Happiness you say? Why yes. For most entrepreneurs and a lot of leaders, happiness is not a top priority on their list of must-haves for team members. Productivity, however, is waaaaaay up there.
If you can’t click the graphic, click here for the podcast.
On this week’s podcast, I interviewed Jenn Lim, CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happiness, a company she and Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) co-created to inspire happiness at work. She is also the creator of Zappos’ Culture Book, as well as a consultant to Zappos.
Here are a few of the topics we discussed in the interview:
- Are you looking forward to what you’re doing for the rest of today? If so, how excited and happy are you? Probably very. If not, how disappointed and unproductive are you going to be? When you’re happy about what you’re doing, you’re considerably more focused and productive.
- How do you want your team to treat your customers? If you want your team to treat them incredibly well, then you have to treat your team the same way. As Dan Cathy from Chick-fil-A says, “My customer is 60,000 people—the folks that work for Chick-fil-A.” In other words, take care of your internal customers and they will take care of your external customers.
- The reason businesses struggle to create loyal and dedicated teams is because it’s so easy to not be intentional about it. They just let it slide. So many companies believe that loyalty is ambiguous and not tangible. But as you create a focus of intentionality, you begin to discover just how palpable loyalty is when team-members do all they can to take care of the company and its customers.
This is just a sampling of the great interview we had with Jenn. Be sure to click on the graphic above to hear the rest.
Question: How important is happiness in the workplace to you?
Great podcast, as usual today Chris! Thank you!
I love the idea that when your team is happy, their customers will be happy. It’s impossible to walk in the door in the morning grumpy and expect to turn off your negative emotions like a light switch.
When you’re surrounded by positive energy, you can’t help but make it contagious to those around you–coworkers, customers, and even your superiors. Negative energy is just as contagious, so why not be happier if you’re going to be somewhere for at least 8 hours?
Great perspective! You’re gonna be there anyway, how do you want your day to go?
I love your comment, about choosing to be happy or not, like verything in life, we can choose which path we are going down.
Thanks! Every day is a choice…sometimes I need to remind myself of that as well!
It’s true Chris! Employees are the greatest asset to any organization. You make them happy. They will bring exponential results back.
When we make the employees happy, we are creating a win-win situation. Anyone who believes in abundance mentality will surely strive to create the right atmosphere in the organization.
Thanks, Chris! Love the insight from Dan Cathy. I personally experienced this working with our local Chick-fil-a to promote the upcoming DR Live Simulcast at my church. I met with the owner and his Marketing Director. The first words out of their mouths were, “What can we do for you to make it a success?” Wow. Those meetings usually start or end up at, “What’s in it for me?”
They were happy to be there. Happy about what they get to do. Happy to serve others.
And THAT’S why they’re so successful!! Thanks for that Josh!
Great podcast! I love the part about tying happiness with purpose. You can have lots of company parties (and laser tag and x-box giveaways 😉 ) where people “feel” happy during the party and then it goes away. If people are not convinced that they are changing someone’s life through their work, difficulties and conflict will definitely get them deflated. Dave’s phrase of “someone is going to Heaven because of what you did today” is absolutely powerful. I so WANT to do work like that!
Lily -you are so right on! Our people should be convinced that they are making a difference with what they do in the workplace – it changes everything with their perspective (and ours!)
I was at Dunkin Donuts yesterday and ordered a coffee. The man who handed it to me did so with such a genuine smile on his face and with such care. I immediately realized it stuck out to me because that usually is not the case. His happiness, even though I was getting sick at the time unbeknownst to me, made me feel happier. Look forward to listening!
Ok, I don’t know why, but the happy while getting sick made me laugh out loud.
Our economy is changing. People used to be cogs in a wheel – just faceless workers on a big assembly line. Now things are getting smaller and people are adding more and more of a personal touch. So it makes sense that happiness is becoming increasingly important in the workplace – not just for those who deal directly with customers, but everyone at every level.
Amen!
As always, this was so great! Listening to it made me happy. (Ha.) Well it gave my noggin much to mull over happily anyway!
Lots of takeaways for me, but one that stuck out (as everyone has been saying – happy employees=happy customers= happy business.) Makes great sense – but like Jenn mentions so well: happiness as a culture doesn’t just happen. It’s a commitment. Like that. Wrote that down.
Other takeaway was how important it is to give a sense of progress when you’re involved in long term projects. I’m in the English teaching/learning business. That’s a looonnnngggg term project. It just hit me so plainly today: break that 150 hours up into small chunks and give students ‘level up’ feelings.
It made me recall a fascinating article by Kathy Sierra (boy I wish she ws still blogging) Keeping Users Engaged:
See any applications to the conversation?
Thanks for the awesome info and interviews. You guys rock!
Being happy at work is more a choice than anything. You can let all the negative things wear on you, or you can highlight the positive. I have made a conscious effort to be happy at work, and it has increased my productivity.
Bobby McFerrin anyone?
Reasons why I feel happiness is of paramount importance in an organization —
• Happy people work better with others
• Happy people are more creative
• Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them
• Happy people have more energy
• Happy people are more optimistic
• Happy people are way more motivated
• Happy people get sick less often
• Happy people learn faster
• Happy people worry less about making mistakes – and consequently make fewer mistakes
• Happy people make better decisions
Uma – I love your list! and it is so right on!
Thanks Louise! You are welcome.
Subject: [closblog] Re: Why Happiness At Work Is Vital
I have not listened to the podcast yet – but will do this week-end. I have the book and can’t wait to read it now!
And to answer the question – how important is happiness in the workplace? EXTREMELY important to me that my team is happy and content -and can experience joy in what they do. It makes coming to work worth it –
The happiness is more important also when we are on the work.