The Science Behind SuperBeings

It is well known that how we behave in an office or any work set-up is determined greatly by the rules, policies, and expectations of the workplace itself. In office we do more of what is rewarded and praised and avoid doing anything that is punished. This polarity in underlying contextual rules set our behavior and often influences the goals we finally set.

Some of these contextual rules are overt while some are covert in nature. Some can be learned by understanding the HR policies and practices while some are learned through careful observation.

For example, Founder Jeff Bezos’ obsession with world class customer experience, covertly lets employees at all levels know that they must optimize their performance for customer experience.

Similarly, Steve Jobs’ focus on innovation has made Apple a company where innovation is the most rewarded trait.

When the underlying value is already known to the organization and its leaders, they can develop HR policies and design the workplace so as to reinforce these specific, desired behaviors.

Ultimately, it is the aim of every organization to have an army of employees with them who have the same vision as their higher management and are deeply moved by the organization’s culture to meet the company objectives through their performance.

For any HR policy or top-down cultural approach to successfully induce long-term behavior change, it is crucial for the management to ensure that the employees believe that these organizational and HR policies are in alignment with their personal needs, values and interests. Therefore, organizations are in dire need of bringing together content, context and process – all three approaches of motivation.

This brings us to our next section i.e. the Person-Environment fit.