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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

sloanreview.mit.edu

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#11

Post by keyraycheck »

jimkleiber wrote: post #9

> We first asked them to rate their well-being — their happiness, if you will — along with their optimism, and then tracked which soldiers later received awards based on their job performance. I'm curious to dig into the paper more because at first glance, I feel somewhat confused they seem to say happiness and well-being and optimism are all essentially the same thing. Again, maybe their paper doesn't say that and i…

or is it other way around? i.e. High performers are happier and more optimistic. So cause and affect is reversed

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#12

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

pella wrote: post #2

suggestions ( via MIT Sloan ) 1. Measure happiness in both employees and job candidates. 2. Develop happiness in your workforce. 3. Retain employees who are happy.

>2. Develop happiness in your workforce.

Floggings will continue until your happiness KPIs improve.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#13

Post by jesseendahl »

drewcoo wrote: post #5

Happy people don't change the world. They maintain the status quo. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - Shaw https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/536961-the-reasonable-man-a...

I think you are conflating “unreasonable” with “unhappy”.

It’s absolutely possible to have unreasonably high standards/expectations for “how things should be” and fight super hard for change/progress, while still being a happy person.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#14

Post by lazide »

jesseendahl wrote: post #13
drewcoo wrote: post #5

Happy people don't change the world. They maintain the status quo. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - Shaw https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/536961-the-reasonable-man-a...

I think you are conflating “unreasonable” with “unhappy”. It’s absolutely possible to have unreasonably high standards/expectations for “how things should be” and fight super hard for change/progress, while still being a happy person.

Really? I haven’t seen it very often.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#15

Post by nefitty »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3
pella wrote: post #2

suggestions ( via MIT Sloan ) 1. Measure happiness in both employees and job candidates. 2. Develop happiness in your workforce. 3. Retain employees who are happy.

On one hand, this seems like a minefield of potential issues. If you build processes to measure "happiness" and make retain/fire decisions based on it, you're going to get a lot of fake happiness as soon as the employees figure it out. A lot . However, in the past I've made the mistake of trying to retain angry, unhappy, or otherwise disgruntled employees too long. Some people are just irreversibly angry in life and…

Our relationships at work make or break the whole endeavor. As a manager, it is imperative to protect your directs from toxicity. Horizontally, that means discussing and working out issues regarding satisfaction with colleagues. If skip-levels aren't conducted with happiness in mind, then they're barely more than useless. Managers who cannot steer away or excise toxicity need to be excised themselves.

Pizza and bonuses doesn't equal happiness. Making your office look like Google doesn't bring happiness. The two main things are positive, constructive relationships and autonomy.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#16

Post by lazide »

dustymcp wrote: post #10
galaxyLogic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it might be that if people pretend to be happy they try to invent reasons why they should be happy and as they tell themselves and others why they (say they) are happy they start being a bit more happy. If you really want to fake happiness the best way is to try to be happy

Fake it till you make it

Having personally had to deal with folks whose strategy in the face of hard times is faking being happy? Yikes. Delusion is dangerous.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#17

Post by ramraj07 »

adra wrote: post #8
drewcoo wrote: post #5

Happy people don't change the world. They maintain the status quo. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - Shaw https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/536961-the-reasonable-man-a...

I'd argue lazy people don't often change the world and probably not people who are drunk/high all the time. I'd argue self worth and personal happiness doesn't eliminate ones desire to positively change society (same with rich people), though it may be less common. Lincoln was a rich white guy who still did good things. Tons of CEOs are money obsessed miserable sociopaths whos greatest contributions will be adding so…

Lazy people change the world all the time. Not the universally lazy ones, just the lazy ones that are still responsible.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#18

Post by droopyEyelids »

ramraj07 wrote: post #17
adra wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue lazy people don't often change the world and probably not people who are drunk/high all the time. I'd argue self worth and personal happiness doesn't eliminate ones desire to positively change society (same with rich people), though it may be less common. Lincoln was a rich white guy who still did good things. Tons of CEOs are money obsessed miserable sociopaths whos greatest contributions will be adding so…

Lazy people change the world all the time. Not the universally lazy ones, just the lazy ones that are still responsible.

This little debate is a good example of how difficult it can be to communicate meaningfully about huge topics. Everything said in this topic has a certain amount of ‘truth’ to it.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#19

Post by [deleted] »

drewcoo wrote: post #5

Happy people don't change the world. They maintain the status quo. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - Shaw https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/536961-the-reasonable-man-a...

[deleted]

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#20

Post by onion2k »

adra wrote: post #8
drewcoo wrote: post #5

Happy people don't change the world. They maintain the status quo. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - Shaw https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/536961-the-reasonable-man-a...

I'd argue lazy people don't often change the world and probably not people who are drunk/high all the time. I'd argue self worth and personal happiness doesn't eliminate ones desire to positively change society (same with rich people), though it may be less common. Lincoln was a rich white guy who still did good things. Tons of CEOs are money obsessed miserable sociopaths whos greatest contributions will be adding so…

I'd argue lazy people don't often change the world...

There are two sorts of lazy people.

One group don't put any effort in, they avoid work, and they leave things as they are. These are the "bad lazy" people. They maintain the status quo.

The other sort of lazy people see something that takes effort and think of ways to achieve the same end result with less effort. They're the automates, the refactorers, the long term thinkers. They're the "good lazy" people who create positive change because they enable people to do more. They maintain the status quo where necessary, but also create room for improvement.

"good lazy" people don't cause industry changing disruption on a massive scale. "good lazy" doesn't invent Uber or Amazon. But I would argue that they are the cause of a lot of small, incremental changes over time, which actually has a bigger effect on our lives. It just happens too slowly for us to notice.

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