What the Experts Say
During the interview process, you had a singular goal: to get an offer. Now that you have one, you need to assess whether the job and organization are a good fit. It isn’t necessarily a straightforward task, according to Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser at Egon Zehnder and the author of It’s Not the How or the What but the Who. After all, you’ve probably been in your potential new office only a handful of times and met potential colleagues when everyone was on their best behavior. “Interviews end up being a conversation between two liars,” he explains. John Lees, the UK-based career strategist and author of How to Get a Job You Love, agrees that it’s important to do further “due diligence” on the company and its people to make sure it’s a place you want to work. Your goal is “to decode the organization and find out where the bodies are buried,” he says. Here are some ways to do that.

Interview your prospective colleagues
Presumably you already researched the company during your candidacy, but now that the clock is ticking on a decision, you need to focus your efforts. Your first port of call should be your prospective colleagues. “Talk to as many people as you can,” Lees says. In particular, get to know the coworkers with whom you’ll form “your key working relationships.” Then “just chat. Ask, ‘What are you working on at the moment? What are you hoping to achieve? And what gets in the way?’” Their answers will be revealing. “Is it market factors? The economy? The CEO? Internal backbiting?” Pay close attention to the kinds of people you’re meeting. “If you identify talented, motivated people who have been there a long time, that is a very good signal.” Your mindset should be “simultaneously positive and optimistic but also cynical,” he says. Don’t betray any skepticism or negativity, however. “You must constantly communicate that you are pleased to have received the offer and delighted at the prospect of working there.”

Do a test run
It’s worth asking if you can come in and spend a few hours with your prospective team for a group meeting or brainstorming session, Lees says. Doing so will give you a sense of how people interact with each other, what daily life is like, and how you might fit in. Observe “how they bounce ideas around,” he says. “Are they supportive or obstructive?” Your objective, Fernández-Aráoz says, is to figure out whether the organization has a “highly collaborative culture or a more individualistic one.” But, he warns, bear in mind that this trial won’t be entirely indicative of reality. “Most people will be putting on a good show,” he says. And don’t forget that even though you have an offer, your potential colleagues will be watching your every move. “They get to see how you perform, too.”

Get to know your boss
Your job satisfaction can hinge on your relationship with your boss. Particularly at startups or small, private, family-owned companies, employees who don’t get along with their managers are “as good as dead,” Fernández-Aráoz says. So, before you sign on, you need to develop as deep an understanding as possible of what makes this person tick and what it will be like to work for them. Lees suggests trying to have a good and lengthy conversation with your prospective manager “about their vision for the organization.” Try to “project forward,” he says. “Ask, ‘What does success look like here?’ And say ‘In my six-month review, what do you want to be congratulating me on?’” If your potential boss shies away from having this conversation and getting to know you better, consider it “a danger signal. It means that he’s already bored of you.”

Interview outside sources
In addition to speaking with current employees and your potential boss, you need to do some “behind-the-scenes” research by speaking with “people with recent, objective, and unbiased knowledge of the organization and its culture,” Lees says. Reach out to your network to identify former employees, as well as others who know the company, such as consultants, auditors, lawyers, contractors, and suppliers. Once you’ve found these people, “invite them out for coffee” and pepper them with questions, Lees advises. You needn’t be cagey. “Say, ‘I am trying to get a fuller picture.’ And then ask, ‘What is this organization like to work with? Where is it succeeding?’ What kinds of people do well in this organization? And what kinds of people leave?” If you can, “ask about turnover and find out what happened to the last person who did the job.” Fernández-Aráoz recommends also inquiring about “challenges the company is facing,” such as planned integrations or changes in strategy. If nothing more, consider what you find out “immunity against frustration” later down the road.

Think beyond the initial offer
It’s also important to consider opportunities at the organization beyond the contract on the table, Fernández-Aráoz says. Talk to the hiring manager about potential paths. “Ask if you are able to move into other functions and other roles as your career progresses. Ask about opportunities for training and development. And find out what kind of high-potential programs the company offers,” he says. Lees advises against speaking to folks in HR, since they probably won’t be able to provide you with much useful information — “And you’re just opening yourself up to another sales pitch,” he says. During this evaluation stage “you need to have a healthy mistrust of corporate spin.”

Be introspective
Once you have all the information, it’s time to do some soul-searching. Think about whether the organization is a place where you will thrive and be challenged. Lees recommends asking yourself, “How do I fit in here? How do my skills complement what this organization is trying to achieve?” Remember that you’re never going to have perfect data, and beware analysis paralysis. “It often comes down to instinct,” he says. “There comes a time when you need to trust your judgment and make a decision.” It’s not as scary as it may seem. “Most decisions are about 80% right anyhow,” he says.

Principles to Remember

Do:

• Adopt a mindset that is positive but also skeptical.
• Reach out to your network to identify people who know the company and who can give you the unvarnished truth about it.
• Make a special effort to get to know your potential boss; a good relationship with your manager will be critical to your job satisfaction.

Don’t:

• Discount the idea of doing a trial at the company to get a sense of how your prospective team works and how decisions get made.
• Ignore red flags. If your boss doesn’t seem interested in getting to know you, consider it a bad sign.
• Succumb to analysis paralysis. Trust your judgment and make a decision.

Case Study #1: Talk to outside sources and observe culture firsthand
A few years ago Brad Neuenhaus was invited to join a company that was being incubated out of a large teaching hospital in Boston. “Joe,” the CEO of the new company, asked Brad to come on as chief strategy officer.

“I knew Joe personally and quasi-professionally, but I hadn’t worked closely with him before, [so] I wanted to get the nitty-gritty of what it was like to be on his team,” Brad recalls.

He identified several people in his network who had worked with Joe in senior roles and had in-depth conversations with them about the CEO’s ability to set goals, allocate resources, and trust and manage employees. “The gist of all those conversations was: What is it like to work with Joe?” he explains.

Brad also “had a rich, strategic conversation” with the COO. “There were a lot of operational changes taking place in order to scale the business,” he says. “It was going to be a disruptive time, and so I wanted to gauge her feelings about the [situation].”

Finally, Brad asked Joe if he could visit the office in the afternoon and “do some wandering around” to get to know some of the employees. “I wanted to meet the rank-and-file workers and have candid conversations,” he says. “I wanted to know: What do they do? How do they do it? I wanted to get a feel for who they were.”

Brad also seized the opportunity to observe the culture. “I wanted to see what happened at the end of the day — did everyone blow out at 5 PM, or did people stick around?”

When it came time for Brad to determine whether to accept the offer, he “added up the pros and cons — and there were some in each category,” he says. Ultimately, he didn’t think the job was the right cultural fit and he was concerned about the health of the business. “In the end, it came down to my assessment of the likelihood of this incubator succeeding.”

Brad decided not to take the job, which he says was the right decision. Joe ended up leaving the company less than a year later.

Today Brad is the chief business officer of MindEdge, the corporate learning company based in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Case Study #2: Spend time with your potential colleagues, and then go with your gut
Three years ago Jason Guggisberg was offered the role of regional vice president at Adecco USA, the employment services company in Chicago. Before he took the job, he wanted to make sure the company was right for him.

“Cultural fit was my number one priority, as many of the staffing firms I’d worked at previously were driven by business rather than culture,” he says. “In my previous positions, I felt that something was missing at work.”

After he got the offer, he had long talks with prospective colleagues, including his potential boss, the vice president of operations, and a national sales team member. “I asked them why they enjoyed working at Adecco, what drives them to get up in the morning, and why they had been at the company so long,” he says. “Hearing their stories gave me a more well-rounded picture.”

Jason says that deciding whether to accept a job is a “gut decision” that ought to be driven by fit. “You can look at the Great Places to Work stats, charitable giving numbers, or benefits packages to learn more about the company, but at the end of the day you want to feel that the company and people — especially leadership — resonate with your core values,” he says.

Jason took the job and hasn’t looked back. Today he is the regional vice president of Adecco’s Manhattan branch.

Right now, for example, companies are making massive investments in technologies that can more closely link their people to each other, to customers, and to other stakeholders. Yet many companies struggle because their cultures get in the way — too many layers and silos, too many colleagues who prefer to stay in their comfort zones, bask in their KPIs, and resist new ways of connecting and working.

This is a big problem. And joy can be a big part of the solution. Why? For two reasons. People intrinsically seek joy. And joy connects people more powerfully than almost any other human experience.

The connective power of joy is clearly visible in sports. When a team performs at its awe-inspiring best, overcoming its limitations and challenges, every player — indeed, the entire arena — experiences a brimming ecstasy that lifts the team even further. Success sparks joy. Joy fuels further success. Everyone is caught up in the moment.

Can the joy that is so apparent in championship athletics be replicated in business? Absolutely.

In any team environment, joy arises from a combination of harmony, impact, andacknowledgment — all of which business leaders can engender in their organizations.

Harmony. On winning teams, each player has a distinct role in achieving the goal. One player might be a great passer. Another is a great scorer. Yet another may bring a certain intensity and competitive fire. When the diverse skills and strengths of teammates are really clicking together, it feels great.

Impact. Team harmony leads to impact, which further fuels joy. Even if the result is just a single sublime play or golden moment, the palpable joy of each teammate rises. You can see it in their faces as they throw their arms around each other and jump up and down like jubilant children. They are saying to each other: “Can you believe we did that?!”

Acknowledgment. Great coaches instruct their players to, when they score, immediately point to the teammates who created the scoring opportunity. Acknowledging each player’s contributions and cheering for each other powers the entire joy-success-joy cycle.

This is a pattern rife with opportunity for business leaders. By providing people with more of the experiences that engender joy in any team setting, leaders can tap more of the practical power of joy in their companies.

To test this premise, A.T. Kearney conducted a survey in December 2018 that explored people’s workplace experiences across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. The sample included more than 500 employees of various ages in companies with more than $2 billion in revenues and in a range of industries.

As shown in the figure below, employees who reported feeling more joy at work strongly agreed with each statement much more frequently than did employees who said they feel less joy at work. This suggests that the full range of experiences that visibly yield joy in team athletics — namely harmony, impact, and acknowledgment — can have much the same effect in the business world.

Our survey findings further suggest that joy stems from believing one’s work is truly meaningful. Employees who believe their “company makes a positive societal contribution” and who feel “personally committed to achieving the company’s vision and strategy” experienced the most joy at work. In my industry, where almost 100% of newly recruited consultants are Millennials, providing an overarching purpose is critical to attracting and retaining great talent.

These findings make perfect sense to me. Life is a vector requiring both force and direction. The pursuit of happiness sets the direction, but feeling joy provides the daily confirmation that we are doing exactly what we should be doing, for the company and for the teammates who energize our efforts.

The lesson? Crafting business cultures that more consistently engender such experiences can create a much stronger sense of personal interconnection, shared purpose, and heartfelt pride across the organization.

However, the survey also points to a pronounced “joy gap” at work. Nearly 90% of respondents said that they expect to experience a substantial degree of joy at work, yet only 37% report that such is their actual experience. Nor is this joy gap confined to any particular generational cohort. For Gen Xers and Millennials (the vast majority of our sample), the joy gap was 57% and 44%, respectively.

Business leaders tend to think a great deal about success, but rarely about joy. Chances are, few are even aware of the joy gap in their organization and the resulting lack of interpersonal connection and team aspiration. That must change.

Here are some specific steps leaders can take to increase joy at work:

Set the agenda. Make the experience of joy an explicit corporate purpose. Strengthen your inclusion agenda to incorporate meaningful efforts toward ensuring all employees feel heard, recognized, and acknowledged. Fund mental health benefits for all employees.

Set the stage. Staff your new digital/culture programs with true cross-unit, cross-silo teams, where joint teamwork delivers maximum impact, shared success, and fun.

Set the tone. Encourage and celebrate individual and corporate social impact efforts. Authentically express more of the joy you personally experience in your role. Joy begets joy. In my firm, I have emphasized the need to joyfully “dial up” the culture with a sustained emphasis on diversity, inclusion, apprenticeship, and personal day-to-day leadership.

Joy can pack as much practical punch as technology if we allow it to. Both are required to maintain the cohesion that helps large organizations nimbly communicate and adapt to unprecedented challenges. Technology provides the infrastructure for connectivity, but the foundation must be a culture dedicated to the human experience of harmony, impact, and acknowledgment. In sum, joy.