The 10 Principles
for a Healthy Workplace

AUTHOR SANDY COTTON

My Dear Friend,

It’s hard to believe that a decade has gone by since my first conversation with you about your dream of a magazine devoted to workplace wellness, compassionate leadership, and healthy organizations. Your passion for that cause was then, as now, so infectious that I volunteered to write a short column for the inaugural issue. I never thought for a moment that your dream would become an ongoing enterprise. Today it includes a glossy magazine, workshops, conferences, and new website. And never in my wildest dreams did I think there would be a decade’s worth of my columns, many of which were published in a little book called Wisdom for Your Workplace.

I know–perhaps more than most of your readers–the risks you have taken, the anxious moments about precarious finances, and the courageous paths you have taken in the midst of the many challenges of entrepreneurial life. Through my relationship with you, I have learned the enduring truth that sometimes life is a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be solved. And what an enjoyable mystery it has turned out to be!

In this 10th anniversary year of our friendship, it seemed appropriate to write a column that seeks to distill the “workplace wisdom” that I have sought to share with your readers over the years. Here are my 10 principles for a healthy workplace–one for each year of our friendship. They aren’t commandments, but rather a list of ingredients that courageous and resilient employers and employees can use in their unique recipes for a healthy and productive workplace.

1. Engage in collaborative dialogue

The days of the heroic, patronizing leader who has all the answers are past. The result too often is a passive majority, which struggles with visions generated by the few or the one in charge. And far too much time is spent “selling” solutions or keeping people in line… that’s control rather than community building.

As communities of practice seek to make sense of turbulent times, their members need to enter into serious, candid, and supportive dialogue about critical issues. Those in formal leadership positions, what we might call the leadership core of the community, have a responsibility to raise issues and questions for wider dialogue. The emphasis here is on community conversation, not direction or manipulation from one individual or a small group. People in the leadership core can start the process, but it’s critical to have the widest possible participation. Visions and core values cannot be imposed; they must be discovered and named by the community that claims them.

2. Sustain a foundation of trust

Without trust, our relationships are fragile, fearful, and uncertain. When trust is present, we can relate to each other as confident and affirmed members of a workplace community.

Yet trust is so difficult to define: its recipe seems so elusive. I have often observed that if work groups could learn to manufacture trust, they could retire in grand style on the proceeds of their sales to others. In the end, trust is generated by ongoing, honest communication, often modeled by leaders. Words and actions literally have integrity–the world becomes predictable.