Happy Hour is 9 to 5 (5 page)

Work itself can make us happy. If you’re a salesperson who loves talking to customers, a mechanic who loves fixing things, a programmer who loves to code, or a nurse who loves treating patients, there’s a good chance you’ll be happy just doing the work involved in your job.

However, one thing should be made very clear: happiness at work is not limited to those people lucky enough to have found their calling. It’s not only for those whose job is their first career choice. Even when the job itself is fairly generic, it’s possible to love it.

Even if the work itself is perfect, that is absolutely no guarantee you’ll be happy at work. If your manager is a terrible person, if the mood at the company is bad, if you’re being bullied or treated unfairly, you will be unhappy at work, no matter how great the job.

It ain’t what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it

When you ask people what makes them happy at work apart from work itself, you get these long lists of what people want to have, usually including a good boss, appreciation, a good salary, nice co-workers, free donuts, having fun, great meetings, having ideas, and much, much more.

This is reflected in most theories and studies on job satisfaction and motivation, which invariably focus on what we must
have
to enjoy our jobs.

However, happiness at work is less about what you
have
, and more about what you
do
.  You may
have
a great boss, a great team, interesting tasks and a lot of fun. But it’s what
you’ve done
that makes it so. And it’s what you
do today
that will keep it that way.

Also, even if you know what you must have to be happy at work, you still face the obvious question: “So, what do I
do
to get it?”

Finally, focusing on what you must have is passive, whereas focusing on what you must do is active. You take charge and create the future you want.

That is why any useful theory of what makes us happy at work must focus on what we do – not on what we have. By some strange coincidence, the theory presented in this chapter does just that!

So if it’s not the job... what is it?

So what can make us happy? Well, it turns out it’s really simple. It only takes two things to make us happy at work:

1. Results
   
2. Relationships
   

That’s it! That’s all there is. When we have those two things we’re happy at work. When we only have one, we’re more or less OK. When we have neither, we feel terrible at work.

Let’s take a closer look at these two. First, results.

Results make us happy at work

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We all want to get results. We all want to:

• Make a difference
  
• Contribute value
  
• Know that our work is important
  
• Get appreciation
  
• Feel needed
  
• Do work that we can be proud of
  

One of our deepest psychological needs is the need to control our environment. If we’re placed in a situation where we have no control, where nothing we do matters, we feel terrible.

On the other hand, we love to do great work and to make a difference. Accomplishment
feels great
.

Some managers don’t realise this about people. They think that people need to be motivated into performing. That when we’re left alone, we choose to do nothing. In fact, the reverse is true and when given half a chance, we work our hearts out to accomplish results.

There are four things we can do to get great results at work:

• Praise – appreciation shows us we get results
  
• Grow and learn – this is about getting results for yourself
  
• Find meaning – so you can see you don’t just get results for the business, you’re contributing to something greater
  
• Be free – so you’re free to get great results
  

People who do these four things get great results. We’ll look at each of these later.

Relationships make us happy at work

According to Maslow’s widely-known hierarchy of needs, our most fundamental needs are physiological needs — food, sleep, and so on — and our need for safety. This is followed by our need to belong and to feel loved. Our species has evolved in groups and communities, and few of us can be happy unless we belong to a functioning group.

Which brings us to relationships at work. When you ask people what makes them happy at work, they consistently rate these things the highest:

1. Nice co-workers
   
2. A good manager
   
3. Good communication
   
4. A sense of humour in the workplace
   

Each of these is a sign of good relationships, caring and, indeed, love — simple signs that people like each other and communicate well. These good relationships don’t have to stop at co-workers and managers, but can also happen with customers, suppliers, shareholders, and the company’s wider community.

Relationships at work matter so much because we will be spending
a lot
of time with people at work. When you think about it, you’ll be spending more of your waking hours with them than with your friends and family
combined
.

There are three things you can do to create great relationships at work:

• Be positive
  
• Be yourself
  
• Love
  

We’ll look at each of these later.

What is your focus? Results or relationships?

Of these two, which do you focus on the most? Are you mostly focused on getting results or creating relationships at work? What about your workplace as a whole? Does it mostly emphasise and strive for results or relationships?

Think about it for a second.

It’s probably safe to say that 99.9% of all workplaces, managers and employees focus on results the most. This is hardly surprising – organisations exist for the results they get.  They’re all about the budgets, plans, projects, strategies and missions – i.e. the results.

So it’s perfectly understandable that they should focus so strongly on results. It’s also a mistake.

What happens in most workplaces is that they focus so much on results that they forget about relationships at work. But good relationships don’t just appear by themselves, it takes a concerted, daily effort to create them. When this effort is not made, you get bad relationships at work. Instead of teamwork and mutual appreciation you get mistrust, internal conflict, bickering and selfishness.

This of course makes people unhappy at work and when people are unhappy at work, results suffer. Which of course makes the workplace focus
even more
on results.

So, ironically, focusing too much on results
harms results!

And that is why workplaces must focus equally on results and relationships in everything they do. Fortunately, this is actually fairly easy!

Results
and
relationships

A focus on results and relationships can be introduced into almost any job and any workplace in the world. They’re not limited to certain businesses or certain types of work or workers.

Notice that it’s not the organisation that has to focus on results and relationships — it’s you. It’s us. While the company must offer an environment within which these are easy to attain, it’s still up to us to actually take the opportunity to do something about it every day.

Do you prioritise the things that make you happy at work, or are your efforts concentrated elsewhere? The problem is that many people don’t have a clear picture of what makes them happy at work, and while they may have the best of intentions, they end up doing the wrong things.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the things it takes to give us great results and great relationships – and hence great happiness  – at work.

Praise

Kjaer Group, a Danish company that sells cars in developing nations, introduced The Order of the Elephant a few years back. It’s a huge plush toy that any employee can award to any other, along with an explanation of why that employee deserves The Order. The recipient keeps the elephant for a couple of days, and at two feet tall it’s hard to overlook if it’s standing on that person’s desk.

Other employees stopping by immediately notice the elephant and go, “Hey, you got the elephant. What’d you do?” which of course means that good stories and best practice get told and re-told many times. This is an excellent, simple and cheap way of enhancing learning and happiness at work.

Praise may be the single most effective method to make people happy at work:

• Everyone can do it
  
• It’s easy
  
• It works
  
• It takes no time and costs no money
  

Remember that good praise is:

• Relevant — Don’t praise just for the sake of praise — make sure there’s a reason to praise.
  
• Timely — Praise as soon as there’s a reason.
  
• Personal — Tailor the praise to suit that particular person being praised.
  

For extra bonus points:

1. Praise someone you don’t talk to often. It’s a great way to establish contact.
   
2. Praise your manager. Managers often hear very little praise from their employees. However, only genuine praise counts — don’t kiss butt!
   
3. If you really want a challenge, praise someone you don’t like much or someone you’re currently having a conflict with. It can be a great way to get unstuck. Can’t think of anything positive about that person? Try again — there’s always something.
   

Also, try to remember that not only can you praise people for what they do, but you can also praise them for who they are. The happiest workplaces use this technique to create a culture of praise, where good deeds and good people are routinely and quickly noticed and appreciated.

Which philosophy do you think is more likely to make people happy at work?

Catch people making mistakes and punish them quickly

or

Catch people doing things right and praise them quickly

While I definitely opt for the latter, this does not mean that you can’t criticise people and correct them when they make mistakes. In fact, if you routinely praise people when they get things right, they’re more open and positive towards criticism.

Some great ways to praise people include:

In person — Don’t make a big production out of it, just go up to a colleague, deliver your praise and then get back to work. Do not hang around waiting to be praised back. Also, do not add “…but you really need to improve your…” after the praise — that ruins the whole point.

Use a token — Like the elephant that the Kjaer Group uses, a widely recognised token helps to develop a culture of praise within your company. If you can find something with relevance to your company, even better.

On the walls — The London-based innovation agency ?What If! has praise for their employees written all over their combined meeting and reception area. Any employee can nominate any other for their good deeds, and the best ones are immortalised in big, colourful letters pasted across the walls and ceiling of the busiest area of the office, where the most people will see them.

Grow and learn

Michael, a programmer in his mid-thirties, came up to me after a presentation I gave and told me this story.

“I work as a programmer in a major bank. I used to go in every week, work my 40 hours (more like 50, but hey) and get paid a nice salary. It was a nice job in a good company, my boss was a good guy, my co-workers were nice people and the work was OK.

But as time passed, I felt like something was missing. Work was comfortable and secure, but I felt that there were sides of me that I never really got to use. I wanted to do work I could really feel proud of. I wanted to make more of a difference. And mostly, I was never really excited about work.

So I asked myself what it would take to improve things. I came up with three things:

• Being more creative and working on more varied projects, as opposed to only maintaining the bank’s internal programs.
  
• More fun at work. The mood in the department was very serious and professional, to the point of being boring.
  
• Learning some new professional skills.
  

I asked my boss about this and he was very supportive. We drew up a plan for some courses and certifications and found some new tasks that I could work on. We recruited some like-minded allies in the group and worked on lightening the mood in the group together.