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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#3
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 will find a way to be upset about everything. Leaving them in the company will start to bring everyone down. If someone is clearly miserable at your company and you've made efforts to address their problems with no improvement, it's time to remove them.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#4
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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#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...

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#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.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#7
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…

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

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#8
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 some zeros to their net worth.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#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 it's just their attempt to summarize it, and maybe some people see those three as different words for the same concept, yet I imagine many wouldn't.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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
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