 "<b>Book Extract:</b> What organisations can learn from casinos")
THE BEST PLACE TO WORK: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CREATING AN EXTRAORDINARY WORKPLACE
Author: Ron Friedman
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 599
ISBN: 9780399165597
How exactly do you foster happiness in the workplace? By taking a cue from casinos and embedding psychological triggers into the employee experience that promote a positive mind-set. In recent years, scientists have made tremendous strides in understanding the conditions that foster happiness. As it turns out, when it comes to sustaining happiness, a few minor changes can have a surprisingly large impact.
One of the more distressing facts about human nature is that we are not particularly good at staying happy. Positive emotions wear off. Whether we've earned a promotion, landed a new client, or moved to the corner office, with time we tend to return to our happiness baseline.
Often the process doesn't take very long. Consider what happens when you order a wonderful dish at a new restaurant. The first bite is exquisite. The second is very good. By the third, you're ready to share. The more you eat, the less enjoyment you derive from your meal, until after a certain threshold you couldn't bear another bite. Chances are, the next time you return to the restaurant and order the same dish, it will taste like it's missing something. It is: novelty. The good news about our inclination to adapt is that the same psychological process responsible for acclimating us to positive events is also at work when we experience a tragedy. Studies show that lottery winners, for example, return to their happiness baseline roughly one year after receiving their windfall. Accident victims show a similar pattern. Just twelve months after losing the use of their legs, paraplegics estimate that they will feel just as happy in the future as they did before their injury.
Our brains are programmed to adapt to our circumstances, and for good reason. Too happy and we'd lack any ambition; too sad and we'd never leave our beds.
To some, learning about the existence of a happiness baseline can feel incredibly liberating. It means that no matter how badly you screw up your next project, inevitably your disappointment will wear off, and you'll return to your happiness set point. So why not take some risks? After all, you're working with an emotional safety net.
How do you delay adaptation? Here's a look at what we've learned so far.
FREQUENCY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SIZE
Every positive experience takes some getting used to. And the more positive events we have, the longer it takes us to return to baseline. Which leads us to our first happiness insight: Small, frequent pleasures can keep us happy longer than large, infrequent ones. What this means from a practical perspective is that bringing home a ten-dollar arrangement of flowers every Friday for a month is a wiser happiness-promoting strategy than purchasing a single forty-dollar bouquet. So is spacing out weekend getaways over the course of a year instead of taking a single two-week vacation.
The more frequent our happiness boosts, the longer our mood remains above baseline. The implications from an organizational standpoint can be pro-X found. For one thing, we may be better off splitting up positive annual events into quarterly ones. Companies often hand out bonuses at the end of the year, but delivering smaller, quarterly bonuses may be a more effective strategy. The same logic applies to parties. Instead of a single holiday party, it may be wiser to divide spending into smaller increments, providing seasonal get-togethers.
The importance of frequent positive events also provides a new lens for appreciating the psychological value of office perks. Offering employees relatively inexpensive workplace benefits - for example, by purchasing a high-end espresso machine or stocking the refrigerator with interesting snacks - is more likely to sustain day-to-day happiness levels than the sporadic pay increase.
From the employee perspective, access to office perks can do more than temporarily elevate mood: it also sends an implicit signal that an organisation cares about them. While financial bonuses tend to be viewed as payment for performance, perks communicate on an emotional level and provide a motivational boost. Studies show that when employees feel cared for, they are inclined to reciprocate by working harder.
Re-printed with permission from the publisher. Copyright 2014 by Ron Friedman. All rights reserved.
Author: Ron Friedman
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 599
ISBN: 9780399165597
How exactly do you foster happiness in the workplace? By taking a cue from casinos and embedding psychological triggers into the employee experience that promote a positive mind-set. In recent years, scientists have made tremendous strides in understanding the conditions that foster happiness. As it turns out, when it comes to sustaining happiness, a few minor changes can have a surprisingly large impact.
One of the more distressing facts about human nature is that we are not particularly good at staying happy. Positive emotions wear off. Whether we've earned a promotion, landed a new client, or moved to the corner office, with time we tend to return to our happiness baseline.
Often the process doesn't take very long. Consider what happens when you order a wonderful dish at a new restaurant. The first bite is exquisite. The second is very good. By the third, you're ready to share. The more you eat, the less enjoyment you derive from your meal, until after a certain threshold you couldn't bear another bite. Chances are, the next time you return to the restaurant and order the same dish, it will taste like it's missing something. It is: novelty. The good news about our inclination to adapt is that the same psychological process responsible for acclimating us to positive events is also at work when we experience a tragedy. Studies show that lottery winners, for example, return to their happiness baseline roughly one year after receiving their windfall. Accident victims show a similar pattern. Just twelve months after losing the use of their legs, paraplegics estimate that they will feel just as happy in the future as they did before their injury.
Our brains are programmed to adapt to our circumstances, and for good reason. Too happy and we'd lack any ambition; too sad and we'd never leave our beds.
To some, learning about the existence of a happiness baseline can feel incredibly liberating. It means that no matter how badly you screw up your next project, inevitably your disappointment will wear off, and you'll return to your happiness set point. So why not take some risks? After all, you're working with an emotional safety net.
How do you delay adaptation? Here's a look at what we've learned so far.
FREQUENCY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SIZE
Every positive experience takes some getting used to. And the more positive events we have, the longer it takes us to return to baseline. Which leads us to our first happiness insight: Small, frequent pleasures can keep us happy longer than large, infrequent ones. What this means from a practical perspective is that bringing home a ten-dollar arrangement of flowers every Friday for a month is a wiser happiness-promoting strategy than purchasing a single forty-dollar bouquet. So is spacing out weekend getaways over the course of a year instead of taking a single two-week vacation.
The more frequent our happiness boosts, the longer our mood remains above baseline. The implications from an organizational standpoint can be pro-X found. For one thing, we may be better off splitting up positive annual events into quarterly ones. Companies often hand out bonuses at the end of the year, but delivering smaller, quarterly bonuses may be a more effective strategy. The same logic applies to parties. Instead of a single holiday party, it may be wiser to divide spending into smaller increments, providing seasonal get-togethers.
The importance of frequent positive events also provides a new lens for appreciating the psychological value of office perks. Offering employees relatively inexpensive workplace benefits - for example, by purchasing a high-end espresso machine or stocking the refrigerator with interesting snacks - is more likely to sustain day-to-day happiness levels than the sporadic pay increase.
From the employee perspective, access to office perks can do more than temporarily elevate mood: it also sends an implicit signal that an organisation cares about them. While financial bonuses tend to be viewed as payment for performance, perks communicate on an emotional level and provide a motivational boost. Studies show that when employees feel cared for, they are inclined to reciprocate by working harder.
Re-printed with permission from the publisher. Copyright 2014 by Ron Friedman. All rights reserved.
| MEET THE AUTHOR |
| |
- An expert on human motivation, Friedman has served on the faculty of University of Rochester, Nazareth College and Hobart and William Smith Colleges
- Prior to founding ignite80, Friedman worked with Barack Obama's chief pollster to develop innovative research techniques for gauging public opinion. He also founded a market research and strategy consultancy to help companies launch products and develop powerful communication strategies
Ron Friedman
Founder, ignite80
Founder, ignite80