Smile If You Get It

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: That Damn :-) Actually Means $$

Competencies: customer service, sales, managing people, leadership, strategic planning, visionary leadership, managing self, self-development

Who benefits: C-Suite, managers, supervisors, leads and management wannabes, career employees

Consultant Usage: organizational consultant, executive coaches, management/leadership trainers

What’s it about? Last week in my TGIF post I poked a little fun toward happiness as a factor in great customer service.  This week I have the Harvard Business Review to back me up.  Their January/February cover features Mr. Smiley Face.  Most of the articles in this double issue are devoted to some aspect of happiness at work.  Let me give you a sampling of what you will find.

Justin Fox writes about “The Economics of Well-Being” suggesting that in measuring the national economy it may be time to move away from the GDP (gross domestic product) toward something more like the UN’s Human Development Index.  Should something like that be developed in the future, how people are treated at work will be far more important than it is today.  It may reflect in stock value … and that gets the C-Suite’s attention real fast.  Besides, the evidence suggest happy workers make the company a bigger profit.  “Ta da!!!”

“The Science Behind the Smile” is an interview with Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert.  “The author of the 2006 best seller Stumbling on Happiness surveys the field. He explores the sudden emergence of happiness as a discipline, reviews the major findings (including the mistakes we all make in predicting how happy or miserable we’ll be), and examines the role of happiness in productivity on the job. He describes what makes us truly happy—it’s not a promotion or a new house—and sketches out a ‘happiness diet’ that emphasizes small, routine efforts.”

“Creating Sustainable Performance” is a great article about how happiness fits in a corporate culture. What makes for sustainable individual and organizational performance? Employees who are thriving — they have vitality, or the sense of being alive and excited, and they learn and grow. From this they are not just satisfied and productive but also engaged in creating the future.

“The authors found that people who fit this description demonstrated 16% better overall performance, 125% less burnout, 32% more commitment to the organization, and 46% more job satisfaction than their peers.

“Four mechanisms, none of which requires heroic effort or major resources, create the conditions for thriving: providing decision-making discretion, sharing information about the organization and its strategy, minimizing incivility, and offering performance feedback.”

“Positive Intelligence” suggests that happiness precedes success. “Happy employees are more productive, more creative, and better at problem solving than their unhappy peers.”  The author offers three get happy strategies for improving your own mental well-being at work.  Good advice for all employees.

Two other articles worthy of a read in this double issue are “The History of Happiness” and “HBR’s List of Audacious Ideas for Solving the World’s Problems” (not related to today’s topic, but heck, look at the title; who wouldn’t be interested in solving the world’s problems).

Since this is my self-proclaimed “Customer Service Month”, let summarize by saying happy reps sell more! 

Hope you have a Smiley Face reading these articles.  Don’t want any 🙁 ! 

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.