Hope Makes a Difference

How Business Leaders can Increase Workplace Productivity

May 24, 2009 Paul Larson

People who have high hopes will work hard to achieve their goals.

Those with a moderate amount of hope will work but not nearly to such a level of performance and those with no hope at all will give up or become demoralized.

When people get disconnected from who it is they are as a person they experience a loss of hope. When people are asked to describe their typical experience on a long driving trip they often describe a tendency to start out at a pretty good pace, slow down considerably during the middle portion of the trip, and speed up to the point where their fastest speeds are probably occurring at the very end.

How Business Leaders can Increase Workplace Productivity

What happens here is they start out hopeful and then after a while the reality of the trip sets in and they realize just how long it will take. Their speed drops off. Towards the end they are encouraged by how little there is left to go and many speed up at this point. They are at their highest level of hope in turns of getting the trip over and they are also traveling at their fastest speeds of the journey.

People who have hope in the workplace will also perform better. It is up to managers to clearly show the way so everyone will understand what has to be done and has a high degree of hope that it will happen. Those with high hope will set higher goals and will be more likely to achieve them due to their knowledge of how to work to attain them.

With hope, work teams don’t give in to anxiety and defeatist attitudes. They believe they have both the will and the way to accomplish their goals and they usually do. They carry an optimism with them that buffers them against falling into apathy and hopelessness in the face of tough going.

As with hope, the level of optimism is a predictor of success. It is the combination of a reasonable amount of talent and ability to keep going in the face of defeat that leads these work groups to success. This comes full circle for the team with a developed competency to tackle and solve problems that gives them the confidence that they have mastery over their situation, which in turn strengthens the level of optimism.

The Lesson for Business Leaders

Now more risks are taken and more demanding challenges are responded to. The lesson for business leaders is there is a self-fulfilling prophecy with those who are hopeful where their beliefs about their abilities have a profound affect on those abilities. The leader’s task then becomes one of managing meaning so people have a clear view of how important their work is and understand they have the wherewithal to achieve their goals.

The copyright of the article Hope Makes a Difference in Business Management is owned by Paul Larson. Permission to republish Hope Makes a Difference in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

People With High Hopes Will Outperform Others