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Happiness @ work

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Dan Pink's Ted Talk. Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation. Drive: What motivates us by Dan Pink. Co_infographic.png 800×5.337 pixels. Enthusiastic People Accomplish MORE. This is NOT rocket science, but the general reactions of so many make it seem like this should be a Big Surprise:

Enthusiastic People Accomplish MORE

News Flash: Companies Profit by Giving Employees What They Want! By David Sirota and Douglas A.

News Flash: Companies Profit by Giving Employees What They Want!

Klein “...there is one key to profitability and stability during either a boom or bust economy: employee morale.” — Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines Founder Crazy! Ridiculous! But in fact, we found that high-morale companies outperformed their industry competitors in 2012 by 368% when considering year-over-year stock market returns. More specifically, we found that companies with high morale (those with scores at the 75th percentile or higher who ask “overall satisfaction with their company” on their annual employee attitude surveys) had stronger year-over-year stock performance than their industry counterparts. Are these results a fluke, a chance occurrence in this particular period?

* ppt = percentage point Others have found similar results. It’s not just stock performance. These findings clearly demonstrate that morale is not a soft concept; it has a profound impact on company performance. I Sirota, D. and Klein, D. Ii Moore, T. 2011. Happiness At Work #68 ~ the power of the positive and learning from success. This week we New Zealand folk are in celebratory mood.

Happiness At Work #68 ~ the power of the positive and learning from success

Eleanor Catton has won the Man Booker 2013 Prize with her second novel, The Luminaries. And we have still more reason to be proud as the New Zealand government officially recognises the two largest islands of our country with both their European and their Maori names: New Zealand forgot to name its main islands Maori names get equal status as country corrects long-standing failure to make North and South Island names officialEight hundred years after the Maori first arrived in Aotearoa (New Zealand), and 370 years after Europeans spied its shores, the South Pacific nation’s major land masses will finally get official names.For generations, the two main islands have been called the North Island and the South Island.

The ‘science of karma’ Adam Grant, PhD, is one of those people you want to resent: At 32, he's the youngest tenured professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he has the highest course evaluation ratings of any teacher and where he's never taught a class that didn't win an Excellence in Teaching Award.

The ‘science of karma’

He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, earned his PhD in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan in less than three years and has published more than 60 journal articles in his young career. He's well-rounded, too: He's been an all-American diver (athletic, check), professional magician (charismatic, check) and is married with two young girls (loving and lovable, check, check). But you can't resent him because, darn it, you like him. This Revolutionary Tool Can Help Keep Employees Happy, Engaged, And On Your Side.

“The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.”

This Revolutionary Tool Can Help Keep Employees Happy, Engaged, And On Your Side

--Fyodor Dostoevsky Imagine coming to work one Monday morning and finding your most talented and tenured employee waiting in your office. Before you have a moment to settle in, she places a letter on your desk and tells you directly, “This is my two-week notice.” Simply from how she’s chosen to deliver the news, (quick, to the point and well strategized) you instinctively know there’s no way of saving her. Flashing through your mind are all the critical projects she’s responsible for, and the clear awareness that it will take months before someone new can be brought up to her skill level.

“This comes as quite a shock to me,” you lament. You grimace when you learn she’s headed to a key competitor--and that her reasons for leaving relate mostly to feeling unappreciated. “I’ve been unhappy here for quite some time,” she reveals. A Shared Leadership Pain Point. Shawn Achor: The secret of happiness and better work. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi over flow. Eight Ways to Find More Meaning at Work.

Do you experience meaning at work—or just emptiness?

Eight Ways to Find More Meaning at Work

In the United States people spend on average 35-40 hours working every week. That’s some 80,000 hours during a career—more time than you will spend with your kids, probably. Beyond the paycheck, what does work give you? Few questions could be more important. It is sad to walk through life and experience work as empty, dreadful, a chore—sapping energy out of your body and soul. Of course, different people look for different types of meanings—and, moreover, different workplaces provide different meanings. So, what are the sources of meaningful experiences at work?

Purpose 1. The problem, however, is that most work doesn’t have such a higher purpose, either because work is basically mundane or because—let’s face it—the company doesn’t really have a social mission.