I want people to thrive at work because I care about people. But there’s plenty of evidence that bosses and organizations should want people to thrive at work because they care about the work.
The most recent example of a research paper I’ve read about this looks at software developer productivity, and finds that “thriving” is a proxy for productivity.
It is likely that the sociocognitive elements that create developer thriving are impactful because they create “virtuous cycles”: positive beliefs, perceptions, and expectations about code work and problem solving. These cycles work to reinforce developers’ sense of progress and problem-solving even and especially when developers encounter difficulty, friction, and failure. Across intervention science in human behavior, positive metacognitive beliefs, perceptions, and environmental factors have been found to drive longitudinal behavior change, leading to long-term achievement.[15] Organizations can either enhance or subvert these important cycles: when teams and organizations put effort into creating a positive problem-solving culture, it sustains long-term achievement, iterative improvement, and reflective, collaborative problem-solving.
