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The Secret to Business Happiness

Guest post by: John Grubbs

Article Overview: A recent study revealed that the key to human happiness is the ability to live in the moment and place less emphasis on both the future and the past. This unique tendency of the human animal and our obsessive preoccupation with the past and the future are significant burdens that limit our happiness during life. The study indicates that both our stress over past events and worry about the future have a negative impact on our current happiness. Furthermore, the ability to live in the current moment and search for the contentment of the present is a critical key to deliberate joy and happiness.

The Secret to Business Happiness

A recent study revealed that the key to human happiness is the ability to live in the moment and place less emphasis on both the future and the past. This unique tendency of the human animal and our obsessive preoccupation with the past and the future are significant burdens that limit our happiness during life. The study indicates that both our stress over past events and worry about the future have a negative impact on our current happiness. Furthermore, the ability to live in the current moment and search for the contentment of the present is a critical key to deliberate joy and happiness.

In business, these extremes are much more amplified. Our need to learn from historical trends or undesirable events has made managers become more preoccupied with blame and perspective. We have difficulty confronting the sometimes brutal truth for our organizations. Communication has become more filtered and unfiltered honesty is very rare. Accountability is defined improperly and trust is scarceamong employees and organizational leaders.

Additionally, the over speculation about the future can be equally as demoralizing for the team. The emotional strain created by the economic fluctuations can kill morale and impact current productivity significantly. The corporate fear of recession becomes lost productivity on the front lines. Wasted organizational energy over possibilities that may or may not occur is the "boat anchor" toproductivity and profitability.

The answer, though simple in concept, is more challenging in application. Emphasis on employee morale to derive enhanced productivity is not revolutionary as a concept. Yet, most companies actually create an environment and in some cases reward managers for activities that limit individual productivity greatly. Simply put, most organizations do not consider the collection of individual morale as the cumulativeoutput for the organization. Many corporate policies have a very significant and detrimental impact on the collective happiness of the team. The most demoralizing of all policies are the blanket and zero-tolerance policies designed to punish everyone for the negative actions of the few. The fear of corporate litigation (future) coupled with precedent actions (past) lead to an unhappy workforce and workplace.

Again, too many companies focus on the output rather than creating an environment that promotes output. Modern managers are not taught to nurture an environment that is fertile for better productivity. These supervisors are taught to emphasize results. This misguided emphasis rewards the lucky and can severely punish the diligent on the team.

Teaching corporate managers to emphasize the moment without neglecting the future or the business plan is analogous to focusing on today's game "first" as the path to winning the season. Winning at business is about performance in the present moment. Neglecting the now in order to win later simply has no logical basis. The old cliché still rings true that a happy employee is a productive employee, yet so many businesses fail to get the fact that on the path to success, there are no shortcuts or quick fixes. Your team's happiness holds the key to the success of your business.

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Article Tags: business, culture, happiness, leadership, manager, positive
Referred by: http://www.thetrainingbank.com/



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Clothing Niche - Yasunori, can you dig deeper into the clothing niche? e.g. Business Casual for people 6ft and taller (men only, women only or both). Victoria Secret is big in Canada because they don't have retail Stores here and the only way to get their product in Canada is thru online purchases. They have a great Hassle-free return policy too.
Re: The secret to happiness - Happiness comes from within. We choose whether we want to be happy or not. Circumstances can influence our feelings, but in the end, it's up to us how we deal with our circumstances, positively or negatively. I admire anyone who can stay strong and be happy through adversity. There will always be challenges that we face, but I believe that if we face them with our heads held high, the odds of overcoming them are much greater. This reminds me of the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness." Happiness spelled wrong for a reason. One of Will Smith's greatest movies. I encourage you all to watch it as it's very inspiring.
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Are you really happy? - So true Yinka. Happiness comes from within. MichelleJ
Victoria's Secret - Too Sexy? - This will be upsetting for some men. I just heard a report about Victoria's Secret and it was interesting. Their sales were down drastically in the 4th quarter of 2007 and the report was about how they are thinking the company has gotten too far away from the heritage that made it the blockbuster company it is. They are thinking the ads etc have become too sexy and the plan (at the moment) is to make the ads more sophisticated. That would be like the Super Bowl commercial which was very tasteful, but very different from any Victoria's Secret I've seen lately. Who do you all think the current sexy ads are targeting? I think its the men that they hope will buy these items for their female significant others. I hate to give Omarosa any kudos - but most women aren't "sold" on an item by an ad of a near naked sexy woman. Shri


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