Enhancing the Meaningfulness of Work - Sunil Ramlall, Ph.D.

Int. J. Management and Decision Making, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2008 281

Enriching the meaningfulness of work through positive organisational behaviour

Sunil J. Ramlall

Department of Management Opus College of Business University of St. Thomas TMH 443 BB 1000 LaSalle Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55403, USA E-mail: sjramlall@stthomas.edu

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between Positive Organisational Behaviour (POB) and performance in the workplace. Multiple critical factors that make organisations and their members flourish and prosper in especially humane and extraordinary ways are explored. One of the key components of this paper is to identify factors that encourage a good life for individuals and organisations and enable employees to be at their best at work. Issues such as works as a source of happiness, the relevance of work to a person’s purpose in life, and building an organisation culture to support a positive environment are addressed.

Keywords: Positive Organisational Behaviour; POB; job satisfaction; work and happiness; employee commitment; firm performance.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ramlall, S.J. (2008) ‘Enriching the meaningfulness of work through positive organisational behaviour’, Int. J. Management and Decision Making, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp.281–287.

Biographical notes: Dr. Sunil J. Ramlall is an Assistant Professor in the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas, MN where he teaches human resource management, organisational behaviour and leadership. He has a PhD from the University of Minnesota and a BA and MBA from the University of St. Thomas. Dr. Ramlall conducts research and publishes in the areas of strategic HRM, positive organisational behaviour, HR education, HR metrics and other management areas.

1 Introduction

Positive Organisational Scholarship (POS) provides opportunities for understanding the impact of organisational strategies on human behaviour in the workplace and why some strategies and dynamic capabilities may be more generative than others (Cameron et al., 2003). This paper explores the relationship between Positive Organisational Behaviour (POB) and performance in the workplace. Multiple critical factors that make organisations and their members flourish and prosper in especially humane and extraordinary ways are explored. POB is the “study and application of positively

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oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today’s workplace” (Luthans, 2003).

One of the key components of this paper is to identify factors that encourage a good life for individuals and organisations and enable employees to be at their best at work. Seligman (2002) identified subjective experiences as one of the three related topics. These experiences may include happiness, pleasure, gratification, fulfilment, and well-being. Using these positive experiences as outcomes, this paper explores how employees and organisations can foster these experiences at work. As Geller (2002) explained, Organisational Behaviour Management (OBM) has to be broadened in order to enhance the appreciation of OBM in organisational settings and among university faculty and students in mainstream psychology programmes.

It is indeed critical to ask, how does work enable one to experience such feelings? At the same time, there is a great need to understand how and why organisational strategies impact employees’ behaviours and attitudes and influence such positive outcomes as listed by Seligman (2002). In establishing the relationship between organisational practices and the identified positive outcomes, the following areas are addressed:

• how does work fit into one’s perceived purpose of existence

• work as a source of happiness

• balancing work, family, career, education, and spirituality

• building a positive organisational culture.

2 How does work fit into one’s purpose of life?

While there are several definitions on the purpose of life based on religious and cultural beliefs, a common belief is that we all seek personal happiness, success, fulfilment, and hopefully find gratification in our efforts and accomplishments. For example, The Dalai Lama wrote that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness (Dalai-Lama and Cutler, 1998). In their book, these authors explained that happiness is determined more by the state of one’s mind than by one’s external conditions, circumstances, or events. They further explained how happiness can be achieved through the systematic training of our hearts and minds, through reshaping our attitudes and outlook.

The type of work one does is not the issue. At the heart of this paper is how the work relates to one’s broader purpose in life. Do employees view their positions as jobs or is it part of their activities that help to create a sense of fulfilment and satisfaction.

Wrzesniewski (2003) found that the way people see their work is highly predictive of their own individual thriving, and has positive implications for groups and organisations where they belong. Given one’s personal self-defined purpose of life, the nature of one’s work becomes a central component of fulfilling a person’s purpose of life. The premise is therefore set forth that the stronger the linkage between the work one performs and the congruence to one’s purpose of life, higher performance output can be expected. While many of us accept jobs and quickly become frustrated, it may simply be incongruence between the nature of the responsibility and our personal values, needs, and sources of our pleasure.

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Why do we work? First, the concept of the meaning of work is often researched (Colby et al., 2002) but not always defined. Some work primarily to secure an income and provide for themselves and their families. Some go to work to secure an income but also view work as a part of their life mission to be of service to each other, to meet the needs of the world, and to contribute to the healing and create a better society at large. Why do concepts such as selflessness, altruism, greater good of the majority, viewing work as an opportunity to build friendships, and develop wholesome relationships with others matter at work?

An organisation’s success depends on employees’ creativity, innovation and commitment. As employees, we can significantly enhance our organisation’s performance by inspiring the soul, creativity and maximising the potential of the workforce. POB enables organisations to undertake a more complete view of the individual employee enabling a better understanding of the workforce and a strategic means to influence behaviours.

Furthermore, POB enables employees to understand the work they do, their colleagues, those who they work for and those who work for them. The value of such knowledge is that stronger team efforts would prevail given a higher level of appreciation for others and the intersubjectivity that exists within the workforce. Given the significant number of hours, employees spend at work, why should work not be a place where one is able to achieve a sense of fulfillment about life and further complements one’s life’s purpose?

Strengthening the concepts of teamwork, creativity, and innovations, viewing co-workers in their totality as human beings rather than seeing them simply in terms of the work that they do provides a deeper sense of wholesome relationships fostering the development and understanding of others at the workplace. Given this discussion, the following proposition is set forth:

Proposition 1 A stronger alignment between an employee’s work and purpose of life will lead to higher satisfaction, commitment to the organisation and better performance.

3 Work as a source of happiness

Does work provide happiness? Could people find happiness at work? How do people define happiness? What are people doing to create the environments that foster happiness at work? These are critical questions that are of pivotal importance to both employers and employees. In today’s society, many will argue that work is the source of their stress, inability to spend adequate time with family, volunteering in community activities, and being unable to further their education. Seligman (2002) teaches that happiness can be cultivated by identifying and using the strengths people already possess. These strengths include kindness, originality, humour, optimism and generosity.

The implication for POB is to show how work can be a source of happiness and what enhances such feeling and experience. Being dedicated to work has to mean working for the sake of work, generating excellence for its own sake. An example would be if we are always calculating the date of promotion or the rate of commission before putting in our efforts, then such work is not detached. It is not generating excellence for its own sake but working only for the extrinsic reward that may or may not result.

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Working only for the purpose of the anticipated benefits means that the quality of performance of the current job or duty suffers through mental agitation of anxiety for the future. Detached involvement in work is the key to mental equanimity. Such state is best suited for those who sincerely believe in the supremacy of organisational goals as compared to narrow personal success and achievement. Wright (2003) has argued that the mission of POB must also include the pursuit of employee happiness and health as viable goals in themselves.

Positive psychology is a science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions that promise to improve quality of life (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Searching for new ways to compete and be choice employers, the implications for organisations are endless. The implications are not only for organisations, but also directed to individuals. Rath and Clifton (2004) suggested that we all have a bucket within us that needs to be filled with positive experiences, such as recognition or praise. Furthermore, these authors stressed that when we treat others in a positive manner, we will not only fill others’ buckets, but fill ours as well.

The principle of reducing our attachment to personal gains from the work done is the key to attaining equanimity. It has been held that this principle leads to lack of incentive for effort, striking at the very root of work ethic. To the contrary, concentration on the task for its own sake leads to the achievement of excellence and indeed to the true mental happiness of the worker. Thus, while commonplace theories of motivation may be said to lead us to the bondage or extrinsic rewards, this principle leads us to the intrinsic rewards of mental, and indeed, moral satisfaction.

It is almost impossible for one not to have selfish desires. Nevertheless, positive desires are reasonable, focus on the greater good of the organisation, and are much beyond the individual alone. Individuals and groups of people in their quest for more money are willing to jeopardise the financial survival of their companies and not seek the greater good of the organisation. Positive desires will focus on the employee’s role in creating a stronger and better organisation and eventually leading to inner contentment. Hence, the following proposition:

Proposition 2 Work is a potentially significant source of happiness if the environment is appropriate to the employee and the employee has the ability to shape the environment that will create the happiness.

4 Building a positive organisational culture

In recent years, strategy scholars have begun to look beyond industrial economics-based notions of strategy to try to better understand how organisations sustain their competitive advantage (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Barney, 1991; Mahoney and Pandian, 1992; Wernerfelt, 1995). Based on numerous studies, organisational culture is a core component of the sources that foster competitive advantages in organisations (Pfeffer, 1998; Pringle and Kroll, 1997). Prevailing research claims that strong corporate cultures improve firm performance by facilitating internal behavioural consistency (Sørensen, 2002).

An effective work culture is about vigorous and arduous efforts in pursuit of given or chosen tasks. Organisational cultures can be classified into two different types. A constructive culture involves fearlessness, purity, self-control, sacrifice,