Does Happiness Have a Role in Business?

What is the role of happiness in business? Does it have a place? This question was posed by Tom Clifford at DirectorTom.Com - an enlightened corporate filmmaker who I have had the pleasure to work with. As Tom mentions, if Harvard’s Business school has taken notice offering a class addressing such a topic, it begs for exploration.

I think it comes down to lexicon and an individuals perception of what happiness is. Let’s deconstruct. How does an organization define happiness? If you look at it as a living breathing organism – it’s happiness level might be determined by profitability, or a company that makes it’s shareholders smile (due to a sturdy P/E ratio) and contains within it, engaged employees.

As for managerial happiness – that might mean leaders who are high level producers within an organization who get along with their employees, enjoy their work, and are innovators whose ideas are embraced by the hierarchy.

On an individual level – I think happiness emerges when an employee’s work is aligned with his/her purpose and passion, in a working climate which embraces them for their individual skills that they bring to a company. Fulfillment and what Rick Jarow , author of Creating the Work You Love, would call – “right livelihood”  can drive up ones happiness quotient and I would argue productivity.

Ultimately, happiness in a business setting for me is about fulfilling passionate work in an environment which is people friendly. That means mutual respect. In the news industry, for example, I could go on and on about the lack of respect that I have encountered in the name of competition and driving up profits and web hits. For example, the unconscious behavior of a manager who throws a new employee into deep water without appropriate training, and wait to see if they sink or swim, in an exponentially changing technological culture.

Happiness in that case would be offering the appropriate training to ensure employee retention in an ever-tightening job market. Poor treatment of employees is no way to ensure an engaged and productive workforce.

We need to treat people like human beings, even in a climate where human capital must perform. In the long run, happiness concepts come down to voice. Giving voice to the mutual needs of the employee and the employer. Most large companies fear that, as it opens a can of worms. In the end it may be the only way to truly raise the vibration or happiness benchmarks within an organization.

Happiness at work and in business is the theme for the WorkLife Minute this week.

Listen what some pioneers and visionaries have to say about more fulfilling business practices at my WorkLife Monitor Podcasts at JudyMartinSpeaks.com.