Employee Engagement

Happiness at work – a bit squishy?

HappyBrain

Happiness remains a somewhat controversial word when applied to the workplace.  I don’t think it should be, but there is this sense that being happy is something you do after work.  Then, there’s the problem that describing happiness often involves words like emotion, and feeling – surely all a bit squishy for the workplace?

We don’t usually mind talking about performance, mental toughness, drive, achievement and a slew of other words that convey resilience and action.

The problem is that as human beings, our most influential driving force comes from a well developed part of the brain called the Limbic system – a combination of interlinked structures responsible for emotion, behaviour, motivation and long term memory, among others.  The way we behave, make decisions, take action, respond to challenges, and much more is highly influenced by our Limbic system….

Or should I say, our performance, mental toughness, drive, achievement and resilience are highly influenced by the part of the brain that appears to have primary responsibility for our emotional life.

But let’s not forget the brains executive function (there, back with more comfortable words), in the pre-frontal cortex (pfc).  This comparatively modern part of our brain is associated with consciousness, self-control, language, and many other things making it the ultimate seat of the rational human.  This then, surely, is the part of the brain we take to work, the all powerful.

Hmm, just like the Wizard, Oz, it’s mostly a deception.  In his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt evolves a number of existing analogies of the relationship between the limbic system and the pfc, culminating in something along these lines… imagine yourself as the rider of a large elephant.  With some work and training you can sometimes get the elephant to go where you’d like it go.  But, if the elephant decides it really wants to go left when you want to go right, left it is.  In this analogy, you are the rational pfc, the human rider, and the powerful elephant is your limbic system.

The psychiatrist advising the incredibly successful British cycling team, Dr Steve Peters, uses the analogy of a chimp, a human and a computer to describe the limbic system, pfc and the supporting memory; described in his book The Chimp Paradox.  Where the mental skill in performance is managing the chimp, which he says “[is] an emotional skill – it’s no different to a bike skill.”  So, if you’re an elite athlete, clearly your physical state is critical, but to win also requires emotional skill.

Happiness comes when the chimp is happy, or when the elephant is happy to go with your flow.  When you understand how to manage your emotions, you’ll find yourself spending more time in a constructive positive mood, which is conducive to higher creativity, improved relationships, less negative stress and ultimately higher performance.

So, perhaps we’re unaccustomed to thinking of happiness, emotion and feeling in the workplace, but there’s nothing squishy about them – well not if you like the idea of high performance anyway.  I’m reminded of one of Tom Peters sayings “hard is soft, and soft is hard,” referring to soft things like the customer experience being the real hard data of a business.  Much the same is true with emotion, the real hard data of employee performance, may well be happiness.

Be remarkable,
Mark

Employee Engagement or Happiness?

HappyBusinesswomanWorking

Employee engagement is the single most important aim of the work we do at Reach Remarkable – after all, other than sleeping, working is the thing most of us do, the most, for most of our lives… and so enjoying it is key.

But hang-on, I just implied that employee engagement is analogous to enjoyment.  Is it?  The term ‘employee engagement’ is a somewhat organisation centred one.  Organisations also have ‘human resource’ departments, and often consider ‘human capital’ as a business investment.  A business may want its leaders and human resource department to maximise the return on the human capital investment, and one way to do that is by creating employee engagement.

Whereas, I’ve not worked in a team that considered itself in such a way – even though we understand the perspective.  Of course, we’re people, with needs, desires and goals as well as business commitments and scorecards to track.  Engaged employees get something from their work beyond an income, something that relates to them personally.

If you ask us as employees what we want from work, external rewards like being paid are of course required, but assuming that, responses quickly move to intrinsic or internal rewards.  We hear responses related to achievement, meaning, feeling useful and valued, enjoyment and even happiness.  And this last one is often used like a summary… “I want to achieve something, something useful, make a difference.  At the end of the day I want be to happy, and work is an important part of that.”

So, if I need a quick summary it’s that – organisations want to benefit from employee engagement, and people want to benefit from being happy.

Be engaged, err, happy, ahh, remarkable,
Mark