Thrive Global highlights Jane Dutton’s research on high-quality relationships
September 15, 2020
Thrive Global cites Center for Positive Organizations (CPO) core faculty member Jane Dutton in the article “Filling The ‘Meaning Deficit:’ Why Meaningful Work is Vital in a Post-COVID World.”
The article examines how economic disruptions can make workers vulnerable to hopelessness, desperation and meaninglessness as they cope with unemployment or degrading work. It also offers strategies to help leaders enable meaningful work and enhance employees’ well-being. Among them is to cultivate high-quality relationships.
“University of Michigan researchers Jane Dutton and Emily Heaphy find that these high-quality relationships are characterized when both people in the relationship are known and cared for, gain positive energy from interactions, and experience an equal investment in the relationship,” the article says.
“Creating space for all people in all positions to form these high-quality connections, in-person or virtually, is vital for sustaining meaningfulness,” the article says.
Dutton is a CPO co-founder and the Robert L. Kahn Distinguished University Emerita Professor of Business Administration and Psychology at the University of Michigan.