Illustrated Blog

Above is the advice the palm outside my office window provided when I pondered how people could find time to do good at work during these demanding times. Hope it helps!

I spend a lot of time gazing out my office window at a palm tree wondering how to ignite a sense of purpose in whatever work team I’m trying to help. It turns out the tall palm often has surprisingly helpful, simple and broadly applicable ideas. Above is one. The Purposeful Palm’s first tip might take no more than five minutes and be ridiculously simple but make no mistake: It will bring more joy to its beneficiaries than we likely know. Furthermore, there is evidence that it’s sufficiently meaningful to boost the happiness of those doing the good deed—for days or even weeks!

Is there a productive assignment we can give our work-at-home team members who don’t have enough to do? I believe there is. And it happens to also serve the world. For many managers, COVID-19 is an opportunity to invite idle or semi-idle employees to develop social-purpose skills (defined as their ability to help others or a societal cause) and craft plans to apply these skills at work. For example, we can encourage employees to develop their capacity to: Respond to medical emergencies. Having team members who are equipped to respond to medical situations at work is unquestionably beneficial. This pandemic might be as good a time as any for our team members to take a company first-responder online training, the American Red Cross’ first aid/CPR/AED course or the University of Glasgow’s basic

To help people turn COVID-19 “sadness into song,” as his website put it, a music composer gave away $20 downloads in March. This action inspired a musician in Massachusetts who benefitted from a $20 freebie to establish a collaborative music website “to promote peace, understanding, healing and happiness.” This, in turn, nudged a CEO of a technology company to better promote his policy of offering free services to nonprofits operating in areas declared a disaster. The CEO’s actions inspired a Florida art-school owner, whose school is temporarily shuttered, to help newly unemployed customers apply for government assistance. Her actions, in turn, led a manager at an Illinois entertainment company to ask his team to start planning a free post-pandemic event to thank healthcare and other workers who are risking their lives throughout the pandemic. One of

I climb into Kevin’s Lyft vehicle. It has holes in the seat and reeks of day-old tuna fish. “How is it possible that he has a perfect five-star rating?” I wonder. After a few minutes of chit chat, Kevin asks if I know anybody with Down’s Syndrome. When I tell him that I don’t, he says “That’s a shame!” He shares that Ava, his nine-year-old daughter who has Down’s Syndrome, is “a blessing to the world.” He’s so animated when he talks about this genetic disorder that I find myself asking a series of questions. Kevin teaches me that although individuals with Down’s Syndrome are cognitively impaired, they can usually become dedicated and effective employees. I’ve never considered hiring an individual with Down’s Syndrome, but I will now. I ask

What happens when your company shares information on its corporate social responsibility (CSR) with potential hires? I’m glad you asked! Daniel Hedblom and John List from the University of Chicago and Brent Hickman from Washington University in St. Louis have a stunning evidence-based answer. In fact, their research is my pick for the top CSR academic study of 2019. (Yes, I’m that nerdy.) Hedblom, Hickman and List went to a lot of trouble to determine the impact CSR communications has on prospective hires in the real world, as opposed to a lab, and to be able to attribute any impacts to the communications as opposed to uncovering only correlations (for you nerds, they did a randomized field experiment). They started by creating a company. For real. “HHL Solutions” (their surname