Inner Work Life Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance Authors: Teresa M. Amabile & Steven J. Kramer By: Samantha Heastie

About the Authors Teresa M. Amabile Professor at the Harvard Business School Received her Doctorate degree from Stanford University in 1977 Her work researches how life inside organizations can influence people and their performance Dr. Amabile's current research program focuses on the psychology of everyday work life Teresa has countless amounts of her work published

About the Authors Steven J. Kramer Kramer is the co-author of The Progress Principle Kramer is best known for being an independent researcher and writer in Wayland, Massachusetts He received his undergraduate degree from UCLA and his doctorate from the University of Virginia. Kramer's current research ventures include adult development, the meaning of work in human life, and the subjective experience of everyday events inside organizations (inner work life). Similar to Dr. Amabile, Kramer also has several published works In 2005, Kramer won the Leadership Quarterly Best Paper Award

Dynamics Affect Work Performance A study of 238 professionals from 26 project teams in 7 companies and 3 industries over a period of 3 year Over 80% of participants were college educated Daily diary entries Collected 12,000 diary entries

Dynamics Affect Work Performance Diary forms consisted of quite a few numerical questions asking participants to rate their own perceptions of the various aspects of the work environment Open-ended question Brief report of one event

Research Discoveries The results of the research led to the discovery of how relentless and inescapable inner work life is and how it functions as a complex system Also, this research in turn served as a foundation for the conclusions about inner work life: what affects it and how inner work life affects performance

Components of Inner Work Life Perceptions Emotions Motivations

Perceptions The Work Self Team The Organization

Emotions Happiness Pride, warmth, love Sadness Anger/ frustration Fear

Motivations What to do Whether to do it How to do it When to do it

Who’s Having a Good Day? Elements of Performance Creativity Productivity Commitment Collegiality

The Good Management Does

Enable Progress Achieving Goals Accomplishing a task Solving a problem

Manage with a Human Touch Praise without real progress, give little positive impact on people's inner work life and may give off a sense of cynicism Good progress without praise or criticism may produce anger or sadness in employee Best booster to inner work life: Management recognizing and praising people for the good progress and efforts to their work

Inner Work Life “As the proportion of time that is claimed by work rises, inner work life becomes a bigger component of life itself. People deserve happiness. They deserve dignity and respect. When we act on that realization, it is not only good for business. It affirms out value as human beings.”

References "Faculty & Research." Teresa M. Amabile. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6409>. "Steven Kramer, Ph.D." Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness Find a Therapist. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/steven-j-kramer-phd>. Osland, Joyce, and Marlene E. Turner. "Inner Work Life." The Organizational Behavior Reader. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. 159-69. Print.