Happy International Happiness Day!
Happiness at work has taken on a new urgency, hasn’t it? As companies of all kinds are scrambling to boost morale and reduce turnover, more and more leaders are recognizing that their employees’ well-being IS actually a big part of their leadership responsibility.
That means they need to understand more about happiness and how it operates on both a human level and an organizational level. Of course this makes me happy.
Right now, staying optimistic is particularly crucial – not just for business success, but for your health. At the recent World Happiness Conference, WOHASU, I was struck by Arthur Brooks’ powerful proposition that we have an ethical responsibility to be happier.
Brooks, who teaches Happiness at Harvard, put it bluntly: ‘No one wants to work for a miserable person.’ Talk about a simple “truism.”
Brooks proposes making leaders into happiness teachers – an idea I wholeheartedly
endorse! When you create a great environment for managers, workers are happier.
When create a great environment for teachers, students are happier.
Well-being needs to be the way we lead. I love his shift from “self-care” to “other care.”
The data supporting this approach is compelling. Professor Jon Emmanuel De Neve
reported on the world’s largest happiness survey that while 87% of leaders agree that well-being matters, only 37% do anything about it, and a mere 19% make it a strategic priority. His studies in combination with Indeed surveyed 20 million workers and found only 22% report high well-being at work.
For those wanting the business case for happiness (and who doesn’t?) there’s definitive proof: companies investing in happiness see increased productivity, improved attraction and retention, and employees reporting a higher sense of belonging, energy, trust, and learning.
According to his studies, investing in workplace well-being moves the lever in attracting the best people, and companies like British Telecom lose a third fewer people.
Happiness starts with self-awareness. Do you lean more towards optimism or
pessimism? Do you look for what's right and good? Do you routinely awfulize,
disasterize or catastrophize? Do you understand your own values and how those values show up at work?
I’s a well-researched fact now that when you focus on happiness FIRST, success
follows, and not the other way around. But how many people still believe they will be
happy when – happy when they achieve the next goal, when they get the next raise,
when they meet the right person?
When happiness comes FIRST, your success is more likely to come easier.
Happiness makes you more creative, more productive, more innovative. It builds your immune system and makes you less likely to get burnout! Happiness is a core
competency and a measurable KPI at work.
And you don’t have to go to Harvard to get it.
You can come here! Our Positive Leadership programs and Lunch and Learn
experiences can bring the skills of happiness right to your business!
Hit reply and let me know you are READY to bring more happiness to your workplace!
Here’s to happy days.
JoAnna
PS – enjoy my latest podcast on how Happiness can make you Healthier!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfRhtoFKOVE
