by thepeopleplan | Mar 26, 2012 | Uncategorized
Do you want to have greater happiness, fulfillment and success in your personal life?
The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor is a new book in the burgeoning field of positive psychology that argues this is the appropriate order of events. The book has seven positive principles that each person can use to increase positive feelings, which are shown to then create personal and career success.
The book weaves current research with personal (and often humorous examples) to assist the most optimistic person to the most pessimistic to increase levels of happy.
To increase your personal happiness level he recommends eight ways you can re-wire your brain to be happy:
- Meditate for 5 minutes a day
- Spend money on experiences (not things)
- Schedule and do more things you enjoy (or find something to look forward to)
- Commit 5 acts of “conscious kindness” a week
- Exercise Signature Strengths: Figure out what you are good at and do these every day
- Exercise
- Fill your life with positivity (one way is to journal—here is a link to Anchor’s ipad application
In a future blog, I will focus on how these principles can be used by managers and co-workers to increase the happiness of their peers for mutual success (and dare I say, a more fun work environment?)
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Mar 20, 2012 | Uncategorized
“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” -Simon Sinek (Start with Why?)
Is the best employee the one that has great technical skills, and can do their job duties perfectly? Maybe, but what if that person is not great with customers or co-workers? Or you have to stay on him to get the job done? Or he is moody or difficult– one day pleasant, the next day watch out!
Yes, we need employees who have the skills to “get the job done” but we also deserve employees who:
- Love what they do
- Believe in and “lives” the common values and purpose of the organization
- Know clearly what is expected, how they are doing
- Work to continually improve and contribute more
- Take ownership and is accountable
- Is supported and encouraged to develop their skills and abilities
- Works together to achieve the goals of the organization
Sounds great- right? But how do you get all your employees to feel this way? You have to build a Culture that engages employees to be excited about their jobs, work together as a team to achieve results, and positively hold each other accountable.
If the area of human resource is a “soft” management process, than Culture change is positively fluffy. All highly successful organizations have mastered the art of defining and living the Culture that supports what they believe in, what they do, and why they do it.
Simon Sinek says that great leaders share the “Why” so that everyone knows the direction and are inspired to change. Watch his TED talk here
How can your organization benefit from a high performance Culture?
Contact us for a complimentary one-hour session to uncover the elements that are keeping your organization from achieving the purpose and results you desire.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
