As my granddaughter is learning about dinosaurs in day care, I’ve been reading about the extinction of some in the work place. Typewriters and rolodexes have been gone for awhile, but will desks, land-line phones, desk-top computers and printers last another decade?

            How we communicate and interact has historically influenced much of how we exist, including cultures, organizational structures, power, progress and status.  It is not a new thought that today’s technology will transform the work place and redefine communities.  The question is to what extent and how fast.

            Communication theorists in the 50’s talked about the events that were sparked by the emergence of the mass media, in business and in governing, such as competition, the destruction of power structures and the outbreak of wars.  The impact was tremendous.

            The internet and Wi-Fi are changing communication patterns again, this time allowing consumption to be fragmented or unified by the masses.  To understand the scope of possibility of today’s technology, I look back to these same theorists of the 50s.

            In the introduction to the book The Bias of Communication by Harold A. Innis, Marshall McLuhan writes:

            “He is merely assuming that an extension of information in space has a centralizing power regardless of the human faculty that is amplified and extended. … But electric technology is instant and ominipresent and creates multiple centres-without-margins.  Visual technology whether by literacy or industry creates nations as spatially uniform and homogenous and connected. But the electronic technology creates not the nation but the tribe – not the superficial association of equals but the cohesive depth pattern of the totally involved kinship groups.”

            He was not talking about the internet or all the mobile devices to which most of us have become accustomed, but he could have been.  And his words speak to application in the business world.

            Capital One opened itself to change based on the reach and ability up-to-the-minute technology would afford them. With the goals of increasing retention through greater job satisfaction of employees, improving productivity and reducing the costs related to real estate, Capital One started equipping some its “knowledge” employees with Wi-Fi enabled laptops, a voice-over internet protocol connection, and a Blackberry cell-phone device. And there is a web portal to access workflow applications.

            At the same time they took away desks, cubicles and offices; these spots were empty 40 percent of the time anyway.  Instead, Capital One provided quiet sites, coffee bars, team rooms and accommodations for working at home. 

            And the results, according to Robert Turner, senior VP of  technology operations, was not just reduced costs, the simplification of management, less wasted time due to phone tag and more employee satisfaction, but an increase of real estate efficiency by 50 percent.  They actually have a higher head count per square foot operating the mobile way.

            While there are an array of businesses that have equipped some its employees with cell phones and laptops, that’s where it has stopped.  Desks and work cubicles remain the norm.

            Capital One, over the past four years, has shown that technology can be a powerful tool on many business fronts.  And the 2007 Benefits Survey by the Society of Human Resource Management confirms that employees who have the flexibility to telecommunte are more satisfied, more committed and more productive.

            Nonetheless, I predict businesses will be slow to change. They will site the cost of investing in upgraded technology as the reason, and they will remain blind to the cost of turnover, building expenses and inefficiency.

Leaders of breakthrough companies “crown the company, not themselves.” They are not concerned about loyalty to themselves, but rather loyalty to the company. The leader’s ego is checked permanently at the door.

That’s according to Keith McFarland, author of the just released book, The Breakthrough Company. With a study pool of 7,000 companies, McFarland hones in on nine that pushed past the entrepreneurial stage.

Other commonalities of these companies include:

• Thriving on “insultants,” not consultants. Many of those insultants, people who insult the business or strategy, are found within the company. It’s OK to say something is screwed up, and there is no fear of being told to “shut up.” Ah, critical evaluations are encouraged.
• Being great at developing people. Training is a priority. One example McFarland shares is that at Fastenal, the nuts and bolts company, the average tenure among the top 25 employees is 23 years. That’s refreshing after the never-ending articles in the trade journals about ongoing management shuffles.
• Creating cultures that allow ordinary workers to thrive. The strategies are clear and skills are attainable by all.
• Looking outside themselves for ideas and resources. They stay connected and tuned into those who have their fingertips on industry trends.

Obviously, the tolerance level for the rebel employee and the naysayer is extremely high. It’s OK to go off and experiment even if the CEO thinks you’re wrong. And it’s OK if every idea doesn’t work out.

There has been plenty of anecdotal material about how these types of practices have translated into business success. A leader would have to have his/her head-in-the-sand to not have heard of them. Yet, the actions of many leaders would spell out an admission of disbelief, or perhaps discomfort with embracing such ways.

This is not to say that McFarland’s book is cliché. On the contrary, McFarland has gone beyond the anecdotal. He has documented these success practices through the study of companies with sales of more than $250 million but less than $2 billion. He didn’t go to the biggest and most visible companies, but to those who had pushed through and yet were still small enough to reveal critical moments, those who were still transparent.

Will McFarland make a believer out of you? As a leader, will you better understand your role? Will he get you to understand the value of the disagreeing and maverick employees? Will he convince you to invest more into training?

I hope so. Let the ego go, and the business grow.

Happiness, that much sought after state of existence, is becoming a more frequent and weighty issue in the world of business and economics. Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkosy made headlines for his belief that happiness should be part of the measure of gross domestic product.

And he’s serious. He has enlisted the help of two Nobel Prize winners in his effort to have quality of life added to the calculation of GDP.

He’s not alone. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is considering the inclusion of leisure time and income distribution to determine a nation’s well-being.

At first read of Sarkosy’s comments, one may think he’s off in la-la land. At second thought, one is reminded of how happiness plays into the success of individual businesses. Behavioral research on this topic has mushroomed in the past decade and deserves some attention.

A 2006 study conducted by a team at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital concluded that a sense of purpose and trust, along with quality human relationships were most likely to determine an employee’s feelings of well being, or happiness, and productivity.

In short, a business’ culture and values have a direct impact on productivity and therefore, the bottom line. Sure, in the short term a business can achieve solid bottom line results even with an unhealthy culture, but often in the long term a couple things occur: Results begin to look like a roller coaster, at best, and/or turnover increases or holds steady at distracting levels.

On the topic of happiness in the workplace, Gavin and Mason (2004) emphasized that economic productivity of the average worker has been gained at the cost of his/her health and happiness. Using Fortune’s method of ranking “100 best companies to work for,” Gavin and Mason illustrated their arguments. Fortune ranks companies on five characteristics of a good work place: credibility, respect, fairness, price and camaraderie.

Also in 2004, Wright and Cropanzano stated “it is reasonable and highly practical for both business executives and management scholars to understand that happiness is a valuable tool for maximizing both personal betterment and employee job performance.

Following up on this, Rego and Cunha in their study “Pathways to Individual Performance,” find that Personal Well Being is a predictor of self-reported performance. Their six-factor model, — including spirit and camaraderie, trust/credibility of the leader, open and frank communication with the leader, opportunities for learning and personal development, fairness and work-family conciliation – they say, provide an ability to predict turnover, employee commitment and employee perception of individual performance.

As such, they write, “The finding is consistent with evidence suggesting that happier employees are better able to ‘broaden-and-build’ themselves. It is plausible that more enthusiastic and vigorous employees become more committed to work, apply their potential in carrying out the job, actively try to solve problems and take advantage of opportunities, and persevere when facing obstacles.”

And further, Rego and Cunha state their findings support Martin, Jones and Callan’s (2005) findings that “employees whose perceptions of the organization and environment in which they are working… were more positive, were more likely to appraise change favorably and report better adjustment in terms of higher job satisfaction, psychological well-being, and organizational commitment, and lower absenteeism and turnover intentions.”

It all seems like common sense. And yet in the day to day, throughout many businesses, the basics of good human behavior and its resulting employee happiness gets lost.

To win in the competition for talent, both in attraction and retention, leaders should take heed of the happiness factor.