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When researchers tell us employee engagement is especially low, they’re almost always referring to American businesses. But as distressing as engagement is in the United States, the truth is it’s far worse in Europe and the UK – a fact this podcast is dedicated to exploring.
Just a few days before this interview with Dan Cable, professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School, the London Times reported statistics that might be laughable were they not true:
Research shows 1-in-2 Britains dread getting out of bed on work-day mornings, and 1-in-4 say they never have a single happy moment while on the job. Making matters worse, the study asserts that workers are starving for appreciation and recognition – an indication that workplace managers aren’t even getting the basics right.
A consistent theme of the Lead From The Heart podcast is that findings like these shouldn’t come as a surprise. We continue to manage human beings in ways that effectively undermine their optimal performance – and it’s because we’re still employing outdated leadership practices passed on to us from generations long-ago.
A while back, I asked Wharton Professor and best-selling author Adam Grant to recommend people he believed would be great guests on this podcast; and Dan Cable was first on his list. Dan (as the author of the new book, “Alive At Work”) very much believes there’s a biological reason so many of us are discontented at work. And much of this podcast is devoted to exploring the many ways managers can re-activate their employee’s “seeking system,” the part of the mind that holds such great sway over human behavior.
Dan holds an undergraduate degree from Penn State University along with a masters and Ph.D from Cornell University. With optics into the US and the UK – not to mention having done considerable work with many global companies, he’s in a great position to help us understand why so many people everywhere are miserable in their jobs – and how managers must help them return to being “alive at work.”
This is one of the most dynamic and informative podcast conversations yet!
