MANAGEMENT
Acorporate by definition is a legal entity. A legal person albeit dehumanised. Can therefore happiness a sentiment, an emotion be of any relevance to a corporate entity? Should those who own, run and manage a corporate entity be concerned about the state of happiness of its workforce? The world at large has already concluded that happiness is crucial to life. We have now global happiness index.
Recently the world happiness report for 2017, has been issued- the first of such report was published in 2012. For country happiness index rating a set of 6 variables are measured through time- income, health life expectancy, having someone to count in times of trouble, generosity, freedom and trust with the later measured by the absence of corruption. The international day of happiness is now designated on 20th March each year. The UAE was the first to host world happiness summit this year in February. Pakistan on the global index sits ‘royally’ at rank80, while Norway tops as the happiest nation. As Pakistanis we can be proud to be better than Indonesia (81 rank) or Central African Republic (at the bottom ranked 153).
There is a chapter in the global report titled ‘happiness at work’. It defines the role of work and employment in shaping people’s happiness and it studies how employment status, job type, work place characteristics affect subjective wellbeing. This chapter overwhelmingly is dominant in discussing ‘unemployment’ as a source of unhappiness. However, for this piece, I am going to dwell on ‘employed but unhappy’ workforce- its why? And steps to redress and transition to a state of happiness.
What is corporate happiness? It is not about or merely about high staff engagement, it relates to internal wellbeing. A happy workforce is a sure guarantee for corporate’s success it impacts positively on productivity.
In our daily lives while at work, by word, action and deed we contribute to the environment as XXXX of happiness. We kill each other’s state of happiness through rebuke, sarcasm, virulent tongue, wrong choice of words in conversations and by carrying and sporting an ugly face, that resembles ‘Oliver Cromwell’. A dehumanised organisation can never manage to get a ranking on corporate happiness index. Ingratitude to the many blessings causes unhappiness to descend upon you. The feelings of unhappiness is a deep wound that dangerously bleeds internally, it gets recognised and known when it usually late for any corrective action. Sorrow makes silence her best orator. A song is heard but a sigh is never!
Contribution to an environment of happiness comes when the boss learns to lighten the load and burden of colleagues, by engaging and joining them in a laugh on far and few occasions. Laughter is vital to state of happiness. As managers we are all confronted with very serious and complex business issues- we negotiate deals, agreements, treaties etc. all require deep concentration and can sometimes be source of drudgery. Lethargy and boredom, which can all mutually and exclusively lead to a state of unhappiness- but if all these activities were to be preceded by a broad sporting smile, a gentle grin or even a good laugh the results are bound to be very different.
We as managers must keep the reservoir of happiness always filled to the brim. Never let it deplete through tough times, hard challenges and lack of motivating factors. Unhappiness creates emotional ill health. Aristotle had said, happiness is the expression of soul. Unfortunately, many managers fail to see and recognise that happiness is a beauteous feeling that propels enhanced productivity of colleagues.
Buddha says there is no way to happiness; happiness is the way. Happiness has to be a habit not a transitory moment in life. The following Chinese saying possibly defines happiness in the most appropriate context, ‘if you want happiness for an hour take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, of fishing. If you want happiness for a month get married. If you want happiness for a year inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a life time, help someone. If you want eternal happiness know yourself. ‘to this I add, to be a happy manager, develop a happy team.
Julie Andrews my childhood favourite Hollywood star, had once said, ‘happiness is often appreciated in retrospect’. That’s a very sad recognition should your team be in that state where not the future is looked at with happiness but the past is! Happiness in the organisational environment must be cherished and relished in those moments of life i.e. not later; but here and now. Remember happiness is found within not outside.
Attempt to publish and broadcast across the organisation, happiness and censor or mark to the bone any grief. A happy worker never looks at his clock. A thousand griefs are scattered by a happy environment. Happiness acquires acceptability only when it is joyously shared between colleagues- it cannot be confined to one or a few. Happiness is never short statured, it exceeds through height, what it may lack by length. Organisational happiness is not a onetime achievable criteria in fact being happy only once is actually a misery. To the contrary the judgement of true state of happiness is an expression of gratitude to Mother Nature.
Happiness is the closest cousin to the three fundamentals of human existence life, truth, and beauty. The state of happiness is not a given thing it has to be acquired. An organization, where the culture is one of unhappiness all around is more susceptible to see the growth of distrust and anxiety, in its various teams or segments. A corporate culture where unhappiness of the majority is the core cause of ‘happiness’ for the minority will certainly be a devilish institution that must be forsaken at first available opportunity.
Supervisors and managers must not bring upon themselves the guilt of only consuming happiness while not being active in its mass production.
The state of corporate happiness can be epidemic. It has great inbuilt reflectors. The more you shine the more it reflects. When you rub happiness up on a colleague you still retain your own specific aroma smell- happiness is an inexhaustible perfumery only if you are willing to give out of it ---- unused perfume evaporates even when the bottle is tightly capped. Those managers who use compassion and empathy are usually a happy lot, all year around, regardless of changing seasons of life.
The time to be happy is now, the place to be happy is here, the way to be happy is to make others so. (Robert Ingersoll)
Trade happiness on the shop floor with all and reap its benefits through increased productivity.
The writer is a senior banker and freelance columnist
