How happy do you want to be at work?

Of course, no one is looking to be unhappy at work – but is not actively hating your job enough for you?

Here are some great stories from around the web from people who have discovered the importance of happiness at work. First a story from a man with real management potential:

When I get my own department to control, the first thing I am going do is ask people what they want to be happy at work. Truly happy.

My goal would be to get a group of people who loved coming in and loved being there. I would recognize the fact that people the people I hired were adults and would handle their responsiblities.

So what if they spend a day playing a game all day and taking a 2 hour lunch. As long as they get their work done on time and at a high level what difference does it make. If someone was taking advantage of it and not getting their work done, then yeah, it’s a problem. But if they are doing great work, who cares?

In my eyes I look at the results. Sure people do good work right now, but I think by making them more comfortable and making work more enjoyable they would do GREAT work. (Source)

That is the manager of the future – a person who recognizes that a leader’s first responsibility is to make people happy at work. Forget your mission statements, visions statements and corporate values – that is a manifest for great leadership right there.

Here’s another great story about happiness at work:

I have survived the place for ‘almost’ a year now. However, it was yesterday, Monday the 9th of Jan 2007…..that I finally experienced my FIRST REAL HAPPINESS at work….

You see what happened was that I was assigned to work on an issue… [I invited] our Team Leader Leader to come to my computer to check our the partly done work.

When my project leader arrived he was like “Wow….look at it… finally I get to see some happy news today”!!! Looking at his face and hearing closely to his tone, you can feel a genuine happiness flowing from his face. And after he was done poking around on the interface….he simply said to me “Well done…..good job!” (and I could also tell it was a genuine appreciation too)!

And THIS is what I call “joy in the workplace”! : ) A genuine appreciation and a genuine admiration of one’s work! And what makes it even more joyful was that I myself, did not think it deserves such appreciation, seriously it doesn’t look THAT nice at all!!! So to see the joy on his face was a total shocker for me!!!

And hence after this I thought to myself, if ONE DAY I am lucky enough to become a management person. I will definitely remember to give credits to my team when its worth it and show my appreciation and admiration to their work frequently!!! Because this is what makes a team work and one happy employee that will continue to work hard on their job! (Source)

While it’s pretty sad that a person could work somewhere for a year without experiencing any happiness at work, this story shows just how little it takes, and just how powerful genuine appreciation is. And how yet another person chooses happiness at work.

Here’s one final, powerful story:

One of the things I decided a while ago (see posts passim. for reasons why) was that I wanted to be happy at work.

It’s stupid, when you write it out like that. Who doesn’t want to be happy at work? And yet, it took a conscious decision on my part that one of the things I would look for in a job was that it made me happy. Not ‘it pays the bills’, not ‘it’s better than being on the dole’, but actively happy.

No job is going to manage that 100% of the time, of course. I’m not happy when I’m stressed, I’m not happy when I’m bored, but every job will have either stresses or boredom in it, and the bad jobs have both. But I made the decision that if I ever found myself in a job where, on a regular basis, I woke up in the mornings and didn’t want to go into work, I’d change.

But there needs to be an element of personal responsibility in there as well. I can’t expect my employers to provide for my every need – I don’t need to be spoon fed. So as long as they give me the space to grow, and the support to do so, that’s where my responsibility comes in. (Source)

How cool is that – more and more people are choosing happiness at work. And yes, it does seem a little silly because who wants to be unhappy at work.

But I’ve always felt, that the real choice here isn’t between happiness and unhappiness at work – we all know what we prefer out of those two choices. It’s a matter of choosing between a job situation that is happy and one that is merely… ok. Which is what most people have.

They don’t hate work too much (if they did, they’d probably find new work), but they don’t really like it either. Some people have had it like this for years – some spend their entire careers/work lives like that.

And more and more people are saying “Naaah – that’s not for me. I want to be happy at work. I want to wake up most mornings and look forward to my work day. I want to have fun at work. I want to use my strengths and do work I can be proud of. I want to come to work excited and leave proud.”

I predict a future, soon in fact, in which this is the normal approach to work. In which we’ll look back and wonder, why so many people ever decided to settle for any less.

This change will come from two places:

1. Companies realizing that they make more money when their people are happy
2. You and me choosing once and for all to be happy at work

I can’t wait :o)

A major Danish newspaper just ran an article on praise, in which 8 or 9 people including consultants, researchers and psychologists were interviewed about their views on appreciation and praise.

The article begins with these words:

As soon as the founder of Woohoo inc. picks up the phone, you can tell that you’re dealing with a man who wants to be spectacularly happy.

His voice sings out as he introduces himself – as if he only ever expects pleasant surprises when strangers call him on the phone.

And it’s not long either before his first enthusiastic, appreciative “Exactly!” enters the conversation.

That has got to be just about the nicest thing anyone has ever written about me :o)

I’m then quoted as saying that praise:

• Is one of the easiest and most efficient ways of motivating people
• Is wildly contagious
• Takes no time and costs no money
• Doesn’t always have to be from manager to employee – anyone can praise anyone else

So what are you waiting for? Go praise someone already!

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
– Aristotle

Let’s get one thing very straight: The vast majority of people you meet at work are nice, caring and considerate. They go out of their way to be polite, they help if they can and they truly care about the well-being of people around them.

Yes, there are inconsiderate, annoying jerks out there sure, but they are a minority. They may seem like they’re everywhere (just read Bob Sutton’s excellent book The No Asshole Rule for some great examples), but that’s only because we tend to let annoying people take up more mindspace, making them more visible than their numbers warrant.

So how do you deal with annoying people at work?

Outside of work, you can walk away. If your cab driver is a jerk, you can get off and take another cab – odds are you’ll never see him again. If the person sitting next to you in a bar is annoying, you can get up and leave. At work though, you’re not free to leave that easily. In most cases you’re more likely to want to stay and resolve the issue.

The very best strategy is to become less angry. If you can fix it so that it takes more to trigger your anger reflex, you will enjoy greater peace of mind and be more free to act decisively and constructively when you are treated badly at work. You will also be less affected by any petty annoyances.

With that in mind, here are some strategies that can help you become less annoyed on the job. Try some of these thoughts, the next time someone or something really gets your goat at work.

1: Staying calm means you don’t do something you regret later
Sometimes when you get really mad, you may end up doing something rash. If you can stay calm, you’re more likely to choose constructive actions.

2: Getting mad often means staying mad
If you get annoyed here and now, that bad mood may last for a long time.

3: When you stay calm, you really annoy those who want to annoy others
If that person is truly out to annoy you, the very best way to annoy them back is to stay cool. Deny them the satisfaction of getting you riled. They hate that.

4: You only harm yourself
Getting annoyed really harms no one but you.

5: Getting annoyed makes it easier to get mad the next time
You start a cycle of anger – which means it takes less and less to set you off.

6: Dreaming of revenge is bad for you

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
– Francis Bacon

7: Getting annoyed makes the memory stronger
Anything you experience while having a strong emotion, will be etched permanently in your mind. This is why some people can remember every little detail of that incident 8 years ago where some jerk cut them off on the highway. The problem is that the memory becomes so strong that it keeps coming back to you and keeps annoying you for years.

8: Instead of getting mad at annoying people – feel sorry for them
Jerks are very often jerks because they feel bad themselves. Hating them is really a waste of time – feel sorry for them instead.

9: Sometimes you’re at fault and blowing up just makes it worse
Sometimes it turns out, that the whole thing is actually your own fault. If you previously blew up at someone, then you look really silly…

10: It’s not about you
Most jerks you will meet are not really out to get you, personally – this is how they treat everyone.

11: It may not be intentional at all
Maybe they have absolutely no idea that they’re annoying you.

12: Losing your temper makes you look bad
Even if you’re in the right in the situation, if you lose your temper you can end up looking silly, petty or unreasonable.

13: Laugh about it
Most workplace jerk behavior is annoying sure, but when you really look at it, it’s mostly pathetic and ridiculous. Laugh at it, rather than get annoyed.

14: Is it a case of projection?
Few things annoy us more than other people displaying the same weaknesses and faults as we fear we have ourselves. If a person really, really ticks you off, maybe that person is just making you think about some weak sides you’d rather not admit you have.

15: Maybe it’s an honest mistake
And most of all: People make mistakes. Don’t read too much into it when people do inconsiderate things. It may simply be an honest mistake.

The upshot

I want to make one thing very clear: I’m not saying that you should put up with behavior that annoys you. This is not about being meek and humble and never complaining about the mistakes that others make. This is about not getting angry over annoying people, because getting angry is rarely good for you.

Once in a while, getting angry may be just the ticket. It can be exactly what’s needed to unlock a tight situation. I wrote about one such case here – the time I learned to say “no!” at work.

But as Aristotle said – it’s not about getting angry, it’s about getting angry in the right way. And in most situations, keeping your cool is better for you, and produces better results.

The theme on the blog this week is forgiveness. I kicked it off on Monday with a tip to forgive someone at work, and followed up on Tuesday with fascinating research from Sarah Warner, which shows that companies with a culture of forgiveness are more productive than companies where people are prone to revenge.

I’ve since found even more reasons to avoid revenge at work:

A tit-for-tat corporate culture can also lead to the loss of great workers, said Dr. Everett Worthington, a psychology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and Executive Director of the Campaign for Forgiveness Research.

Worthington has been studying more than 100 workers in Virginia and Washington, D.C., who were asked to recall incidents of workplace transgressions.

“(After) conflicts, they no longer liked coming to work,” Worthington said. “They became sicker and missed more work days. In some cases, they even changed jobs.” (source)

But how exactly can a company foster a culture of forgiveness, rather than one of revenge? Here are my top three tips.
1: Teach leaders to forgive mistakes

In one company, the CEO was told by a trembling employee, that the company website was down. This was a big deal – this company made most of its sales online, and downtime cost them thousands of dollars an hour.

The CEO asked what had happened, and was told that John in IT had bungled a system backup, and caused the problem. “Well, then,” says the CEO “Let’s go see John!”

When the CEO walked into the IT department everyone went quiet. They had a pretty good idea what wass coming, and were sure it wouldn’t be pretty.

The CEO walks up to John’s desk and asks “You John?”

“Yes” he says meekly.

“John, ” says the CEO, “I want to thank you for finding this weakness in our system. Thanks to your actions, we can now learn from this, and fix the system, so something like this can’t happen in the future. Good work!”

Then he left a visibly baffled John and an astounded IT department. That particular mistake never happened again.

The CEO might just as well have thrown the book at John and fired him for his mistake. This show of forgiveness, of acknowledging that mistakes happen and that we must learn from them, goes a long way to creating a culture of forgiveness.

2: Teach leaders to apologize
Leaders make mistakes. Everyone does. But leaders who never apologize for their mistakes, create a sense of injustice and unfairness around them.

Leaders who freely apologize when they screw up demonstrate that making mistakes is OK, and therefore make it easier for people to forgive others’ mistakes.

3: Make people happy at work
And most of all, make people happy at work. Studies show, that when people are happy at work, they are much less prone to bad or petty workplace behavior, such as revenge. They are also more likely to think the best about others, and less likely to assume that others are out to get them – and thus worthy of revenge.

What do you think it takes to make people more inclined to forgiveness than revenge at work?

A radio producer felt oppressed because her boss was constantly stealing her food –- right off her desk. So she made some candy out of EX-Lax, the chocolate flavored laxative, and left it on her desk. As usual, he ate them without permission. When she told this thief what was in the candy, “he was not happy.??? (Source).

What do you do, when you’re treated badly or unfairly at work? Do you go along to get along? Get even? Something else?

More and more people seek revenge at work when slighted. The number of retaliation charges has nearly doubled over the last eight years and more than 27% of all harassment and discrimination claims currently filed contain a claim for retaliation (source).

But while getting even may feel good for a moment, is it really a good idea? From a business perspective, the answer turns out to be no.

I was recently at an international conference on positive psychology arranged by the Center for Applied Positive Psychology, and among the many fascinating people I met there was Sarah Warner.

Sarah presented a research project that demonstrates that workplaces with a culture of forgiveness had:

1. Lower levels of interpersonal conflict and stress
2. Higher levels of productivity

Apparently, revenge creates stress and lowers productivity, whereas a culture of forgiveness makes a company more efficient and more profitable. So forgiveness is good for business. Cool!

I’ve had a chance to interview Sarah about her fascinating project, and about why companies need to work on their ability to forgive people’s missteps.

Sarah, please tell us a little about yourself
I am an undergraduate student at Luther College, a university in the United States and I graduate this month! I have conducted research through my university on the topics of workplace forgiveness, interpersonal stress, productivity, and health. I recently presented a poster of my research at the First Applied Positive Psychology Conference, University of Warwick, UK.

How did you come to choose workplace forgiveness as a topic for your study?
Looking at the “other side” of the issue was interesting to me. By the other side I mean looking at forgiveness as opposed to revenge, which is emphasized most by many researchers. I wanted my study to be applicable to the real world, which is why I used a real, live workplace for my research. There is a misconception that forgiveness has no place in the business world and I wanted to show that this is far from the truth.

What kind of workers participated in the study?
The workers who participated in my research were employees at a manufacturing firm. Most of the employees at this workplace were in a factory environment, with the others in an office setting.

How exactly does forgiveness affect interpersonal relationships?
Interpersonal stress was found to mediate (act as the “middleman”) in the relationship between forgiveness and health/productivity outcomes. This means that forgiveness is related to health (both physical and mental) and productivity through the variable of interpersonal stress. In fact, the results of my study suggest that up to 40% of the relationship is accounted for by interpersonal stress. Also, forgiveness alone was strongly correlated to health and productivity.

Did anything in your results surprise you?
The strength of the results was the most surprising aspect of the study. I had predicted that this relationship would exist but the extent to which
it exists was surprising. Forgiveness is related to many of the things that organizations are worried about today: Productivity problems, health insurance costs, etc. Organizations should think twice before they write-off forgiveness as having no importance in the workplace.

What’s next? What are some of the questions we still need answers to?
Because this study was one of the first to examine this relationship, more research would be helpful to confirm its strength. Looking at different
types of workplaces and organizations in other countries would also be a great next step. The interesting question, especially in the business
world, is how forgiveness can save an organization money (through increasing productivity, decreasing healthcare costs, etc.). When the discussion turns to saving money, organizations start to listen a bit more.

Have you ever sought revenge on someone? Or are you the forgiving type? :o)
Well, that is a fair question! I have to say that I am generally the forgiving type. Like most people, I have held grudges in the past against people who have hurt me. While it is hard at times, I try not to do to this anymore. It seems that when a person holds a grudge, it really ends up hurting them the most, not the person they are holding the grudge against. I believe this to be true, which is part of the reason I am so interested in this field of research.

A great big thank you to Sarah.

If you have any questions for her, write a comment, and she’s promised to answer.