Kim S. Cameron—Positively Making Organizations and the World Better: A Career Legacy Interview

Congratulations on Being Named the 2019 Midwest Scholar. Can You Speak to What Inspired You to Pursue a Career Dedicated to Teaching and Research in the Areas of Organizational Performance and Positive Leadership?

Many years ago, I was studying the topic of downsizing in organizations. At the time, I was actually running a research center, and I discovered that the number of students available to go to colleges and universities was going to diminish by 400,000 in the United States. That's because the baby boomer generation had been through the demographic curve, and their children had fewer children. This suggested that almost a third of all colleges and universities in the USA were going to have to close their doors. The interesting problem became: How do you manage when you downsize? Everything we know about organizations shows that when you get bigger, that's better. Getting bigger, next year, compared to this year means that you’re doing well. We don't have much information about getting smaller.

I started studying the topic of retrenchment in colleges and universities, and then came to the University of Michigan. I continued studying that theme, but now I was studying it in business. The word that's used in business to describe that kind of phenomenon is downsizing. As I was studying downsizing, the key questions became: How do organizations downsize? and what happens to them when they do downsize? The answers to those questions were that 80% or more of organizations that downsize deteriorate in performance, productivity goes down, quality goes down, morale goes down, there is scapegoating of leaders, and trust goes down. All kinds of things go down.

However, since there were 10% or 15% of organizations that flourished after downsizing and began to perform better than the norm, the question over time became: How do you explain who gets better versus almost everybody else who doesn’t? I didn't have data, but I developed a very clear impression that those organizations that got better were virtuous in their activities. The problem with the word virtuous was that it was too philosophical, too religious. It was neither acceptable nor considered academically rigorous. No researchers were studying virtuousness in organizations.

Then, I became Dean of the Business School at the Case Western Reserve University and was asked to give a presentation at the Academy of Management (AoM) in which I proposed that virtuousness matters a lot in organizations that downsize. I was assuming that they would laugh me off the stage, that it would be unacceptable to talk about such a value-laden subject. Nevertheless, I said to myself: I’m not going to be considered a scholar anymore, I’ll be an administrator, so I’ll take the risk.

Well, about 6 months later, somebody who was at my AoM talk called to ask if I was aware of a foundation that is funding research on forgiveness. I was not aware, but forgiveness was one of the things I was talking about in my AoM presentation. So, I applied for a research grant and obtained funding. The trouble was that I was currently a Dean and certainly couldn’t do the research. My time was occupied elsewhere. I was hoping a doctoral student would take it over, but nobody back then would touch that subject. It was way too risky.

After 6 years, I went back to the faculty at the University of Michigan and contacted the foundation to report that I hadn't done the research. I said: I’m now back on the faculty and I can do the work, so will you give me a no-cost extension on the research grant? They replied: Absolutely, you’re the only non-psychologist we’ve funded. They were interested in how this works at the organizational level. So, that started my focus on virtuous practices.

I’ve never believed that forgiveness, in and of itself, predicts anything because forgiveness is always associated with other factors. If I forgive you, that probably is also associated with a certain degree of humility, positive regard, compassion, and several kinds of things mixed together. Virtuousness as a concept, rather than a single virtue, became the focus of my research.

That's what got me into this field of study. It was just an impression for a while, but then the more I began studying and gathering information on it, all kinds of different situations presented themselves. I discovered that virtuous practices predict things that people are held accountable for, like profitability and productivity. I found that virtuousness matters to individuals' lives as well as to their organizations.

The number one objection to all this by executives was time: I don't have time for this. I’ve got shareholder value concerns. I’ve got customers I’ve got to satisfy. I’ve got profitability goals and sales targets. Frankly, it would be nice to spend a little bit of time thinking about this stuff, but I’m just so overwhelmed with the pressure of running an organization. I just can't do it.

So, what I’ve done—not only me but many others—is show that if you pay attention and implement positive practices, the things for which you’re held accountable are markedly affected for the good of the organization. That is, profitability goes up, productivity goes up, customer satisfaction, and quality are all going in the right direction. So, it turns out that if you don't pay attention, it's at your peril. People who pay attention to positive practices and virtuousness in their organizations do better than if they hadn't paid attention. If you can talk to executives about the way that it actually enhances their organization, they’re willing to listen.

What Were Some Pivotal Moments in Your Life?

These are not unusual at all. I’m like many other people. Marriage was a pivotal moment. You know, it changes everything. Children are pivotal moments. We had one child, and we thought: How can anybody possibly handle more than one child? Well, we had a second. We were thinking: Well, I’ve got one and you got one, so okay, we can handle this. But how could we possibly have more than that? Then, we had a third on its way. That was okay as well. Now we had to learn how to play zone defense as opposed to man-to-man defense. We ended up with seven children, and they’re just wonderful! That's the best part.

Another thing that happened was getting accepted into a PhD program on the other side of the country. I grew up in the Rocky Mountains. I went to Yale just because it was on the other side of the country with a different culture. I discovered that the thing that mattered most to me was to be one of those faculty members who had his door open all day long, having students come in and out. I was determined to affect their lives by having one-on-one conversations. That was because I had a couple of people who did that for me, and it changed my life as an undergraduate and master's degree student. However, my values changed again when I discovered this: If I do scholarly work, if I write, then potentially I can have an impact on 3,000, not just 30 or 3 who will come into my office. The potential impact is much greater with academic research and the opportunity it offers to influence people I will never meet.

I really bought into the notion of being a scholar, and of attempting to ask and to try to answer questions that hadn’t been answered before. My definition of a good PhD program is that it teaches people how to ask and answer questions. That seems simple. However, the questions have to be questions that are answerable, and they have to be questions that people care about. They have to be questions that nobody knows the answer to yet. That’s not easy. The questions have to be answered in a way that people will believe the answers to be valid and credible. That mattered to me, and it changed me.

Who Would be an Example of a Virtuous Leader Who has had the Greatest Influence in Your Life and Work?

One of the people that I got exposed to as an undergraduate was Reed Bradford. I became his teaching assistant. Reed Bradford got his PhD at Harvard University under the three most famous sociologists in the world at the time—Talcott Parsons, George Homans, and Pitirim Sorokin. They defined the field of sociology. He had all three people on his committee. He was going to be the next generation to carry on the work of all these gurus. Instead, he took a job at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he dedicated himself simply to changing lives. He's the person who had his door open all the time. As a teaching assistant, I had one person come to me and say: I was contemplating suicide (life had lost its meaning) and then I attended his class, and it changed everything. He saved my life. That’s the kind of impact Reed had on people. He just thought differently.

There were some people who hated Reed because they said he did not teach rigorous sociology. This is too much storytelling, too much soupy, syrupy, saccharine sweet stuff, but I thought he was life-changing. About half of Steve Covey's book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, came from Reed Bradford's class. I knew Steve well. I grew up in his neighborhood, and Steve was an enormously talented teacher, storyteller, and organizer of material. A lot of what Steve taught, and what made him famous, came from Reed. Another amazing thing about Reed is that at age 65, he adopted children, saying that the more children can get exposed to what I teach and what I stand for, the better they will be.

There's another influential person—Keith Warner. I completed my master's degree and went to teach in a little college in Idaho, Ricks College, for 3 years. I knew I wanted to get a PhD, but I knew it was not going to be sociology, which was my undergraduate major. There was also social psychology, which was my master's degree, but I never wanted to get a PhD in that subject either. My undergraduate institution, BYU, had hired a faculty member who had formerly been the President of the American Rural Sociological Association. I called him up 1 day and asked if he would take me on as an independent study student, just during the summer months, so I could get exposed to him and the field. He pulled my resume to make sure I was going to be worth his time and then agreed to let me visit with him. The first time I saw him, he handed me a couple of papers which were classic sociological papers—the ones that helped define an entire sub-field in sociology. He said: I want you to review these papers and critique them. Show me how they can become better. Give me your perspective about how I can improve my work. I replied: Look, I’m very aware of these papers, and there’s no chance I can improve them. These are classics. I can't provide useful advice on your work. He asked me to come into his office. We sat down and he said: Look, I know you’re going to go get a PhD, and when you get your PhD, I want you to be a colleague. If I treat you as a subordinate now, and you treat yourself as a subordinate to me, you’re always going to be a subordinate. I don't want a subordinate. I want a colleague. I’ve got different experiences than you do, and you have different experiences than I do. Help teach me. You have a responsibility to help me, as much as I have a responsibility to help you. That was a revelation to me. I had never even considered the fact that as a student, I had anything of value to offer some guru. But that changed a lot for me because it’s the way I now attempt to treat doctoral students, junior colleagues, senior colleagues, whoever. I can learn from them.

I’m going to meet with the governor of Michigan in a few days and spend a day with her. She is interested in all this positive leadership stuff and is interested in how to implement it personally as well as in the State Government of Michigan. But, you know, whether it's a governor or a doctoral student, it doesn't really matter. Everybody has valuable and worthwhile insights, and we are all better if we learn from each other. So, Keith Warner mattered a lot to me.

I will mention just one other person—a child psychiatrist I have gotten to know in Austria, Philip Streit. He's had me come and give talks in Austria a couple of times. I was sitting with Philip at dinner one night and I said: I admire you a lot because you’re dealing with kids who have been abused. Kids who are completely out of control. Kids who are in the most dire and difficult circumstances. You encounter all kinds of unpleasant situations. How do you avoid taking that home with you and having it just weigh on you and emotionally destroy you? His answer was profound, and it has stayed with me for a long time. He said: It's because I love these children. I don't take their problems home with me. I take my love for them home with me. So, I don't have any problem, because I love them. What a wonderful, positive way to approach problems in life. Philip represents a perfect role model for how to approach difficult challenges that we encounter. So, those are three of many people who’ve impacted me.

So How Can Managers and Leaders Implement a Culture of Positivity in Their Workplace Today?

That's a good question, and it’s a question that motivated me to write a couple of books. One of the things I try to do is make the case, empirically, that positive practices, virtuousness, and positive leadership matters. In other words, as I mentioned, the evidence is clear that if you implement positive practices, the outcomes for which leaders are accountable go up. The Positive Leadership book was written to try to answer the question you asked, and it provides several strategies that can be implemented in order to enhance performance.

After several years, the publisher had received feedback that implementing positive strategies may be too time-consuming for some leaders and organizations. They asked for a book that gives people ideas they could implement Monday morning. Do it right now. So, I wrote the Practicing Positive Leadership book. That book identifies tactics and practices that can be implemented in the short term. It is important to point out, however, that not any one of the practices is the silver bullet for creating a culture of positivity. There are lots and lots of practices; I think there's probably a list of 50 different practices that people implement to help foster a positive culture.

For example, I know some organizations where every single employee—even in places with 10,000 or more employees—is handed a gratitude journal. Everyone in the organization takes five minutes to write down the three best things that happened today or the three things that they are grateful for. That's a tiny practice, but a wonderful example of just one thing to do in an organization that pays off. A host of research confirms this.

There is a university in Mexico that has adopted positive practices—human flourishing, happiness, and purpose in life—as their core principles. They’ve remodeled all the buildings. All the rooms have a virtuous name—like the Compassion Room or the Integrity Room. They have changed the menu in the cafeteria. They have a big long gratitude wall in the administration building, and so on. For this university, all of these are physical representations of what they stand for. All students (about 60,000) take a one-semester class in positive psychology and another semester-long class in positive organizations, which includes positive leadership. All faculty members must be certified to teach these two courses and every staff member (including secretaries, custodians, and bus drivers) must take them.

Most organizations have a remuneration or incentive system, and they provide some kind of visible reward for people. For example, they give individuals a salary increase, put their pictures on the wall, or give them the Employee of the Month plaque. Interestingly, research clearly shows that contribution is more important than the receipt of a reward in predicting performance. Having a chance to contribute to something or someone else is more important than getting a reward or getting a cash payout. We’ve often helped organizations figure out ways to give people a chance to contribute and their overall performance improves as a result.

I’m going to give you one example. The person in charge of faculty support in Ross Business School at the University of Michigan instituted a one-plus-one award system. So, if somebody does something that's especially outstanding or exceeds the goals, she gives that person an award plus a second award to give to someone else. So, anytime anybody is an outstanding performer they get two awards, and they always have a chance to give one. If I’m an outstanding performer, I have a chance to give an award to somebody else. That's a stronger incentive for people to do well than simply getting their name in the newspaper or receiving an Employee of the Month award.

I wish I had a short answer to your excellent question, but there’s a long list of practices and tools that contribute to a positive culture.

What Do You Believe Have Been the Biggest Changes and Challenges in Business Over the Past Several Decades?

There has always been an emphasis on increasing shareholder value. Several well-regarded Nobel Prize-winning economists have said: Fundamentally, businesses are in business to create shareholder value. If you do that, everything else takes care of itself. Forget about the triple bottom line or any of those kinds of things. Just make money and the other outcomes will follow. I think that one of the big changes in business is that people have become pretty serious about a much broader array of desirable outcomes—helping human beings flourish, helping the environment flourish, helping to provide benefits to people who are disadvantaged and who simply have no way out of their condition, and helping to enhance the quality of life for multiple constituencies. These factors are now getting attention. In other words, one of the changes I notice is we’ve broadened or expanded our feeling of obligation about who and what we are accountable to influence for good. That’s one of the changes that has occurred for the better.

Another change that my colleague, Gerry Davis, would mention is that large organizations, mega organizations, have much more control now than ever before in our history. Mom and Pop shops are disappearing right and left. I was reading an article some time ago essentially arguing that if you just take Google and Facebook, those two organizations, they can determine the outcome of almost any election. By sending out 50 million blurbs, analysts have discovered that they can affect the outcome of voting. They can influence enough votes, either getting people to vote or change their minds about who to vote for in elections, and the outcome is markedly affected. We worry about interference from the Russians or the North Koreans or the Chinese, and it turns out these enormous companies (Google and Facebook) have so much sway that outcomes can be markedly affected. So, there’s a big battle to decide who can actually influence what Facebook and Google put out on the web. That’s another big change we don’t know very much about, and I think we’ll learn much more about the impact of these kinds of organizations in the future. However, it’s also true that most new jobs are still being created by small organizations, not mega organizations. In terms of employment, small- and mid-size entrepreneurial organizations still have the majority of workers.

Here's one final example. Every year for the past 7 or 8 years, I have spent about 4 or 5 weeks with leaders in the national intelligence agencies—people running the CIA, FBI, DIA, and another 13 agencies. I’ve learned that there is a tremendous amount of cyber theft going on in our country. There was also a recent article about the Chinese stealing U.S. secrets in engineering schools by sending their students to get PhD's in engineering, and then taking all the secret or confidential information back to China. We never talk much about North Korea, but they are apparently as sophisticated as the Chinese in cyber theft.

So, cybersecurity is a big deal. What has this got to with business? It turns out that our adversaries are stealing from businesses and banks and utilities as much or more than from the government. But the government remains a target. For example, the U.S. Navy was recently targeted by the Chinese who stole an enormous amount of confidential information about shipbuilding. I happened to be with the national intelligence agency leaders at the time. One leader said that they’re attacking our Navy because it’s probably two or three generations ahead of anybody else in the world. So, if they can get our secrets, our technology, they can skip a couple of generations. We have a security problem, and it's a cybersecurity problem.

The Field of Organizational Leadership Continues to Grow. What Important Research Still Needs to be Done in the Fields of Organizational Performance and Leadership?

My feeling is that this entire area of study is in the toddler stage. We are not infants. We are not trying to figure out how to walk, but we are still kind of toddling and teetering along and not as strong as we need to be. What that really means is that there’s almost nothing that doesn’t need more attention in terms of research. I’m really convinced that there are lots and lots of questions that need to be answered about how virtuousness really affects an organization. What manifestations of virtuousness occur in organizations? What are the effects? How long does it take? Who needs to be involved? What kind of culture supports it? How do we develop it? How many people must be involved and demonstrating positive practices? How do you get the change to occur in an organization when the culture is recalcitrant? How many leaders does it take to create a positive change? What are the multiple outcomes associated with positive leadership? What are the crucial dimensions of positive leadership?

I’m especially concerned that I see too few scholars using organization outcomes as the dependent variable. I don't see very many people studying the impact of positive practices to predict profitability, productivity, quality, innovation, customer satisfaction, and so forth. Most of our work so far focuses on the individual level of analysis, including compassion, mindfulness, and purpose. Of course, we must focus on those factors. That’s wonderful. It’s terrific. But if we’re going to make the case that this topic matters a lot in real organizations—and it does—then more research needs to be published on organization outcomes.

Reflecting Back Over Your Career, What has Given You the Greatest Satisfaction?

Well, maybe the thing that gives me the most satisfaction is the fact that this whole movement associated with positive organizational scholarship has disseminated and expanded well beyond our little center that we established in 2001. I don't know the number for sure, but there are several hundred people around the world who now self-identify as positive organization scholars. If you expand that to organizational psychology, there are several thousand. So, that expansion is the most satisfying thing to me.

I compare where we are now to when I began with an initial study of forgiveness in organizations. Back then, you couldn't study forgiveness and be considered a rigorous scholar who was taken seriously by the academic community. It was considered grandmother's advice, Sunday school stuff. Virtuousness was just illegitimate. I came back to Michigan after being a dean and several of my colleagues asked me: Okay, what are you going to study now? What's your research on? I’d start talking about my work on forgiveness and virtuousness and their eyes would glaze over. It seemed they were thinking: What in the world happened to you? Are you out of your mind? So, we’ve gone from there to becoming a legitimate and important part of the conversation regarding what makes organizations successful.

That's why we need more hard data. It's easy for motivational speakers to talk about this stuff, and they do. Airport bookstore advice is a dime a dozen. Inspirational stories and self-help motivational advice have become common in the field. But the rigorous research is crucial for credibility and it’s not prevalent enough. The fact that the field of positive organizational scholarship is accepted to some extent is probably the most satisfying thing.

You Were Very Visionary Years Ago, in Seeing Positivity and the Impact That it Could Make on Organizations, and Now We Need it More Than Ever

I don't believe I was visionary, because I have not said anything today that you didn't know when you were 3 years old. I mean, be kind, be nice, be compassionate. You know how to love people. There's nothing new there. All we’ve done with this is to point out that it pays off. It matters.

What is the Best Piece of Advice You Have Received Throughout Your Career?

I don't know if there’s a single piece of advice, but there have been several people who have been examples to me, and I’ve learned lessons from them. In my PhD program, the best outcome was that my quality standards went up. What I thought was good work when I started was not good work when I finished. That process continued and it has never stopped. The fact that people have dedicated a certain amount of time to help me become better has been incredibly important. There is not one piece of advice, but it has been a series of comments, feedback, and examples that have helped me up my game. I have colleagues at the University of Michigan who have helped me be better, have provided insights, and have been good role models. So, it’s not their advice per se, but it's been their example that's helped me raise my game and improve my standards. That has been important.

We use three criteria to hire people in my academic department at the University of Michigan. Number one is to be a world-class scholar. That's not surprising—everybody wants those in research universities. Number two is to be a good teacher. That's not surprising either. Number three is the differentiator—to be a net positive energizer. You have to add more positive energy to the system than you extract. Everybody extracts some positive energy, but we don't hire self-aggrandizing, selfish people who care only about getting credit for themselves. Instead, we try to hire people who are committed to helping one another get better. I have 15 people trying to help me get better.

Now, what's that got to do with advice? In this kind of environment, where my job is to help other people flourish, to help others improve, to be on the lookout to help the system become a better system, that has made all the difference for me. Examples, more than words, have produced the biggest impact.

The idea of hiring people who are positive energizers is huge, and I think that definitely sets my organization apart. For example, I had a colleague who was interested in coming to join Michigan and to be on our faculty. This person was a chaired professor at another very prestigious university, and he agreed to come for an interview with our department members. After the visit, there were several faculty members who indicated they believed that this person was egotistical, not supportive of other people, focused on being famous, and not caring about anybody else. Several faculty members indicated that this individual would negatively impact the positive energy of the department. Ultimately, the decision was made to forgo the opportunity to hire this prestigious person. It was a strong values clarification decision.

What Books Do You Believe Have Benefited You the Greatest in Your Career, or What Books Would You Recommend?

There are a lot of terrific and highly influential books. Some years ago, I was on a press tour in New York, on multiple network shows, and interviewed by The New York Times. The first question a reporter asked me was: What's the best book you’ve ever read? I wasn't thinking this at the time, but the right answer to that question is that I don’t read very many books. Most of my reading is academic articles. It’s probably 80/20 or 90/10 articles to books. Academic articles occupy much more of my time than books. When I do read books, it's not unusual for them to be something like the Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology or Character Strengths and Virtues or books in my disciplinary area. I have a number of friends who’ve written books that I like a lot—Barbara Fredrickson's book on positivity, Marty Seligman's on flourish, Sonja Lyubromirsky's on happiness, Adam Grant's on give and take, Bob Emmons’s on gratitude, and Desmond Tutu's on forgiveness. Outside my academic discipline, I spend substantial time reading the scriptures. My life is different—personally and academically—because of the time I spend in the scriptures.

A long time ago, Masaaki Imai wrote a book called Kaizen. Kaizen is a description of incremental, continuous improvements, primarily in Japanese manufacturing. That concept led me to a principle that I now teach a lot about making 1% improvements. It's often the case that I am asked to assist an organization with a culture change or making a positive difference. It is often an overwhelming task for leaders to do that job, to change the entire culture of the organization. Nobody can afford to do that. It takes too much time and resources. So, I often advise leaders to just pick 1%. Pick any number of 1% changes, and that will get the process going. I tell them that I will help them identify several examples of 1% changes that have proven to be successful in initiating culture change, but 1% is enough, to begin with.

The rationale for this advice can be clarified with an example. If you get on an airplane in Detroit and go around the world, but you’re off one degree, you end up south of Atlanta or north of Bangor, Maine. It doesn't take much change overtime to put you in a different place. So, begin with 1%, stick with it, and it will mean a lot.

What Does the Future Hold for You?

I wish I had an intriguing and visionary answer to this question, but I expect to be doing more of the same for the foreseeable future. I have two books that have been sitting on my desk for probably 3 or 4 years that are not written but need to be. Sitting right in front of me is a big, fat manila folder full of stuff that I need to find time to write about. In the immediate term, the next year or two, I’ve just got to write these two books. One of them is on positive energy and one of them is a book about a university in Mexico which is the world's only well-being, happiness university. Think about that—96% of their students, when they graduate from college, accept a job that helps them fulfill their purpose in life. How's that? So, I want to write that up.

What Advice Would You Give to Students as They Pursue Business Degrees?

I might say two things. It is best to spend time on and pursue what resonates with your core interests and values, or what makes you care deeply about the subject. Pick that which capitalizes on your gifts. Each of us have different gifts. There will be some things that really resonate and that you care deeply about. You will encounter some glittery alternatives that may make you more money, but do not provide a sense of profound purpose. Pursue what you love. If it's HR, know that nobody gets rich in HR, but that there are people who make major contributions because they’ve figured out what matters to them. Finding an academic major is similar to finding a spouse—find what you love and pursue it.

The other bit of advice relates to the notion of contribution. Contributing, or having an opportunity to contribute, is actually a much more important predictor of well-being and happiness, as well as of performance. Making a difference to someone or something else (contributing) surpasses achievement in terms of predicting desirable outcomes, both personally and for others. So, my advice is to find a way to be a contributor in whatever role you pursue, don’t just seek self-aggrandizing outcomes.

Thomas Carlisle had a formula for writing history. He selected a person in a certain era of time and wrote that history about that person in context. For example, you can't write about the Napoleonic era without writing about Napoleon. You can't write about Julius Caesar's era without talking about the person. That was his formula. I remember thinking one day, what would it take to be the person Carlisle selected to write about in this era? The probability that I would be selected is <1 in 10 billion. It’s not going to happen. So, what's my contribution? Why am I here enjoying my favored circumstances? Most likely, the most important contributions I will make will be to my family. It will be my influence on my children that will hopefully stretch through multiple generations. In addition, it may be contributing to or making a difference in somebody's life in a small way. This is illustrated by the Keith Warner conversation, or the Philip Streit conversation, or the small interactions that brighten someone's day or elevate their outlook. Those kinds of interventions are not going to be world-changing. They are not going to get me into any history book. But they can, hopefully, make a 1% improvement in someone else's life that will last.