Replying to Carlos Neves (neves@uol.com.br) Happiness at Work LO15431 In
answer to the following questions:
Do you believe in happiness at work?
How would you define happiness at work?
Could you tell me some experiences about it?
Hi Carlos, I personally subscribe to the view that "if you do the work you
love, you'll never work again."
My definition of happiness at work depends upon good alignment between the
needs of the individual, and the likelihood that the job will allow the
individual to meet those needs.
As for experience. About 50% of my time is spent doing Career/Outplacement
counselling work. One of the things that I've noticed is that although
most people are upset that they have lost their jobs, when you scratch the
surface you often find the person concerned had long since stopped
enjoying their work. I usually ask people to think about the following
four aspects, and ask them to describe what they would need to improve in
each of these areas to be happier.
1) The work environment
2) Income and benefits
3) Human needs and personal values
4) Use of Skills, Knowledge, Experience, Competencies - currently and in
the future.
You might like to have a look at http://www.peopletronics.co.nz/people.html
for more details.
More often that not people are quite tolerant about 1 & 2 (which are
really extrinsic motivators.) What people really care about is having a
sense of purpose, recognition, shared values, opportunity to learn and
grow. Of course L.O. participants know this very well. But there is
still a widespread belief that you can't be happy AND work. As if somehow
it has to be unpleasant. I try in a small way to encourage people to
identify what they would really enjoy doing, and I continue to be amazed
at how quickly people find new jobs when they begin moving in a direction
that they enjoy. I use a target analogy with the four items above as
quadrants. Happiness is a continuum from Hate (off the board) to Love
(Bulls Eye) and all scores in between. IMHO happiness is about trying (at
least) to get four arrows on the board - if any one of these arrows miss
the board, or is too far away from the centre, you can bet the person will
not be happy.
And to drive the point home I'll sometimes ask: "Imagine that there was a
new pill that you could take, and as result you'll live forever - would
you do what you're doing now forever?"
Would you?
Regards
Peter
Peter H. Jones
Peopletronics Limited
PO Box 30 451, Lower Hutt, NZ
Level 4, 22 The Terrace, Wellington, NZ
Tel. 64 4 569 8875. Fax: 64 4 569 8881, http://www.Peopletronics.co.nz
--"Peter H. Jones" <phj@actrix.gen.nz>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>