systems brings enormous benefits. When they're activated we think more positively, and we're better able to marshal our cognitive resources. Our problem-solving improves and we perform better. And our long-term motivation rallies, too.

So, let's take a closer look at the three triggers that help people come alive at work, starting with self-expression.

Cable defines self-expression as "an individual's use of his or her unique skills, abilities, and powers." When we're encouraged to use our unique skills and we see how this has a positive impact on others, we feel validated and our motivation soars.

One way to promote self-expression at work is to let people choose job titles that reflect their personal identities in the workplace. Cable includes a great illustration of this with a case study from the Make-a-Wish Foundation. This charity grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions, and its employees deal with a lot of grief, which is draining.

The CEO, Susan Fenters Lerch, realized that some of her staff were burning out, so she took action. She encouraged staff to invent their own job titles, which would appear on their business cards and email signatures, alongside their formal titles. She became "Fairy Godmother of Wishes."

Some employees were skeptical that such a lighthearted and inexpensive initiative would make a difference. But it did. Eighty-five percent of staff said the self-reflective titles helped reduce their exhaustion. People brought more of their unique selves to work. They were more willing to share ideas, and they felt they knew one another better.

Self-reflective titles recognize people's individuality, and, as any team leader knows, a good team is one that includes a range of people with diverse skills, experience and perspectives.

In Part Two, we learn how experimentation helps switch on our seeking systems. Following our innate curiosity can be scary, because trying something new always runs the risk of failure. But it can lead to more creative solutions in the long term. The key is having the right approach to failure. Organizations need to let people get something wrong before they get it right. But how do you do that and still meet your targets?

You start by creating a safe environment where people can experiment. Cable illustrates this idea with a case study of a factory that manufactured stove tops and washing machines. When we join the story, the assembly line wasn't working well. Some people's tasks were taking far longer than others. This left some workers struggling with parts stacking up, and others twiddling their thumbs waiting for the next part to come their way.

Understandably, this caused frustration and anxiety. To cap it off, morale was low, production inefficient, and the number of faulty products was high. The situation had deteriorated to the point where it looked like the plant might have to close and employees might lose their jobs.

Fear and anxiety clearly weren't helping, so managers implemented an unusual approach. They took one assembly-line team out of the workplace and gave them some training in lean manufacturing techniques. Then they gave the workers Lego cars, and asked them to use the plastic toys to design a better way of organizing the assembly line. In this safe environment, workers experimented and designed a new process. Within three months of the worker-designed assembly line, defective products had fallen by 30 percent and productivity was up by 25 percent.

Some companies have taken the concept of experimentation a step further and given employees "bootleg time" – time in which they can work on a project of their own choice.

Google is famous for this. But Cable shares a less well-known example from the financial marketing platform, Dealogic. When Chief Operating Officer, Toby Haddon, noticed employee enthusiasm declining, he gave 40 company engineers 24 hours to design their own projects. The engineers then presented their ideas to managers, who chose the projects they felt most deserved an investment of time and money.

Forty percent of the proposals moved forward in this way, giving those participants a massive boost. Dealogic's "Creative Capital" project triggered people's seeking systems and created innovations for the company, so individuals and the wider organization benefited.

For people to be alive at work, leaders need to create an environment that enables self-expression and experimentation. Some leaders are well aware of this. When Jungkiu Choi became head of Consumer Banking at Standard Chartered Bank, employees envisioned the usual prearranged visits of groups of executives, planned and delivered by already frazzled staff. In the past, staff had served refreshments to the executives whilst being informed about the latest initiatives that management expected them to implement.

So, employees didn't expect to turn up to work one day to find Jungkiu and other top executives wearing aprons and serving them breakfast. And they certainly didn't expect Jungkiu to be asking them how the bank could improve its service. But that's what happened. Jungkiu is a "servant leader." He sees his role as being a facilitator, not an emperor.

His humble leadership removed employees' anxiety about the visit, which made it easier for them to share their thoughts with him. Staff suggested some great ideas, such as extending the bank's opening hours to coincide with when most customers needed access. This was an idea Jungkiu implemented. During the two years of his humble leadership, staff got used to his surprise visits, with executives dishing out breakfast and asking what they could do to help the bank provide a better service. Customer satisfaction increased by 54 percent under Jungkiu's leadership.

When leaders appear to have all the answers, there's little room left for employees to learn and grow. But humble leaders like Jungkiu encourage growth by listening and being open to learning. Their style of leadership activates people's seeking systems, allowing for mistakes and uncertainty and enabling them to be more receptive to change. This is crucial when an organization needs to adapt frequently.

Part Four of "Alive at Work" deals with the third switch that triggers our seeking system – purpose. When people feel a strong sense of purpose in what they do, they become highly motivated. Cable offers a number of ways in which leaders can help employees find meaning in their work.

He cites one study involving people who raise funds over the telephone for educational scholarships. The group of cold-callers was split into three subgroups. The first subgroup was given no intervention. They went straight to the phones. The second group listened to a letter of thanks from a student who'd been given one of these scholarships, and the third group had a conversation with a beneficiary, face to face. They asked about her studies, and what the scholarship had meant for her and her future plans.

Over a four-week period, the group that met and spoke with the student raised 171 percent more money than the other groups. They were more successful at their job because they'd connected emotionally with its purpose.

Leaders can and should create the conditions for us to feel a strong purpose in our work, but we can also do it unaided. It all depends on the story we tell ourselves. Cable writes about a woman called Candice Billups, whose job gives her a strong sense of purpose. For 30 years she's worked as a janitor in the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Michigan, mopping floors and filling soap dispensers. The story she tells herself is that her work helps patients get through a tough time. And her behavior reflects her positive story. She gets to know patients, their families, and their needs, creating purpose and meaning for herself in her work.

By using a range of case studies, Cable shows that activating your seeking system is doable for anyone. It doesn't matter whether you're an engineer in a multinational company, a teacher, a fundraiser, or a janitor – your seeking system is a spark, ready to be ignited. We love how Cable takes us into the lives of real people like this. We can identify with their frustrations and anxieties, and then feel their elation as they activate their seeking systems and improve their lives.

Cable writes in a clear, reassuring style, which will appeal to a broad readership. The book is very readable and his use of diagrams is great for people who process information visually. The summaries at the end of each chapter help you internalize what you've learned, and he nudges you into the next chapter by giving you a taster of what's to come.

Although research and studies are used in the body of the text, details aren't always provided and there are no footnotes. But you'll find detail in the notes section at the back of the book.

"Alive at Work" sets out to provide a framework for engagement and creativity at work, and we think it succeeds in this aim. It offers a wealth of ideas and examples that can be taken and personalized to suit the needs of organizations and individuals. And, in a way, this is the beauty of the book. It doesn't tie you into a rigid frame.

Some of the ideas are simple and inexpensive, and require little more than thought. So, if you want to feel more alive at work yourself, or ignite enthusiasm and resourcefulness in those around you, why not pick up this book?

"Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do," by Daniel M. Cable is published by Harvard Business Review Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.