Walker

Walker joined Difficult Run as an editor in August 2013. He graduated from the University of North Texas with an MBA in Strategic Management and a BBA in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. He's currently a grad student in Government at Johns Hopkins University. He has been published in SquareTwo, BYU Studies Quarterly, Dialogue, Graziadio Business Review, and Economic Affairs. He also contributed to Julie Smith's (ed.) 'As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture'. His other online writing can be found at Worlds Without End and Times & Seasons. He lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife.

The Power of Workplace Autonomy

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office-space-cubicle-o

In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (the book that convinced me organizational behavior was important), business author Dan Pink identified three major factors that lead to better job performance (when money is no longer an issue): (1) autonomy, (2) mastery, and (3) purpose. A new blog post at Harvard Business Review discusses recent research that provides more support for the notion of autonomy. “An emerging suite of literature and research…clearly points to the power of choice and autonomy to drive not only employee happiness, but also motivation and performance. We found that knowledge workers whose companies allow them to help decide when, where, and how they work were more likely to be satisfied with their jobs, performed better, and viewed their company as more innovative than competitors that didn’t offer such choices.”

The main research comes from Gensler’s 2013 U.S. Workforce Survey. Even more interesting is that workplace autonomy was only one of three major findings from the Gensler Survey:

  1. Employees who can focus are more effective. “When focus is compromised in pursuit of collaboration, neither works well.”
  2. Effectively balancing focus and collaboration improves performance.
  3. Employees with more choice are more effective.

To all the managers in our readership: you might want to check this out.

Feeling the Love…at Work

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A new blog post at Harvard Business Review looks at a longitudinal study forthcoming in Administrative Science Quarterly, which

surveyed 185 employees, 108 patients, and 42 patient family members at two points in time, 16 months apart, at a large, nonprofit long-term healthcare facility and hospital in the Northeast. Using multiple raters and multiple methods, we explored the influence that emotional culture has on employee, patient, and family outcomes. What we learned demonstrates how important emotional culture is when it comes to employee and client well-being and performance. Employees who felt they worked in a loving, caring culture reported higher levels of satisfaction and teamwork.  They showed up to work more often. Our research also demonstrated that this type of culture related directly to client outcomes, including improved patient mood, quality of life, satisfaction, and fewer trips to the ER. While this study took place in a long-term care setting ­— which many people might consider biased toward the “emotional” — these findings hold true across industries. We conducted a follow-up study, surveying 3,201 employees in seven different industries from financial services to real estate and the results were the same.

This is why organizational and management research has been a major part of my work in theology. I’m excited for the future of management.

The Pre-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

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Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute has an excellent article at Public Discourse entitled “Why Max Weber Was Wrong,” packing in a wealth of information and resources regarding the development of capitalism. Far from having Protestant roots, capitalism grew up in the very Catholic West. “Even Catholic critics of modern capitalism,” writes Gregg, “have had to concede that “the commercial spirit” preceded the Reformation by at least two hundred years. From the eleventh century onward, the words Deus enim et proficuum (“For God and Profit”) began to appear in the ledgers of Italian and Flemish merchants. This…symbolized just how naturally intertwined were the realms of faith and commerce throughout the world of medieval Europe.” Drawing on the work of various researchers and historians, Gregg points to the increased sophistication and innovation of banking, business models, and wealth creation in the Middle Ages. He concludes, “The point…is that the widespread association of one form of Protestantism with capitalism is theologically dubious, empirically disprovable, and largely incidental. To make these observations is not to propose that modern capitalism was somehow constructed upon a “Catholic ethic.” That would be equally false. It is simply to note that much of Weber’s particular analysis is very questionable and that this should be acknowledged by economists, historians, and above all, by Catholics.”

Check it out.

The Slow Hunch: A Man With True Grit (A Recap)

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"They tell me you are a man with true grit."
“They tell me you are a man with true grit.”

I haven’t been linking my posts from The Slow Hunch much and with school beginning, it will be difficult to do longer, well-researched write-ups. My most recent post explains the brief hiatus and attempts to spin it into a personal development of “grit.” Since posts will be rare in the next few weeks, readers will have time to catch up on the last few (I know that’s been a high priority for them…). Without further ado:

  • “A Gritty Hiatus” is the one the described above and features some interesting links on MBAs, grit, willpower, and focus.
  • “‘I Have Seen Hell…’” looks at the historical impact of the Christian worldview on human dignity and welfare and the power it can have for human well-being today.
  • “Engaging Heaven: Further Notes on ‘The Upward Path’” is a follow-up to a two-part series at Worlds Without End (mentioned by Nathaniel both here at DR and at Times & Seasons) on worker engagement, positive psychology, and personal and organizational well-being.

More Links on Inequality and Mobility (Again…)

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I know what some readers may be thinking: “Another post on income inequality and mobility??”

Yes, seriously. Poverty is a serious issue and addressing and understanding it is more complex than simple wealth redistribution or bootstrapping/incentivize rhetoric. I’m also more interested in relieving absolute poverty and creating healthy economic mobility than income inequality. So, for your reading pleasure:

 

Freedom in the 50 States

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Most people interested in economics are likely familiar with the Fraser Institute’s annual Economic Freedom of the World reports along with the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has a Freedom in the 50 States report, parsing and ranking all 50 states in terms of economic and personal freedoms. My own state, Texas, comes in at #14 in the latest ranking (our neighbor Oklahoma comes in at #5).

Check it out and discover how your state ranks.

Scientific Belief vs. Scientific Literacy

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Back in November, Nathaniel had a Times & Seasons post based on a survey from Pew Research. The survey looked at beliefs regarding evolution across various religious denominations. Yet, Nathaniel pointed out that the survey isn’t really about evolution. “It’s basically a roll call to see where  people stand on the perceived cultural war between religion and science”:

Folks who embrace strong, anti-scientific rhetoric are flaunting their disregard for the world’s estimation of their IQ and burnishing their loyalty for all to see. They are signalling to their fellows, yes, but it’s more than that. They are enacting a narrative of persecution and using the scorn that comes their way to validate their sense of importance and role in a larger narrative. The folks on the other side of the fence, those who mock the anti-science crowd, are displaying their sophistication and cosmopolitan nature. Once again, they are signalling to their fellows and strengthening social bonds, but they are also paying the cover charge to see themselves as participants in some grand endeavor. Instead of taking the role of a stalwart band of besieged disciples, however, they are playing the part of foot soldier in the ongoing march of progress. Mocking those who seem ignorant is a cheap price to pay for feeling like you’re part of the rising tide of enlightened reason. (Especially if you bear the burden of a near total lack of relevant scientific expertise.)

This astute observation from Nathaniel has some backing from the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School. Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School, has a couple posts demonstrating that “”believing in evolution” is not the same as “understanding” or even having the most rudimentary knowledge of science knows about the career of life on our planet. Believing and understanding are in fact wholly uncorrelated.”

Turns out the scientific beliefs of the public actually end up being cultural beliefs; markers along political divisions with no basis in scientific literacy. Eye-opening stuff. Give it a read.

3 Factors of Economic Mobility

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Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia has an excellent piece in The Atlantic, which analyzes data from the Equality of Opportunity Project on what factors contribute to economic mobility. Wilcox finds three main factors: (1) Per-capita income growth, (2) Prevalence of single mothers (negative), (3) Per-capita local government spending (likely a proxy for education spending or public transportation).

 

 

Wilcox concludes,

As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty this week, it’s worth considering that our attention to income inequality, although well-meaning, is distracting us from the most important pieces in the poverty puzzle. Growth, marriages, and local governments are three issues deserving more attention in our efforts to renew the American Dream for the nation’s poorest citizens.

The Science of Sleep: Some Links

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Given my own tendency toward sleep deprivation, I found the following links illuminating: