Happiness is good, and it might be profitable
 Subscribe to the Three Star Leadership Blog |
 |
| The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. |
 |
| Contact Wally about coaching, consulting, or speaking to your group. |
"Start Smiling: It Pays To Be Happy At Work." That's the headline from Forbes.
The sub-head is even more emphatic: "Happiness at work doesn't just boost morale, it leads to better reviews, faster promotion, fatter salaries and higher productivity."
Before we all go jumping on the "joy-makes-us-money" bandwagon, let's look at what the reported research actually says. Because it doesn't say what the headline writer seems to think it does.
The core of the Forbes article is a report on research by Jessica Pryce-Jones, author of Happiness at Work and CEO of iOpener. She compiled the results from 3000 (exactly?) survey respondents in 79 countries who filled out her questionnaire. Here's the key finding.
"Happiness at work is closely correlated with greater performance and productivity as well as greater energy, better reviews, faster promotion, higher income, better health and increased happiness with life. So it's good for organizations and individuals, too."
The key word in the above is "correlated." You will recall from your education that correlation does not mean causation.
What we know is that if we make a list of workers who are happy and one of workers who are productive, lots of people will appear on both lists. But that doesn't mean that if you are happy you will be more successful. It doesn't mean that if you concentrate on making your team members happy, they will be more productive.
It could be that the respondents were happy because they were successful.
It could be that some third factor caused both the happiness and the success.
Or, it could be "neither of the above." It might be chance.
I don't have anything against happiness. I think it beats unhappiness as a life script. I think there are some interesting findings in the article. And some of the people quoted (Gretchen Rubin is one) have some helpful and important things to say.
But I don't like sloppy thinking, especially from leading business publications. I don't like it because it's likely to lead managers down an unproductive road.
Boss's Bottom Line
Your job isn't to make people happy so they'll be productive. It's not to make them productive but not worry about their well-being, either. Your job is to do the things that create a human-friendly working environment where the team and team members are productive and morale is high.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Categories: Great Working Environment
Tags: Great Working Environment
Thank you for pointing out that happiness does not cause greater performance. Fallacies in research weaken findings rather than supporting them. This is something we all need to remember from our English classes. I do agree that happiness is better in the work place than the alternative. It is always better to be in a more upbeat environment than trudging the day along.
Reply to this
Thanks for the kind words, Jennifer. I confess that the correlation/causation issue is a hot button for me. And it's especially dangerous when it appears in a major publication.
Reply to this
Great post. There's a growing body of academic research showing the link between happiness and profitability too.
Reply to this
Thanks for adding your voice, David. The problem I have with much of that research is that it's like the research described in this post. It establishes correlation, but not causality. Without understanding the causality, you can't use the research as a guide for behavior.
Reply to this
The environment which organizations set up for you influences your behavior. Say your in a large company (50+ employees), are all these people the same? Of course not. However, do they behave the same? In my company they do - show up on time, go to meetings, and do some work at their desk. The atmosphere is usually quiet so people can focus and be productive - everyone is happy they can do their work without too many distractions. I think the author might have been leaning more along this chain of reasoning.
Reply to this
Thanks for stopping by Richard. You're right that the environment affects the way people work and how they feel. So does the culture.
Reply to this
Kudos on your point about creating environments. Much of the material I read fails to mention this crucial element, thus too often leaders and managers fail to recognize that they create the organizational environment, regardless of where they are in the organizational food chain. That environment is crucial to productivity and mission success, more so than a "happy" place to work.
If you want a happy workplace, follow Jay Goltz's advice in his New York Times article (March 11, 2010) and fire the unhappy people.
If you want to create an environment of productivity, set standards, train people to do their jobs, invest in their continual growth, empower them to make decisions that are consistent with the organization's values, and finally, take care of them. Show them appreciation for a job well done, but also, do not hestitate to step up to the plate and hold them accountable. Everyone in the organization will respect that and more often than not, work harder to be a productive partner.
Reply to this
Wow, Larry, that's as good a summary as I've seen of things you should do to create a great working environment. And thanks for the pointer to Jay Goltz' blog post, "The Secret to Having Happy Employees."
Reply to this
Wally, I like that you actually challenged a huge magazine like Forbes. I think it takes some guts to do so. I enjoyed reading your post and found it to be quite interesting. I have heard before that sometimes if you force yourself to smile, you will start feeling happy. The article in Forbes kind of reminds me of that. They are sort of just assuming that what they are saying is correct but as anyone who has worked a day in their life knows, there is much more that goes into being productive at work than just being happy. Happiness can help, yes, but what about the other factors, like how much you make, commission vs. salary employees, etc. I think this article goes to show you that if you sound like you know what your talking about than it must be true. I am glad that you didn't just believe their truth. Thanks!
Reply to this
I think you nailed it, Amber when you said, "there is much more that goes into being productive at work than just being happy." I like to think that happiness is an emergent property of a great working environment. From my experience and research, I know that it's great to be a contributing part of a productive team. It's even better if you like the people you work with on a personal level.
Reply to this
In my opinion, there is no direct relationship between happiness and successful. However, I think it is true that unhappiness all the time definitely could not make employees themselves and company to be successful.
Reply to this
Thanks for sharing that, Patrick. It's a good point.
Reply to this
I think like many management areas this is easy to get confused about. Happiness helps. Focusing just on making employees happy isn't the right approach. What you need to do is focus on creating an organization where human psychology, systems thinking, variation... (Deming's ideas) are understood. As part of that system creating an environment where people take pride in what they do, the organization will benefit. It isn't about giving more ice cream cones out. It is about creating an environment where people flourish. That takes many many things. One important thing, is to get the right people in the right jobs.
It doesn't help to take someone that doesn't want to deal with customers day to day and try to make them happy doing that. Put in the right people and then make sure they can do a good job and be proud and happy.
Reply to this
Thanks for those insights, John, especially adding the bit about making sure people are in the right jobs. It's the idea behind Zappo's practice of offering newly trained customer service people money if they want to quit before moving into the actual job.
Reply to this