Over the years, through my work with delivering corporate training programs and with the COUPLE COMMUNICATION program, I have observed the connection between business organizations and marriage education. Now that more interest exists in offering marriage programs to corporate audiences, it may be helpful to share some of the things I have learned about blending these worlds.
Direct and Indirect Marriage Education
Generally two ways exist to deliver marriage education in corporations: direct and indirect. Direct programs are advertised and delivered as marriage education events. Examples of direct programs include short bag-lunch presentations, marriage classes, or marriage retreats.
Indirect programs consist typically of relationship and communication skills-building courses or coaching contracts that are designed to benefit the performance and productivity of employees at work. Examples of indirect programs include training in conflict resolution, team building, or manager-supervisory skills development. The major goal is for participants to apply the training actively to increase their interpersonal competence on the job. At the same time, participants are encouraged to apply the concepts and skills to their significant relationships off the job - at home with spouse and children, or with friends.
Marriage Education and Corporate Profit
Direct delivery of marriage education has been very slow to catch on in companies, however, this could be changing. Corporations are in business to make money, and unless a company can see and experience how a program can benefit its bottom line by increasing its profit margins, it has no reason to offer marriage education. What do the facts show?
"Happily married employees increase profitability."
"Unhappily married employees decrease profitability."
These are the finding of a recently published report titled, "Marriage & Family Wellness: Corporate America's Business?" published by the Marriage CoMission in conjunction with Life Innovations. The report provides compelling data in support of the benefits to a corporation for actively encouraging healthy marriages and relationships in their organization. This is a must read for anyone interested in corporate marriage education. The report is available at www.marriagecomission.com or www.prepare-enrich.com (click on research).
Guidelines for Direct Marriage Education
To deliver direct marriage education successfully within a company, I recommend following several very important guidelines:
1. Get buy in and sponsorship from the top. The troops watch Caesar for direction. If leaders are genuinely involved, in terms of policy, participation, and support, others will follow. The best corporate example of top-level support is Chick-fil-A. The owner-leaders of this company implement marriage-friendly policies and offer multiple programs (education sessions, marriage retreats) for all their employees and store operators.
2. Build in protective couple boundaries and security. Both employers and employees can be reluctant to mix their private and business lives, and often rightly so. Job security for a person providing economically for his or her family is critical. If some marital tension is exposed in a marriage education seminar, participants may have fear (real or imagined) that their job security is threatened, or that their chances for promotion or advancement are jeopardized. If a hint of either occurs, employees will not participate in marriage education. So, be sure couples are not put in situations in which they over-disclose or inadvertently disadvantage themselves.
3. Focus on positive, proactive training - equipping, not repairing. Marriage education and skill building are not group therapy. Marriage counseling is an alternative resource. Be sure marriage education, as other corporate programs, is offered as training and development to support and enhance workers' resilience and productivity.
Indirect Marriage Education
Much can be done indirectly to influence marriages positively through corporate training programs that emphasize interpersonal skills and competence, which build social and emotional intelligence. Programs that offer immediate and direct benefit to the corporation, as well as to continuous employee learning and development, are easier to implement. These kinds of programs can have significant impact on important relationships, both on-the-job and off-the-job.
How Presenteeism Relates to Corporate Marriage Education
Many people know about how absenteeism negatively impacts a company - employees not showing up for work physically can create trouble for a business. However, "presenteeism" - showing up for work physically, yet not being present mentally and emotionally - is becoming an even greater problem for corporations. Presenteeism can persist for days and beyond, impacting productivity and profits. Lost productivity due to presenteeism is, on average, seven and a half times greater than that lost to absenteeism. The Harvard Business Review estimates that presenteeism costs American Business $150 billion annually in direct and indirect costs. (Dixon, "Weighing the Costs of Presenteeism" The Chief Executive, June 2005)
Presenteeism occurs when a conflict at home is unresolved so anxious emotions fester and keep intruding onto an employee's "mental screen" throughout the day. This flooding interferes with the brain's "working memory" and executive function. The employee is distracted and pre-occupied. The person loses ability to focus and concentrate fully on the task at hand, causing lost productivity, until the situation that plagues him or her is resolved. Presenteeism has impact on safety as well.
The same is true for unresolved issues and conflicts arising on the job. A person returns home physically, but is stuck mentally and emotionally in an unsettled event, a difficult situation, or a stressful relationship with someone at work, unable to relate fully to and engage with his or her spouse and children.
Specific ICP Marriage and Corporate Programs
Besides providing instructor training to teach COUPLE COMMUNICATION, through Interpersonal Communication Programs, Inc. (ICP), I have recently upgraded our corporate programs: the I-SKILLS ZONE and COLLABORATIVE TEAM SKILLS (see www.I-SkillsZone.com).
Earlier versions of these corporate programs have been taught for years at 3M, Motorola, Eastman Chemical Company, and Ball Corporation. These are a few of the major corporations that have experienced positive impacts on the businesses and secondarily on their employees' marriages. (Often going through the I-SKILLS ZONE class at work, participants will ask about the availability of a COUPLE COMMUNICATION class for their own marriages. And in turn, after taking COUPLE COMMUNICATION, participants have brought ICP's business systems into their companies.) These participants recognize how concepts and skills that work in one area would fit another, as well.
The Information Wheel (an I-SKILLS ZONE business tool, similar to the Awareness Wheel taught in COUPLE COMMUNICATION) is useful for dealing with presenteeism both at work and at home. The Information Wheel is the structure of any issue and provides a simple but powerful way to work through decisions and conflicts intrapersonally and interpersonally. This and other tools, skills, and processes have multiple applications both at the office and at home.
The same relationship concepts, skills and
processes taught in large corporations are being taught with good
results in smaller businesses, too. Ed Koplin and his wife Mary
Beth are certified COUPLE COMMUNICATION instructors who regularly
teach the program through their church. Ed is also the president
of a civil engineering company in the Baltimore area called JDA
Consulting Engineers. He has become an I-SKILLS ZONE/COLLABORATIVE
TEAM SKILLS Instructor, teaching and coaching the skills in his
own company with
positive effects on the business. Ed's examples below illustrate
how skills training at work can improve significant relationships
at home. Ed tells the following:
1. A junior mechanical engineer had extreme anger problems. Talented though he was, he was very demeaning and critical of any errors or confusion of those he worked with. Over a period of time he learned new methods (from COLLABORATIVE TEAM SKILLS) to express his frustrations and wants, developing collaborative team skills with his peers. The quality and quantity of his work group improved. It was obvious that he was happier and less tense, even during tough deadlines.
One day, he came to me first thing in the morning and said, "I used the stuff we are learning at work, at home." With a little prompting he went on to say that the previous night he had come home to find his wife packing up her things. She had a note explaining her deep dissatisfaction with their relationship and was leaving him, taking their one year-old son. As he put it, "I thought if I was ever going to use the listening skills I learned at work, this would be the time to do it." He encouraged his wife to talk while he "furthered" her to discuss her wants, feelings and expectations. It was the first time in their marriage that she was listened to deeply. It has been a year since that day and they are still together raising their son. I've met her picking up our engineer at work and they appear to be comfortable together…she was smiling as he got in the car.
2. Ten midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy lined up a classroom and asked me to teach the"I-SKILLS ZONE" program. The format was four, two-and-a-half hour sessions, one per week. The academic and organizational pressures are extreme at the USNA; tensions and exhaustion are rampant. The mids worked their way though understanding that they could use the skills even if the other party they were in conflict with didn't have them. Their goal was to develop better collaborative skills, even with superior officers.
At one point in the program, participants plan a discussion with another person and practice the discussion with someone in the class, prior to being face-to-face with the person in real life. One of the mids spent at least an hour between classes filling out the issues with his girl friend. I think it took a lot of courage to practice with a male mid, in a classroom setting, about his girl friend. Probably he was desperate. A few weeks after the class he met with me to report that he had the discussion with his girl friend and was elated at how well it went. They developed their relationship to a deeper level; he was much more at peace with how it was maturing. It has been about ten months since the class, and last Friday night he came over to show me the engagement ring he picked out for her!
3. Our in-house accountant at the engineering company is a middle-aged woman who will be married soon. I have noticed that she has become extremely intentional about working through difficult interpersonal situations at work. She writes down her "awareness" of the events that trouble her with other people in the office and reviews them with me prior to her face-to-face discussions. Since many of the issues are financial, and the discussions are with senior production engineers, the probability of escalation of tension is very real. She is progressing famously. Everyone in the office has a deep respect for her and her management skills are highly valued and appreciated. Men who might otherwise dismiss her accounting needs as trivial have developed a real empathy for her needs and respond in a timely manner.
I had a discussion with her regarding how exciting it was to me that she was doing such a great job with her communication, even though I knew she was raging mad at times. I was floored when she commented that her ulterior motive was to prepare for her upcoming marriage and deal with issues in the blended family. Recently a future stepdaughter was in the office helping to assemble Christmas presents for our clients, working for her "mom to be!" Apparently, the course, learned at work, was having a real impact on her relationship with the future daughter-in-law with whom she had previously been in conflict.
These are a few examples that I have first hand in which learning collaborative team skills has an impact in personal relationships outside of work. I suggest that there are a few similarities between work and home relationships that help to create transferable skills. First, we spend most of our waking hours with people at work; we really get to know them. Second, like a "small marriage," work groups have an implicit commitment to each other; they have to get a job done, even if they have relational problems with each other. Third, as they find alternatives to fight, flee, falsify, or flounder, their work group relationships become more satisfying. Employees that are happy at work are happier at home.
Ed and Mary Beth Koplin have been using ICP
materials for eleven years. The past several years they have
been working formally as certified instructors. They can be reached
through their website, www.listentogether.com.
For more information, see www.I-SkillsZone.com or call 800-328-5099.
For information on the COUPLE COMMUNICATION instructor training, see www.couplecommunication.com.