The Big Idea 2007

You can be happy at work.

(Just in case you haven’t heard.)

Unfortunately it’s not my idea, but it is being popularized by Alexander Kjerulf, who calls himself the Chief Happiness Officer.

Mr Kjerulf has written a book on the subject, called “Happy Hour is 9 to 5: How To Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work”, and also “The Happy at Work Manifesto” (free down load).

Apart from the fact that I agree with him, I’d like to point out ‘policy’ 11:  “I do my best work when I’m happy – When I’m happy I’m engaged, motivated, committed, more creative, less risk-averse, more service-minded and more productive”.  Does this sound like something you want for your team?

Great!  But not so fast, slick.  Here’s another recent book:  “Stumbling Upon Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert – an extraordinarily well informed study of how we deceive ourselves about happiness.  My three line synopsis:

1) We’re not very good at remembering what made us happy, so

2) We’re not very good at predicting what will make us happy, and

3) We often pretend we were happy when we weren’t because of societal norms.

So you’re not going to get much insight about nurturing happiness from your team’s answers to your questions about happiness.  But, according to the Hawthrone Effect, the act of asking may just inspire them to be more engaged, motivated, committed, more creative, less risk-averse and more service minded.

Sound familiar?  It turns out that the Big Idea 2007 has its roots in the Big Idea 1932.

— Philip Greenwood

wikitags : [[wiki:beaufortes:happiness]]

Tags: Hawthorne+Effect, Happiness