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Energize Your Workplace
How to Build and Sustain
High-Quality Connections at Work
By Jane E. Dutton
Published by Jossey-Bass, 2003
ISBN 0787956228
Introduction
The energy and vitality of individuals and organiza-
tions alike depend on the quality of connections —
connections among people within a company and
also between company members and people out-
side the firm with whom they do business. The key
to transforming both your own work experience
and the performance of people around you is to
build and nurture high-quality connections.
A high-quality connection is marked by mutual
positive regard, trust and active engagement. In a
high-quality connection, people feel more en-
gaged, more open and more competent. They feel
more alive.
By the same token, low-quality connections
exact a fearful toll on energy and well-being.
Low-quality connections are marked by distrust
and disregard of the other’s worth. Such connec-
tions can dissolve our sense of our own humani-
ty, competence and worth, and they can do so in
an instant.
Like metal eaten away by exposure to corro-
sive substances, people in organizations are cor-
roded through exposure to low-quality connec-
tions. When low-quality connections are pervasive
in an organization, they eat away at people’s ability
to learn, to show initiative and to take risks. They
corrode motivation, loyalty and commitment.
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A Bad Connection
Here’s an example of what happens when connec-
tions go wrong. Bruce Sills was in charge of strate-
gic planning at Phoenix Software, facing a de-
manding challenge to put a new planning system in
place. But he approached each day with zest and
bounced back from the obstacles he met.
Unfortunately, his boss left and was replaced
by a new VP of finance who was a very uncommu-
nicative manager. He responded to specific re-
quests for information but didn’t include Brian in
high-level meetings and rarely consulted him on
strategic matters.
Brian learned to live with that, but the connec-
tion became really corrosive when the VP reneged
on promises and failed to provide assistance when
Brian requested budgetary advice. Brian found his
stress growing and began to suffer from
headaches and numbness in his left hand. His per-
formance deteriorated as he began to feel less
sure of himself and increasingly unwilling to share
information with his boss. Instead of showing ini-
tiative, he kept his head down and focused on get-
ting through the day.
Meanwhile, as other staff members saw what
was happening, the corrosion spread. They started
to be more cautious about what they shared with the
VP. Communication and trust plummeted in the unit.
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Energize Your Workplace
A High-Quality Connection
Compare that with the story of Gayle, a successful
consultant in a well-known knowledge management
consulting firm in Minneapolis. She was physically ex-
hausted all the time, even though she didn’t feel she
was working excessively hard. She viewed interactions
with others as intrusions. She continually apologized
for times she’d been short with customers and unhelp-
ful or unavailable to colleagues and subordinates. She
was starting to dislike her job and herself with no ap-
parent reason.
Things turned around when a long-term client who
could sense her unhappiness told her she should start
viewing interactions with others as opportunities to
build nourishing and replenishing connections — even
if they lasted less than five minutes. He told Gayle that
this form of interacting didn’t take a lot of work but did
involve a major change in attitude. It meant seeing and
acting on the possibility that in every connection there’s
a wellspring of vitality to tap.
At first Gayle thought the advice was silly, but she
did give it a try. The next day, instead of brushing by
her mail carrier as she left for work, she stopped and
asked him how he was doing, which led to a brief story
about his daughter’s progress in school and how he
hoped she’d grow up to have a nice career like Gayle’s.
That gave her a little glow which continued
through the day and then into the coming weeks and
months. It was as if her positive encounters with oth-
ers were nourishing something inside her. Not only
that, she could see the heightened energy spread
through her unit.
Connections and Energy
Energy is the fuel that makes great organizations run.
Every interaction with others at work — big or small,
short or lengthy — has the potential to create or de-
plete vital energy. When positive energy is activated
through a high-quality connection, it can lead to what
psychologist Barbara Frederickson calls “positive
spirals.”
By the same token, corrosive connections drain
vital energy from the organization. Like high-quality
connections, they can be infectious. As one manager
puts it, “Corrosive connections are like black holes —
they absorb all of the light in the system and give noth-
ing back in return.”
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By Jane E. Dutton
Benefits for the Individual
High-quality connections facilitate the physical and
psychological health of individuals. Research suggests
that people who have more high-quality interactions
during the course of a day register greater well-being,
as evidenced by more positive emotions and greater
experienced vitality.
High-quality connections enable individuals to en-
gage more fully in the tasks that make up their jobs.
They feel a heightened capacity to devote time to the
work at hand, because the high-quality connections
provide a safe psychological haven that gives them
freedom to get engaged, to let go and to concentrate
more fully on the tasks at hand. People also learn
more easily when they enjoy high-quality connections
with others.
Benefits for the Organization
The organizational benefits of high-quality connections
are just as striking.
First, high-quality connections enhance the capaci-
ty to co-operate within and across units. Co-operation
is a lubricant that makes the everyday work of organi-
zations run smoothly.
Second, high-quality connections facilitate effec-
tive co-ordination between interdependent parts of an
organization. Jody Hoffer Gittell’s research into air-
lines, for example, found that in airlines that main-
tained high-quality connections, employees readily
adapted their work to help each other out to make
performance goals.
Third, high-quality connections strengthen employ-
ees’ attachments to their work organizations. One vice-
president of marketing in a large cosmetic manufactur-
er puts up with salary inequities, infrequent raises and
frustration with the firm’s relative slowness of competi-
tive response because of the quality of connections
with other employees: “I can count on them to be there
if life turns sour or things get rough. This feeling is
something that money can’t buy.”
Fourth, high-quality connections can facilitate the
transmission of purpose, a key consideration for organ-
izations that rely on culture and the transmission of val-
ues as a means to build loyalty and assure competitive
success. High-quality connections also encourage dia-
logue and deliberation and thereby facilitate organiza-
tional learning.
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Energize Your Workplace
Finally, an organization’s capacity to adapt and
change is tied to the quality of the relationships among
organizational members.
The Three Paths
There are three main pathways to high-quality connection:
• Respectful Engagement — Engaging others in
ways that send messages of value and worth.
• Task Enabling — Ways of interacting that facili-
tate another person’s successful performance.
• Trusting — Acting in ways that convey to others
the belief that they’ll act with integrity, dependability
and benevolence.
Respectful Engagement
Respectful engagement means being present to oth-
ers, affirming them and communicating and listening in
a way that manifests regard and an appreciation for the
other’s worth.
It doesn’t have to be a deep encounter. It can hap-
pen in the hallway as you’re going to a meeting or on
the phone lines in a customer-calling center. Small acts
of respectful engagement infuse a relationship with
greater energy while at the same time modeling behav-
ior that gets picked up by others.
There are five main strategies:
• Being Present. Being present for another person
implies being psychologically available and receptive.
Conveying presence means turning one’s attention to
another. It’s as much about resisting distraction as
inviting engagement.
• Being Genuine. It’s important to speak and react to
others from a real and honest place. Being genuine often
means behaving toward someone based on internal de-
sires and motivations, as opposed to external pressures.
• Communicating Affirmation. We need to go be-
yond being present and also actively look for the posi-
tive core or “divine spark” in another. One way to com-
municate affirmation is by recognizing and
understanding another person’s situation. Another way
is to look for the value in others — imagine and see
them in a positive light. An affirmative stance means
giving somebody the benefit of the doubt.
• Effective Listening. Really listening to what
somebody says is a form of respectful engagement. It
requires effort, as distractions are the norm in most
work settings.
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By Jane E. Dutton
• Supportive Communication. What we say, how
we say it and how another person understands our
communication are also essential to respectful engage-
ment. Supportive communication means expressing
yourself in a way that allows the other person to hear
you. It means being careful to express views and opin-
ions in ways that minimize defensiveness on the part of
others and maximize their clarity about where you
stand and how they can constructively respond.
Task Enabling
Task enabling comprises the various strategies people
use to facilitate the successful performance of others.
It resembles what Phil Jackson, the former long-time
coach of the Chicago Bulls basketball team, calls “in-
visible leadership.” It’s the attitude of serving direct re-
ports and facilitating the learning of subordinates that’s
embraced by Southwest Airlines supervisors: “We are
here to help them do their jobs.”
Again, there are five strategies to create task en-
abling:
• Teaching — Providing information that allows
people to do tasks more effectively.
• Designing — Enabling others by selecting and
arranging features of the job to make it more interesting
and appealing to the job holder.
• Advocating — Helping others perform by easing
the navigation of the political context of the organization.
• Accommodating — Altering the substance, tim-
ing or process of what you’re doing to enable others to
succeed with their work.
• Nurturing — Recognizing individuals’ develop-
mental needs in a way that helps them perform more
effectively.
Trusting
Acting with trust means behaving toward others in a
way that conveys belief in their:
• Integrity — Consistency between thought and
behavior.
• Dependability — Honesty and reliability.
• Benevolence — Desire and willingness to care.
In short, trusting involves acting on positive expec-
tations about other people’s behavior and intentions.
Whether you begin by conveying trust or being trusted,
trust takes you in the direction of a higher-quality, life-
giving connection to another person.
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Energize Your Workplace
Trust is a special resource in that it increases with
use. If one person acts toward another in a trusting
way, the action creates a self-fulfilling cycle.
In our wariness about trusting others, we often
adopt a “show me” stance. We say people have to
earn our trust, and then sit back and wait for them to
do so. But if we take the first step in building trust, we
become crafters of connecting possibilities, starting a
virtuous cycle in which trust builds upon itself.
We convey trust most clearly when we allow peo-
ple to see that we’re at risk in some way, making our
vulnerability and reliance on others more visible. That
can be difficult to do, as organizations can be tough
contexts for displaying vulnerability, but it can pay off in
higher-quality connections.
Conclusion
As a manager, you can have significant influence in
your immediate environment simply by making the
quality of connections a priority and using these vari-
ous strategies to set an example for others and to
coach those you manage.
Start by communicating why change is neces-
sary. Then engage in a genuine dialogue with others
about how to accomplish change directed towards
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By Jane E. Dutton
building a work unit or organization based on high-
quality connections.
Start small, seeking small wins that can build posi-
tive momentum and confidence. Finally, be patient and
persistent. Remember that all organizations pose many
challenges to meaningful change. e
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jane E. Dutton is a professor of
business administration at the University of Michigan.
Related Reading
The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and
Personal Life, by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benja-
min Zander, Harvard Business School Press, 2000,
ISBN 0875847706.
Competing in a Service Economy: How to Create a
Competitive Advantage through Service Development
and Innovation, by Michael D. Johnson and Anders
Gustafsson, Jossey-Bass, 2003, ISBN 0787961566.
The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of Rela-
tionships to Achieve High Performance, by Jody Hoffer
Gittell, McGraw-Hill, 2003, ISBN 0071396837.
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