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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

sloanreview.mit.edu

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#341

Post by spookthesunset »

pyb wrote: post #153
suction wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

You make a good point. Are people successful because they are happy, or vice versa?

What is “be successful” other than being content with your life?

Dudes who make bank almost always have to work really hard to get there. Or at least make a lot of sacrifices (for example trade most of your social life / relationships / etc for work).

Personally I just want to make enough to enable me to buy shit for my hobbies and personal projects. I’d like to do that while maintaining the ability to take lots of time off. I’d trade hobby money for time off. I’d trade a lot for time off…

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#343

Post by DerArzt »

i_like_waiting wrote: post #28
cube00 wrote: post #6

> While many — if not most — of us are motivated by genuine caring for the people who power our organizations, we also intuitively know that employee happiness should boost job performance. I have a hard time believing that "many — if not most" people in management are actually motivated by this.

I am not, you can add it as a data point. Its just work, you are probably not caring about your manager outside of your performance review. And thats fair.

I care about my immediate co-workers as people, but as employees & bosses not so much.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#344

Post by logicchains »

allie1 wrote: post #114
hathym wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even if they recruit only happe people, what guarantee they will stay happy? should they fire them once they are not?

This ties into the most consistent mistake EVERY manager makes - people don't change. I know of maybe 5% of people who do change, but that is so inconsistent and unpredictable that it can't be relied upon. Managers hire "almost great" candidates and think they can affect change and get a good deal, and this NEVER works out. Any red flags on the interviews/trial period will and do persist forever. In the end, it's alw…

This is also one of the biggest dating mistakes people make, believing a partner will change. Odds are they won't, and if they do it may not be in the way you wanted them to change.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#345

Post by kingkawn »

suction wrote: post #150
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

The idea that this positive state of mind is resource dependent is itself a preemptive loss of that state of mind.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#346

Post by adolph »

This is a pretty typical associational/correlational study where unwarranted causality appears as if magic in the post-study journalism. Does happiness cause better performance? Does better performance lead to happiness? Is some other factor or confounder behind both?

If one were to follow the reasoning of the authors, their data also supports disbanding Active Duty and Reserve in favor of National Guard. The next MITSloane story writes itself--part time workers have higher performance: go go gig economy!

  Characteristic No award         Award           Effect size
  Army Component: n (%)      
  Active duty         412,173 (52.28%) 36,761 (28.30%) 0.54
  Reserve         179,790 (22.80%) 1,448 (1.27%) 0.06
  National Guard 196,423 (24.91%) 76,234 (66.61%) 2.67
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-021-00441-x...

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#347

Post by bradlys »

bgroat wrote: post #293
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

I want to focus on the social power this individual had, and to remind everyone that interested people are interesting The reason that you're friend was so magnetic was because they could look at an old tattered map, be entertained for an hour, and be open to sharing that experience with those around them.

Yeah - unfortunately - this is not a story of a genius. It’s a story of someone who was interested in mundane things. I think it’s also important to realize that there were likely other attributes at play but OP likely has created a narrative that it was simply their interests that made them engaging. (This is usually not it - I’ve met plenty of people who were also interested in mundane things but exceptionally unpleasant to be around)

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#348

Post by jglmn »

suction wrote: post #150
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

I'd flip the script. Start willing yourself to be super positive, interested and committed, and no matter what you'll get much better. More than that, you'll become better liked in the eyes of people who write the checks, and overall be considered more indispensable. That will parlay into additional opportunities, responsibilities and eventually pay. After that, leverage to either negotiate pay, or attract interest from other places.

This is a move you can pull from almost any position. No need to score a stock windfall (though sorry to hear about your dramatic rise and fall)

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#349

Post by xwdv »

czbond wrote: post #330
datavirtue wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it goes from 16 hours a day to MAYBE 16 hours a week.

I have a lot of experience pushing forward stuff with wife / kids. One must learn to delegate. Yes you can do "programming whatever", but you don't have the time. If you believe in the project, allocate.... $100,$500,$1k a month for a few months (whatever is your threshold) and outsource! It doesn't need to be in "expensive React with microservices".... you can do v1 in Laravel and a purchased template. (as example).…

This advice used to work years ago but user expectations have risen massively and you can no longer get away with a shitty cookie cutter MVP. You must do the big work upfront and come out very polished out of the gate, or else users will sense you don’t really have much skin in the game and not bother investing time in your niche project. This often means you must leverage the latest and greatest tech to get an edge, such as React.

Users have been burned too much by “lean startups” and “mvps” and have become wiser to their tricks.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#350

Post by mensetmanusman »

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...

This hasn’t been my experience. I’m like the ‘happy map guy’ in the discussion above. My happiness helps me be incredibly patient and optimistic about possible improvements to things. Have submitted over 100 global patent filings (in materials science, not software) and some of my inventions are being deployed globally :)
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