Beyond the Desk: The Human Factor in Workplace Success

Have you ever noticed that when someone is watching you or looking over your shoulder that all of a sudden things change, you perk up a little bit and start acting more interested and try to do a better job because you know what you are doing is being watched by another person. Today we're going to talk about that and realize there's actually a study that has been done on it to help you to do better in every area of your life.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rohm, and on today's podcast, I want to talk to you about one of the best things I have ever learned in my whole life. When I was in graduate school, we did a lot of research in a lot of different areas about human behavior as well as psychology and how we interact with one another as people. One of the things that we learned is the fact that when all of us realize that we are being watched by another person, we tend to raise our awareness factor and do a better job. We also know that when people show a personal interest in us, it causes us to want to do better. I mean, how many of us have ever had a parent, a teacher, or a coach to say a kind word to us, and it just made us feel like a million dollars? Well, most of this goes back to a study that was done at the Hawthorne H A W T H O R N E Hawthorne Western electric plant from 1924 to 1927. During this period of time, researchers were trying to find out what made employees productive. The question on the table was, how can we get more out of our employees? How can we help them to do their job better? And how can they enjoy what they're doing on a daily basis even better and do a better job and be more effective? So all the researchers came into the Hawthorne plant and started interviewing all of the employees. The first step was all about lighting. Do you like sitting by a window? Do you like light coming in from the front of your desk? Would you prefer the light to be on the left side or the right side? And they also ask other questions to the individual employees, trying to find out what they liked the best in the researchers would take all of their notes and begin to compile to see if they could find some kind of methodology or standardization that they would be able to use with other businesses as well to see how people work more Effectively, I began to just love studies like this because it gives you keen insight into how people think, how people act, and how people react. Here. Much of this was done during my early formation days of the DISC model of human behavior. I had not yet really understood that or had seen the power in it, but I knew that there was something powerful about working with people, showing a personal interest in them and trying to understand what made them tick. Beard also was trying to find out what kept them from being ticked off. Anyway, back to the story. So the researchers spent time at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant three years from 1924 to 1927. Many of these students who were researchers were working on their PhD. For those of you that don't know, in the PhD program, you have to do a doctoral dissertation. This is based on hundreds of hours, even years of research that you have to accomplish in order to find some piece, some small piece of information that has not been previously known, that you can add to the body of learning or the body of information that's in the world. Have you ever wondered why there's so many books in the library? Have you wondered why there's so much research done in different areas? Most of the time it is by doctoral students trying to learn something new or find some small piece of information that can be added to the body of knowledge that people learn and study in order to become more educated, feared. These people become college professors, and usually they go on to have great careers.

So these researchers were doing all that they could to find out what made the employees at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant more effective. They asked them every question they could about lighting, about their desk, about their comfort, about their chair, and they would compile the information. The researchers would take all the information and compile it in order to try to find out if there were some chi, some secret, some methodology that they could use for all of the other businesses and all of the other companies they would be working with. Well, the more they spent time with the employees at the Hawthorne Electric plant, the more the productivity picked up. I mean, the productivity increased, teamwork increased, the bottom line increased. Everybody was happy. The researchers were also happy because they knew that they were onto something. They were finding the secrets that employees like in order to have effective daily work. Can you imagine? What if you could come up, think about it. What if you could come up with a secret that would make every employee at any business, whether it be an airline, whether it be an electric company, whether it be Joe's Bar and Grill, whether it be the lifeguards at the pool, whatever it is, you could find the secret that would cause them to want to work harder, to have a better attitude, to create collegiality, teamwork, camaraderie, all the big words that basically mean working better together. Can you imagine what a company would pay for that information? How do we get our employees to do a good job, to have a good attitude, to work hard? Can you imagine applying that in school? What if there were a secret that you could teach schools? If you'll do this one thing, it will cause the students to work harder, study harder, make better grades, they'll be more productive, their SAT scores, ACT scores will increase. What if you can come up with that? Well, you can see real quickly, you'd have a multi million dollar, billion dollar idea on your hands that you could sell or transfer to other organizations. That's what they were trying to figure out. And this was about 100 years ago. So you can see that all of this didn't begin with us. It began with smart people who were doing research decades ago. Anyway, after all the research was gathered, the researchers went back and they put their heads together to see which way is the best lighting, which way is the desk, the chair? Is there a certain time to have breaks? Is there a certain time for there to be snacks or food? How can we create productivity? What is the best way, the secret, the number one way that we can cause things to go better in any organization.

Unfortunately, when the researchers left the Hawthorne Western Electric plant, productivity fell off. It just declined almost overnight. Everything went back to normal. Productivity decreased, teamwork, camaraderie, everything that had been picking up suddenly stopped. And the researchers scratched their head and they said, well, wait a minute, what is going on here? We thought that after spending months, even years working with all these people, we could surely find the secret. And you know what they found out? None of the information they found was any secret at all. That caused the researchers to really scratch their heads and say, what in the world is happening here? And finally, this is part of the story I love so much. Finally, the researchers considered the fact. Maybe it wasn't anything that we were trying to change at all. Maybe it wasn't the lighting or the desk or the chair or the food. Maybe that was none of it. Maybe it was the fact we were showing personal interest in a person and letting them know we cared about them. We communicated. I am interested in you and your comfort and your productivity and your job and your schoolwork and your business and your way of life. In a nutshell, it was called customer Relationships, customer satisfaction. It was showing the greatest concept we have ever known. It's called how do you love one another? They begin to realize, in the purest sense of the word, listening to someone, caring about someone, letting them know that you're interested in their life and what they do every day, all of a sudden, increased productivity. And then when the personal interest and the daily meetings and the observation stopped, people went back to what we would call average or, no, normal. And, you know, I certainly never want to be average, because average is just as near the bottom as it is the top. I want to be above average. I want to be special. I don't want to be better than someone. I'm not trying to outdo someone. I'm only competing with myself. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to do the best job I can be. But it has absolutely nothing with trying to out achieve another person or try to make someone look bad. I've learned day by day that if you show good customer service, if you care about people, if you communicate, I want to share something with you that has helped me and I believe it will help you as well, then you're making progress. Think about it just for a second, when your mom or dad or brother or sister or teacher or coach or employer sits down and says, how can I make your job better? Tell me what you do every day. I was with Truitt Cathy one day. He was the founder of Chick Fil? A. Many of you have had that wonderful experience of going to a Chick Fil? A restaurant. And Truitt was from the old school. I mean, the old, old school. The old school of customer service. If you've ever been to a Chick Fil? A, they really popularized the phrase my pleasure. And the reason they communicate that's so much better than thank you. You're welcome. But my pleasure. It shows I care about you. It made me happy to serve you. I was with Truitt one day, and a young kid was cleaning the restaurant, and he didn't know who Truitt Cathy was. He didn't know he was the one who had started and owned the Dwarf House restaurant and Hateful, which eventually morphed into Chick Fil? A Worldwide. And so Truitt asked the young kid, I'll never forget I was with him. He said, son, what do you do here? And the boy looked up at him and he said, well, I clean up. I clean the bathrooms, I clean the tables. And I was just standing there listening, trying to learn something from an older, wiser Gentleman. And Truitt looked at the kid and he said, you know, if I were you, if I had your job, those would be the cleanest bathrooms anybody ever walked into. I'd want to make people feel like, I'm glad I came into this restroom because it's clean, it's fresh, it's not nasty, it's not dirty. This is a. An experience of walking. How many of us have walked into a dirty, nasty bathroom? And we thought, oh, my gosh, somebody needs to service this place. Somebody needs to clean this. And then you walk into one that, oh, my gosh, some of them. And some of these places of business are just immaculate. I don't know if you've ever been to a Bucky's, and this is not an advertisement for Buckies, but if you've ever been to one, you walk into their bathrooms, I was telling you their TVs, places you can get manicured, pedicure. I'm being a little ridiculous, but they are some really, really, really nice bathrooms. Or Truitt, Kathy told this kid, if I were you, if I had your job, I have the bat and cleanest bathrooms anywhere. And then kid was standing there listening. And Truitt said to him, you know why I would do that? And the kid said, no, sir. And he said, I would show my boss, I would show my manager that I love my job and I cared about people so much that they couldn't keep me at this low level, entry level job. They would have to promote me. They would have to move me up somewhere in the organization where they. I would have more valuable than just cleaning the restrooms. Now hear me well. There's nothing wrong with anyone who cleans the restroom. I have been a lifeguard and I've cleaned restrooms, I've cleaned pools. I've done a lot of cleaning in my life. But most of us know if you work hard and you have a good attitude, success is like cream. It always rises to the top. So wrapping up here in just our last few minutes together, I want you to hear me well, if you will learn that the Hawthorne effect, sometimes it's even called the halo effect. It was the mistake of thinking. We have found the answer by knowing which light or which way lighting should come into an employee's desk. We thought that was the secret. We found out that wasn't the secret at all. The secret was I care about you. I want to listen to you. I want to hear your heart. I want to hear your mind. I want to know what you're thinking. I Want to know what you're feeling. And if you communicate that to someone, whether it's your child, your mate, an employee, an employer, everything rises just like cream rises to the top or a rising tide raises all ships. While communicating to someone. Hey, I want to listen to you. I want to find out what's going on in your head. I want to know what's going on in your heart. I care about you. I want to listen to you. You're an important person to me. You're an important part of my life. And I want, appropriately, to let you know I love you. I care about you. You mean a lot to me. I had been using the Hawthorne Effect, and then when I began to study DISC and the model of human behavior, everything began to be even more clear. Because these need results. Eyes need recognition, S's need relationships, and C's need to be right. And when you understand that and you give people what they need and you connect with them, everything is better. So here's your assignment, campers. Here's your assignment for this week. Communicate to other people that you care about them, that you love them, that you're interested in them in an appropriate way. And let them know you want to know what's going on in their mind and in their heart. Sit down with them, whether it's at home, at school or work or play, and just communicate. Hey, I'd like to get to know you better. I'm doing maybe a little project that I learned in one of my podcasts of the Hawthorne Effect. And they might say, what in the world is that? And just say, I learned from the Hawthorne Effect. They were trying to find the secret to making people more productive, and they ended up finding the surprise secret, which is caring about people and listening to them is really what life's all about. I'm Dr. Robert Rohm. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. Be sure to share it with other people. Stay connected with us. We have these podcasts once a week. They're meant to encourage you, to enlighten you, and to give you great direction in life. Hope you have an awesome week, and I look forward to our next time together. Thank you so much. God bless you. Have a great day. Take care. Bye. Bye.

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