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Trying to understand what leads a team member to engage in a day of particularly exceptional work can feel like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. But researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University say there may actually be a way to dig into this phenomenon and, thus, find ways to facilitate a working environment that best leads to success.
In a recently published report, the researchers assessed 11,000 workers, asking them to identify five typical workday experiences and decide how the factors that influence those characterizations made them more or less creative on the job. They say workplace experiences that are “dull,” for example, have an impact on a person’s performance.
The research team identified 5 main experiences that they say typify daily work for participants, characterizing them as: Ideal, typical, crisis, disengaged, or toxic days. Ideal and typical days make up more than two-thirds of workdays for most, with crisis days — those spent wrestling key or timely problems — consisting of another 20%.
And while ideal days are considered the best for creativity, it’s actually the disengaged or toxic days that are the ones to be actively avoided. Toxic days are described as “those low in stimulant factors such as freedom and organizational support but high in obstacle factors such as time pressures and conservative attitudes. These days are rife with conflict, and not the good kind.”
Researchers believe employers can help facilitate the right working environment by offering creative stimulants and reducing barriers like lack of freedom. For example, resisting the urge to stack meetings back to back in order to help employees maintain a mostly consistent string of ideal days.
And while most workplaces are dynamic, say the authors, it’s also common for workers to have similar experiences day to day, meaning many consecutive toxic or disengaged days can lead to a rut that’s hard to resolve.
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