The Importance of Happiness

When I was young I sang in a choir, still do for that matter. One year we performed the Happiness song (YouTube).Perhaps that long ago practice of articulating what happiness is made me particularly receptive to the message from Sunny Grosso this morning. Sunny was invited to Edmonton to talk about Delivering Happiness for the Edmonton Public Library’s Forward Thinking Speaker Series (EPL: 2014 Library of the Year).

My objective in attending was to learn how to inspire passion and purpose in my organization. As someone involved in process improvement, my work should have a direct, positive impact on how people feel about the work they do. An efficient and effective process should be more satisfying to those who perform it than a process that has purposeless steps. Happiness is an objective of my work.

There is plenty of research to support the equation Happy employees = Happy customers = Successful companies. The idea that companies with a higher sense of purpose outperform others by 400% will probably make many law firm partners reading this very happy. A sense of purpose is tied to an organizations culture and, according to Sunny, and the 2010 book by Tony Hsieh, can be influenced by anyone in an organization.

Try this test. Look in the eyes of someone in your office and smile. I bet they can’t help smiling back. Today is a good day to decide to live happy, especially at work.

EPL gave me a happy morning. I am passing it on.

Happiness has been mentioned here at Slaw.