Brandon Laws leads a discussion with Suzi Alligood and Molly Kelley of Xenium HR about the HBR.org article titled 5 Myths of Great Workplaces.
Brandon: I am Brandon Laws and I am with Suzi Alligood and Molly Kelley and I found this article in Harvard Business Review called “5 Myths of Great Workplaces.” I’m always doing some research on culture and just trying to find kind of interesting organizations and how they treat their employees and I ran across this one. I’m going to go over the five myths really quick and then I want to dive a little deeper and tell you what I think, and I want to hear what you guys think as well.
- Myth #1, Everyone is incessantly happy
- Myth #2, Conflict is rare
- Myth #3, Mistakes are few
- Myth #4, They hire for cultural fit
- Myth #5, Their offices are full of fun things
I want to blow that last one out of the water! So let’s start with Myth #1, Everyone is incessantly happy.
Suzi: That’s not realistic, obviously.
Brandon: Yeah! I think you want to put on a front that everybody’s happy, but not everybody can be happy and even if you create this illusion that you’re always happy and everybody in the organization is happy, that’s not realistic. You’ve got to deal with hardship at times and there’s conflict in the workplace.
So what do you guys think about that?
Suzi: I think it’s obviously not realistic or authentic, right, because, as people, we’re not always happy. It’s interesting, because when I did the positive psychology course, a 
discussion came up around why is it worthwhile to create a happy workplace. What are the benefits of it? And it’s interesting to me—is it the employers’ responsibility to create a happy workplace? I mean, I think there are some things they can do to increase positivity, but at the end of the day the only person who has control over happiness is you, right? Over your own happiness.
Brandon: And you just hope that it catches on. I think happiness, largely, is an attitude that you can bring. I mean, stuff happens and you’re going to be pissed off in moments, too.
Suzi: Yeah, it’s a positive mindset, it’s resilience, the learned optimism.
Brandon: But, everyone is happy in the workplace? That’s impossible. I agree with this myth.
Molly: I agree with it. I would say, though—flip it around to play devil’s advocate—I certainly wouldn’t want to work in a workplace where people are always negative and unhappy. I think there’s a balance between neutrality, where you’re coming in, you’re focused on the work, you feel good, there are challenges, but I’ve certainly seen the workplaces where there’s an aura of negativity, and that can be absolutely fatal.
Brandon: So, to your point, though, and to what this article says, negative emotions—anger, embarrassment, and shame—studies say that those emotions can actually foster greater engagement. So what do you say to that, or do you actually agree with that?
Molly: Oh, I think that’s true, yeah. No, what I mean is that if there’s a pervasive environment of discord, you know, an unhappiness. But you’re right, I think that’s one of your other points is that there’s never conflict. Conflict can be very beneficial at times, absolutely.
Suzi: The key is, do you have people committed to a mutual purpose and regulating their behavior so that they’re not being abusive? So it’s one thing to be frustrated and angry, and that can motivate you to take some type of action. But if it’s harmful or unproductive, then you’ve got an issue. But if it fuels some healthy debate and problem solving and innovation, that’s the good stuff. That’s the benefits of those negative emotions.
Brandon: And so, Myth #2 is a very good segue, Conflict is rare. You guys just talked about it—conflict is actually a very positive thing, so why would you want to create this illusion that you don’t have conflict in your organization when conflict actually does good?
Suzi: Do you remember that? We looked up on the wall for just a second, because we used to have some wording on there, it was General Patton—it said, “If everybody is thinking alike, then nobody’s thinking.” And that’s the thing, you need that disruption to stay relevant and be progressive and innovative, you need people to disagree and challenge each other in a healthy, supportive way to get better.
Brandon: Agreed. I think a healthy debate is good, it gets you to think deeper, it doesn’t get you to think like a group—groupthink can be very detrimental to a company. So conflict is good, even if it feels uncomfortable at times.
Suzi: I think, honestly, Xenium, we’ve had a little bit of a challenge in that area because we hire so well. We hire people who really have similar values and are really committed to our Promise and we have really good retention. So a lot of times you can fall into that trap of the groupthink and everybody supporting each other and nobody’s stepping on each other’s toes and we’re all thinking alike—
Brandon: That’s #4—we’ll get to that!
Suzi: Okay, okay! And then we’ll hire a new person and they’ll kind of shake things up and we’ll realize the benefit of that, the value of that.
Brandon: We’ll get to that in a second. Myth #3, Mistakes are few.
Molly: I love that one. I’ve been doing a lot of research on that because, as a parent, this idea of the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, so growth mindset being that sometimes things are hard and sometimes I fall down and then I get back up again—much more important and valuable in the long run, both in business and in social situations and in life, frankly. There’s study after study talking about how the kids who have resiliency do a lot better than the kids who basically expect to be perfect and if they’re not perfect, they fall apart. They just are demolished.
Brandon: I heard somebody talk about how if you look at grade point average in college or whatever, 4.0 
students—do you really want to hire those people? Because, hey, they’re smart, but what happens if something goes wrong? I mean, the workplace is challenging, you get your first job and you can fall on your butt. And what happens if they crumble? Do you want that kind of person in your organization? You want people who have made mistakes and learned from them, right?
Molly: I think that’s the big thing, is learning from it. So if you just keep making mistakes, that’s not healthy. But if you make a mistake and then sit down and go, Wow, that was really painful! What did we do? So, a post-mortem or a debrief, and then you learn from it—that’s a learning organization.
Suzi: I agree. It’s the learning organization and I think it’s having a culture where risk taking is valued, because, again, that goes back to the innovation. If you’re not taking risks and trying new things out, then you could be missing out on an opportunity to create something new or improve an existing product or process.
Brandon: Okay. Myth #4, They hire for cultural fit. Suzi, you just talked about this!
Suzi: Yeah, and I think you do need to hire for cultural fit but also recognize that diversity and differing perspectives have value, too.
Molly: The HR term for it is if you hire only for the “similar to me” effect. So if everybody’s just like Molly or just like Suzi, you will be disappointed and you will end up with a team of clones whereas having people think outside the box—
Brandon: So this article says, “Hire for the same kind of people, it fosters complacency.” And I would agree with that, for the most part. I think there’s a way you can balance hiring for a culture fit and somebody who’s, like, so good at something it would make everybody else think differently. But if you hire for a culture where, let’s say, feelings are important and nobody wants to hurt each other’s feelings, then you could get complacent, I think, at times. So I don’t know if I necessarily agree with the myth, because I do think hiring for culture is really important, I just don’t think you can hire for 100% culture only.
Molly: I think the myth is more about the idea that if you’re hiring for your culture to be the exact same culture that you have now and heaven forbid our culture change, that’s the issue versus we want to fit basically the same general, positive, team-oriented culture, but that can look very different, depending on the package.
Suzi: Yeah, that’s why they call them core values. There’s always those deal breakers, right? I always like to use the example, If you don’t care about our customers, we can’t train you or help you or convince you to do that. You have to be wired that way or be committed in that respect, so you wouldn’t be a fit in that regard. But that doesn’t mean that you have to be similar and have similar beliefs and values to everyone in the organization. There just are some really key deal breaker values that need to be assessed.
Brandon: Myth #5, Their offices are full of fun things. I mean, we’re reading articles about Google and Zappo’s and all these big companies that have the budget and resources to have fun things in their office like sleeping pods and pool tables—
Molly: Dogs in the workplace!
Suzi: And a concierge!
Brandon: All these things. But small businesses are the backbone of the nation, right? I think most small businesses could not do this kind of stuff.
Molly: I think even more importantly, I can’t tell you, and I’m sure Suzi can think of a few companies that I’ve worked with where morale gets low, and it’s immediately decided that we should buy a pool table and put a pool table in the breakroom, because that’ll make everybody happier.
Brandon: It’s a band aid.
Molly: But it turns out that it’s one manager who is poisoning the culture. And you could have a pool table—people are still going to go out for lunch and get away from the office because they don’t want to be there, the culture is sick. I think sometimes the idea that we can buy things to make it fun, to make it better, is an unrealistic approach to looking at how are the relationships? How is the health of the workplace, are people out of control, autonomy, are they included?
Brandon: To that point, the segment from this article that I love, I highlighted, is, “To thrive at work, employees don’t need luxuries. What they need are experiences that fulfill their basic human needs,” and they basically just said, people perform their best when they’re competent, autonomous, and connected to other people. You don’t need fun stuff, you need that.
Suzi: That’s what’s in our DNA, yeah. I would argue and say that some of those workplace characteristics and perks do help with talent acquisition, with attracting. I think with a lot of those tech companies, for example, it does fit their personality so it’s not disingenuous. But it also helps them attract other people because they’re often competing with those large organizations that have all the cool flashy things going on. But I think to retain folks, I’m not sure that it’s necessary.
Brandon: To retain people, I think it’s more about purpose and Am I producing my best results here—I think that’s what’s going to keep most people working, not everybody, maybe sometimes the perks are what keep people there. But to your point, I think it’s more about drawing people in.
Suzi: Yeah, and I think it also has to fit your personality. Because you could read all these articles and you could start getting kind of anxious, like Oh gosh! We need to stay competitive and we need to implement a fun squad and blow up our office and redecorate and all those things! When it may not fit the personality and culture of the company, it just doesn’t. So then, are you really true to who you are? And maybe focusing on what you’re lacking—what do we offer that’s unique and great? What is our value proposition, and can we focus on that?
Brandon: Do you guys ever watch The Office? Michael Scott, he’s the worst manager. He cares about his people deeply, but he always wants to create a fun atmosphere. He
wants to have fun all the time! But the purpose and passion of what they’re doing for their clients, I mean they’re selling paper, and no disrespect to people selling paper, but they
just didn’t find the passion in what they were doing—he just wanted to have fun all the time. And I think that holds weight.
Suzi: It is superficial.
Brandon: It is superficial to help a little but not a lot.
Molly: I think you’re seeing, now, a backlash towards these super, uber open office environments where there’s no privacy in the workspace—a lot of people find that very disruptive. I can’t imagine if we had people running around through the cubes shooting each other with nerf guns all day long every day, that would get pretty tiresome if you’re on the phone with a client or working through a very complex spreadsheet for payroll. You know, there are moments where people really just want to be able to do good work, and it’s not about fun and games and bells and whistles. It’s about the work, the value of the work at the end of the day.
Brandon: Well, awesome discussion! Again, this article is from Harvard Business Review, it’s called “5 Myths of Great Workplaces” and we’ll definitely put the links up to the podcast. Thanks for joining us!
Image credit // Manik Rathee, Flickr