There’s a natural state of heightened attention to the self when we know we’re being watched, Bernstein notes. “Our practiced response become better,” he told me, “our unpracticed responses become worse.” So actions that have been drilled by the boss may well turn out better when everyone believes the boss is watching. On the other hand, for behavior that isn’t already learned—where the best response needs unselfconscious focus on the problem, and the chance to try something new without fear—being watched makes things harder. Attention that could have gone to one’s actions goes, instead, to managing the appearance of one’s actions.
The “gospel of transparency” declares that this is not a problem, because workers should stick to management’s script. But in one vast Chinese factory that Bernstein studied, workers who craftily deviated from standard procedure often improved the plant’s productivity.
People act differently when they know they are being watched. Period. Whether you are talking about the workplace, out in public, at events, etc. and the way we behave when being watched is not always in the best interests of the company or society.
There are serious ramifications to this study, in and out of the workplace.
Hmm, this seems a bit too familiar. Doesn’t it? Dave’s organisation has a wellbeing policy. They are on it. They have Mental Health Champions, an Employee Assistance Programme and a whole section on the intranet about ‘sleep hygiene’, healthy eating, the office choir and cycling to work. But is it all just window dressing? Are…
I’d argue that no job is worth risking your health, but I don’t think Elon would see it that way.
I know he likes to brag about his work hours and how “No one ever changed the world working 40 hours per week”. Reading the science on how more mistake-prone employees working all of those long hours can be makes me wonder if Elon had taken a few hours off and gotten some rest maybe he doesn’t make that offer to buy Twitter and find himself in the mess he’s in.
It’s Hurricane Season: Does Your Law Firm Have a Disaster Plan? The rise of the eDiscovery professional Cybersecurity: 99% of email attacks rely on victims clicking links Top 4 Picks for eDiscovery Training Searching for Email Addresses Can Have Lots of Permutations Too Training for a Mentally Healthy Workplace Catfishing: Scammers Are Pretending to be…
Given everything we’ve seen in 2020, this probably shouldn’t surprise anyone. Young people who have been paying attention to what is happening to their peers as they head into the workplace, and their parents as they struggle with raising children while working from home, are interested in seeing more on the mental health front from…
This kind of research goes hand in hand with much of the research on social media. Do happy people naturally connect with people better and have more meaningful conversations? Do unhappy people spend more time on social media having shallow interactions? Further research is still needed, because it’s not clear whether people make themselves happier…
This is a video from a recent online, virtual World Happiness Agora, focused on ‘The Future of Health’. In this particular segment, Sheila Dutta, PhD, MPH, from the World Bank, talks about how a lack of mental health care is directly impacting business development around the world. It’s an important topic, one that is becoming…
Subscribe to the weekly newsletterEvery new post, plus a lot more content about Careers and the Workplace, Mental Health at Work, eDiscovery, Privacy and Security delivered each week to your inbox!
