Manage to Engage

CHAPTER 2The Ice Age: It's Alive and Well at Work

There is … compelling evidence that work has an inherently beneficial impact on an individual's state of health. In particular, the recent review ‘Is work good for your health and wellbeing?’ concluded that work was generally good for both physical and mental health and wellbeing. It showed that work should be ‘good work’ which is healthy, safe, and offers the individual some influence over how work is done and a sense of self-worth. Overall, the beneficial effects of work were shown to outweigh the risks and to be much greater than the harmful effects of long-term worklessness or prolonged sickness absence.

—Dame Carol Black – author of Working for a Healthier Tomorrow¹

In their book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks, scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler detail the way that people influence each other's happiness.² Their research (and our own common sense) tells us that we have a profound influence on one another's behavior, tastes, health, wealth, beliefs, even weight!

My conclusion was also common sense – we should all be much more aware of how we affect others at home, at work and at play. What you say and do affects results – for better or for worse. Each minute you allow your teams to be under-engaged, you create toxins in your business. We all know the impact of a misplaced or poorly expressed thought on one another's emotions. And as humans, we are natural influencers and imitators. ...