IS IT FAMILY OR NEIGHBOR?

What happens if you declare that you and your colleagues are not just a team, but a family? Family “is a place of unconditional love,”  “The one place you ought to feel safe and valued is your family.” Just as with parenting, “leadership is the stewardship of the lives entrusted to you"

All companies want engaged employees. After all, people who are engaged put in effort that goes above and beyond the minimum that’s required to complete a task. They are less likely to look for another job. And they project positive energy, which improves the mood of other employees and customers.

One way to increase engagement is to foster a “neighbor” relationship.

Research on types of relationships suggests that we can break the world up into several kinds of relationships. I refer to the three that are particularly important in the context of business as strangers, family, and neighbors.

Strangers are people with whom we do not have a close connection; if we need their help, we pay them to provide it. Families are people with whom we have a close bond and for whom we do whatever is needed, often expecting nothing in return. In between strangers and family are neighbors — people with whom we have a reasonably close relationship, who offer us help, and expect help in return.

It’s not good to have a workplace that consists primarily of strangers, because every interaction becomes a fee-for-service transaction and strangers are not motivated to go above and beyond the specific tasks presented to help the organization fulfill its goals. Moreover, the social environment in a workplace full of strangers does not energize employees to want to come to work.

Likewise, it’s dangerous for most organizations to function as a family, because not all employees will pull their own weight. It’s an inefficient and demoralizing way to work.

But with our neighbors, we try to balance what we do for them and what we get from them over time. We construct covenants in which everyone shares a common vision and agrees to do what they can to work toward these common interests.

In a healthy workplace, neighbor-employees work hard, secure in the knowledge that the organization is looking out for them. The organization succeeds because its employees put in a reasonable amount of extra time and effort for each other.

There are several ways to promote a neighborhood in the workplace. At the core of each of these techniques is a demonstration that the organization has a broader vested interest in its employees. This reassurance is particularly important for publicly traded companies that are normally focused on improving earnings each quarter.