I am half way through the video and I am struggling. To be honest it feels like the speaker is trying to sell something to me. How can you teach someone to be happy? How do you teach people to work together? How do you teach team cohesion? It feels artificial. But I guess the questions I posed are each a 1 million dollar question. The two reasons for work happiness seem to be right. People and Purpose is what I would have labeled them as. Maybe the word results was to cater to the businesses hiring him. I think it boils down to team players and team leaders. Leaders probably need to praise but they also need to manage. By manage I mean at some level let people know they are accountable and move out negative or problem employees. Though this is my opinion it is based of anecdotal evidence. But then again I haven't heard any causal research done by the speaker. Back to the video. Jonathan Bellino
The speaker started the presentation talking about change. He never revisited the subject. I would be fascinated to see some research on change. There were some statistics brought up later in the video. I believe the statistics were correlation though. Is it happier businesses that make more money or is it more money that makes happier businesses? I think there is some good in the interventions he suggested. I also believe having this speaker at said company was a way for the bosses to provide team building. That being said I don't know where I read or heard it but there is something I learned. When companies do this sort of thing for their execs there is a day of excitement but soon enough it wares off and it is back to business as usual. Usually the next Monday. Jonathan Bellino
After watching the video on building happiness in the workplace I felt like I had many unanswered questions. I agree with Johnathan Bellino about feeling like I am being sold something. I am not sure what is meant by happiness in this presentation. It appeared to me that he was only speaking about job satisfaction and accepting/ being comfortable with change. I can agree that in order to feel "happy" in the workplace is an entirely personal commitment. I am reminded that the human mind is made to make the best of situations but people do not know they have this ability and that tends to misconstrue the future. However there are several factors that play a role in the decision. Why is it that we need to learn how to be happy? I think what it stems from is the concept that we do not take enough ownership and I think that is one of the points I heard Alex address briefly. I wish he spent more time talking about the different factors of happiness rather then using happiness as a blanket term. Does what Alex say about being happy in the workplace extend to being happy outside of the workplace? I think this addresses the question about is happiness a state or trait. -Lauren Goudreau
When I first started watching this video, I was intrigued by and believed in the idea that a person can change his/her circumstances to create stronger feelings of happiness in the workplace. Aside from the 2 components he introduced (results & relationships) he never explained how someone can change their physical workplace if they feel unsatisfied, which kind of threw me off. He also doesn't explain how someone can create happiness in the workplace even if they are in the "argh" category. He just says that it is best to leave - and perhaps that may be the most idealistic option, however, unless I interpreted the video incorrectly, it seems like he assumes people who are unsatisfied with their work have the option to change their job. What about the people who are forced into a job that they hate, but they not have the option to leave due to job availability, location, finances, etc?
I also am confused as to why Alexander presented his ideas the way that he did. First of all, he says people need to get 'results' in the form of praise - that is, they need to be acknowledged for their good work. I think a better way to explain how praise works would be to say that it strengthens people's feelings of recognition, or respect. Also, while Alex approached this idea by practicing high-fives and gestures, I think his approach I would have been better effective if instead of creating role plays, he stressed the point that praise works best when it is personable and specific - and then provided some sort of verifiable data to back it up. I didn't see any sort of empirical data or outside sources in his presentation aside from a few personal testimonies.
While I believe that having strong, healthy relationships are important for the workplace, he assumes that forming those relationships are an option, and that the people he/she is working with are going to be receptive to form a friendship or reciprocate the feeling.
My biggest question is this: what if someone follows his recipe for happiness: they say good morning to their co-workers, perform a random act of kindness, praise the people around them, but those actions go unnoticed? Are they still effective methods of increasing or creating happiness?
I think that the speaker made some good points about how being happy at work is important for job satisfaction and that doing certain things to enhance happiness at work can improve job satisfaction.
However, I am skeptical, and I agree with the questions Bianca posed in her comment. She wondered if people followed his steps for happiness in the workplace but they go unnoticed, if these methods are still effective. I personally don't think those methods would still be effective if they go unnoticed by co-workers and bosses. I know from my own experience that at one of my jobs, I am always friendly to my co-workers, I do what is expected of me and I go beyond what is expected of me a good amount, I help out my co-workers and customers with things they might not expect. However, I rarely ever get praise from my managers for the good things I do, either because they didn't notice or because they don't care. When that happens, I become unhappy and I don't feel like I should try harder because it never seems to matter. My other co-workers and even managers seem unhappy and unsatisfied at work too, which makes it an altogether negative atmosphere to work in. This, and other reasons, make me dislike that job and dread going there. At my other job, I get get treated completely different. I get encouragement and praise for good things I do, no matter how small, my co-workers and managers are all friendly and have positive attitudes, and that makes me enjoy this job much more.
In other words: I believe that praise is essential in motivating people to do their jobs well, and in creating a positive, happy environment to work in. It is a form of positive reinforcement, creating good behavior in employees and making them enjoy what they do because they can feel like they are making a difference and their efforts are not going unnoticed. Praise only works if superiors pay attention to their employees more and notice the things they do in order to provide them with this positive reinforcement.
I really enjoyed this video, the speaker was pretty funny which makes people happy in the first place. One of his exercises very much resembled our gratitude assignment on a much smaller scale. He asked the workers to, write down, type out, or think about three good things that happened at the end of each work day. This makes people look at the good things regardless of all the bad things that may or may not have happened during their day. I really agreed with the speaker when he talked about the two things needed in a work place to be happy, being results, and relationships. I think if everyone looked at their own work place and thought about these things they would also agree. I currently work at forever 21 and for my parents business. At forever 21 when a customer is rude, or a manager isn't in a good mood, I usually like to try and put them in a good mood because then their attitude is better and wont affect anyone else. Also could anyone imagine going to work and not having anyone to talk to that was at the very least a work acquaintance. Everyone wants to be heard at work and wants to feel like there is atleast one other person who can relate or there is to talk to.
I agree with the previous comments on feeling like I'm being sold something. I feel like the speaker could have gone about that differently. I also agree with Lorraine in that praise is needed in order to be happy in the workplace, regardless of other things. I believe that praise and acknowledgement are reasons why people who work for smaller companies are often happier. There is a more direct relationship between the person doing the service and the person often reaping its benefits. These relationships foster much more praise and therefore happiness and motivation to work harder.
This was torture watching this guy and the room full of suits. The two topics Results and Relationships do makes sense. I have worked pleanty of hard jobs in bad enviornments. An example was working at the Hannaford Warehouse. It was a giant refrigerator and you had to be in excellent shape to move hundreds of pounds of material per hour. So the job itself was bad but what made it a great place to work was that our team was crazy, obnoxious and had alot of fun depite working our butts off in a freezer. The results were that we were respected in the organization of being able to get the job done and also the result of working hard was that you could make some bonus money. So from my experience there is some validity to what he is talking about. I do think the most important aspect of results would be agknowledgement and praise and the most important aspect of relationships would be respect.
I don't feel like he's trying to sell me something, but perhaps that's because I came to this presentation knowing that I want his job. My career path in Psych is oriented towards making people happier at work.
(I also think it's important to understand the context of the presentation: unlike most speakers we've seen so far, this guy is a packaged product. He's not an academic at a TED talk or a university professor. I always feel like the news is trying to sell me something, but I think most people take that for granted. Perhaps if we saw more motivational speakers, we wouldn't feel so "consumerized" by his presentation.)
Therefore, rather than rehash the very good points I've read so far regarding the failures of his presentation, I'm going to add an auxiliary piece of thought. Over the summer at the Health Psychology Institute, a guy named Dr. Steve Levinson spoke regarding the general human failure to harness willpower in order to achieve personal goals. He recommended a series of ways to trick yourself into compliance with your goals when what you were doing wasn't what you wanted to do. Perhaps, for the ones in Kjerulf's lowest job-satisfaction category (the "Aaughs"), using these tools can be a way of tricking yourself into compliance to meet a potential goal: job happiness. Here's a real-life example: I work at a restaurant. Each server has to fill out a cash-out report at the end of his or her shift. If the owner made it a requirement for each of us to write down three things that we did well on each day's cash-out, it could have a positive impact on each worker's individual happiness, which in my mind is a necessary stepping-stone to relationship-building (if I'm in a pissy mood, no way I'm going to tell somebody they rock). Now, this is a superior requiring it of a subordinate rather than each of us taking it on as a personal goal, but I think it would still have an impact.
Also, who is really going to see a presentation like this? Is it the waitstaff at a tiny restaurant in Portland, ME? Nope. But, is it the small business owner who wants more profit? Perhaps more likely so. I wish there were a presentation like this geared specifically towards owners/managers and how they can create environments that foster happiness for their supervise-ees.
I loved that he used inspirational quotes throughout his presentation. I love using quotes in my own personal life and find them helpful in showcasing points that people are trying to make or get across.
I love how he threw out there the idea that psychologist call happiness PWB or personal well being. Just found that to be funny because we do talk in many psychology classes about peoples personal well being and how it can be a part of happiness. Though I do not think we use the two words interchangeably. We use them in related ideas or such but we do not see them as the same thing.
I found his categories at first to be kind of childish being argh, meh, and yay! Though they tended to work and make sense as the presentation continued.
I do agree that being in an Argh job can be bad and you need to do something about it or go elsewhere. I do agree with what others have said such as Lorraine that some people don't have that option and that sometimes you can try hard to find other jobs but get no luck because of the economy. If you try to employ these things he asks that still you can find yourself and co-workers unhappy. I know from personal experience. My job is horrible and I am one of the few at my work who does my job and goes above and beyond despite the others doing nothing and even management doing nothing but standing around talking. It is beyond crazy how when you help someone else out to be nice and go above and beyond and make their day easier those people cant even do their own jobs or work and leave it behind for others to pick up.
His whole high five display to show praise was horrible to watch for me because my work has the new "HIGH FIVE" campaign and to force others to give high fives or consider themselves available to be fired if they don't has taken all niceness out of a high five. I think it ruined it for me so personally I think praising with handshakes or words is all I will be capable of for a long time.
The part I disliked the most was that I had no idea what any of the people said for their stories they shared and it seemed like a waste of video and time to attempt to listen to something I couldn't hear despite my volume being all the way up.
I agree with the model he brings up about how profit comes from loyal customers and those are happy customers and those come from great service and great service comes from happy employees. He says that you need happy employees to start with to get profit and I can say that is true because at my work they push, push, push that we need to get results. We need more surveys coming in, we need to sell more, we need to have fast table turn time, and so forth. They push things to such extremes and threaten to cut hours if we dont meet demands and this in turn makes us unhappy employees and that effects how we work and gives not so great service because it bothers us and in turn effects profit. I agree with that model and idea.
Overall I found this video to be somewhat interesting with the few key points he throws out there but for how drawn out it was, and little evidence presented (would have loved to see more data), and how we could not hear the examples the people attending gave, I found this video to be dull and uninformative because I was trying too hard to pay attention.
The point that Josieda makes about the speaker being a “packaged product” is extremely important to consider. Without a doubt, the speaker is passionate about his topic. However, he has built a brand that can be sold to corporations in the form of a seminar. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with that, but it just means that what we receive in watching his seminar is more along the lines of a sound-bite about the topic. Achieving a sustained level of happiness may require that various systems and practices be in place on a daily basis. Additionally, his seminar is fraught with various pop-psychology techniques such as giving each other high-fives, saying “you rock,” etc. I don’t believe that these give long-lasting, tangible results for people. In fact, I believe that they dumb down the various aspects of happiness. If someone ran up to me at work yelling “you rock,” or tried to give me a high-five every day I would find it more annoying than uplifting. However, to the speaker’s credit, he eventually speaks of various practical techniques that bring happiness and gratitude into a person’s life and workplace on a daily basis. I believe that to a achieve happiness in the one’s life or in the workplace one must exercise various practices on a daily basis. He speaks of doing this. However, I wonder how many of the audience members will actually carryon these practices past a week. Will these employees carry these practices past even a month’s time? More importantly, how will these practices take hold in a place as transient as a large company? My point is that, philosophically speaking, happiness is simple in nature, but finding it in a workplace is a bit more complex than what he describes. Anyone can understand that happiness in the workplace increases results and profitability. Additionally, I have no doubt that results and relationships help sustain happiness. However, resolving a person’s unhappiness may be just as important to sustained satisfaction in the workplace. Working with other people and their various attitudes, management styles, communication styles, etc. can be very challenging, thus, a high-five or a five minute break may not truly get to the root of more complex interpersonal issues. A person can be genuinely happy in their life, but unhappy in their workplace. Therefore, happiness in the workplace requires a systematic framework that does not focus just on people being “happy,” but rather looks at happiness in working with others as a more complex and sensitive topic. Providing set times and spaces for employees to address satisfaction in relationships and results seems like it would have more lasting results.
It does indeed feel like he is trying to sell me something as I watch this. To me I get the vibe of "pop psychology" and I think he telling us a lot of things that all ready part of common sense. It seems that focusing on the positive aspects at work would probably make work a better place to me, but I do not think this is a groundbreaking concept. I have a hard taking him seriously.
I didn't particularly care for this video. I didn't really like how he kept doing child like exercises with the audience, as if we all don't know how to properly greet someone in the morning. Yes I feel like it is important to be sincere and enthusiastic when greeting or talking to a coworker, but practicing this isn't the issue, the issue is already a persons happiness at work. I guarantee if someone is already satisfied with their job and work then they will already greet people with sincerity, but if they are miserable at work then those are the people who don't look up from what they're doing a give a barely audible mumble.
I did find it interesting, however, that he was claiming the two factors that make us really happy at work are results and relationships, and that all other factors (such as salary, bonuses, titles, routines and policies, and work environment) have little effect on work related happiness. I can see how the results and relationships would be the largest factors of happiness, but I feel like the rest ties in with the results. If you're getting better results at work, chances are you are already happy with your job and the "other factors" that create happiness are present.
The last thing I just wanted to mention that I found slightly disturbing is the global happiness percentages he showed; 20% hate their jobs, 55% are so-so about their jobs, and 25% love their jobs. I'm wondering if these 20% who hate their jobs are the people who never got a better eduction in order to try and do what they want to do for a living, and are now stuck at a menial job. The 55% probably consists of people who work at their job to make ends meet, or because they make decent money and don't want to jeopardize that, but they still are not doing something they truly feel fulfilled doing.
I agree with the speaker's approach in that an ideal worker tries to make other people around him/her happy by being happy. Leading by example is one of the key ideas I took from this presentation. I'm sure I would be a lot happier at work if my boss was high-fiving me when he walked by. I think that having generally happy people in leadership positions is a way to promote workplace happiness, and being happy at work is a great way to get promoted into a leadership position.
14 comments:
I am half way through the video and I am struggling. To be honest it feels like the speaker is trying to sell something to me. How can you teach someone to be happy? How do you teach people to work together? How do you teach team cohesion? It feels artificial. But I guess the questions I posed are each a 1 million dollar question. The two reasons for work happiness seem to be right. People and Purpose is what I would have labeled them as. Maybe the word results was to cater to the businesses hiring him. I think it boils down to team players and team leaders. Leaders probably need to praise but they also need to manage. By manage I mean at some level let people know they are accountable and move out negative or problem employees. Though this is my opinion it is based of anecdotal evidence. But then again I haven't heard any causal research done by the speaker.
Back to the video.
Jonathan Bellino
The speaker started the presentation talking about change. He never revisited the subject. I would be fascinated to see some research on change. There were some statistics brought up later in the video. I believe the statistics were correlation though. Is it happier businesses that make more money or is it more money that makes happier businesses? I think there is some good in the interventions he suggested. I also believe having this speaker at said company was a way for the bosses to provide team building. That being said I don't know where I read or heard it but there is something I learned. When companies do this sort of thing for their execs there is a day of excitement but soon enough it wares off and it is back to business as usual. Usually the next Monday.
Jonathan Bellino
After watching the video on building happiness in the workplace I felt like I had many unanswered questions. I agree with Johnathan Bellino about feeling like I am being sold something. I am not sure what is meant by happiness in this presentation. It appeared to me that he was only speaking about job satisfaction and accepting/ being comfortable with change. I can agree that in order to feel "happy" in the workplace is an entirely personal commitment. I am reminded that the human mind is made to make the best of situations but people do not know they have this ability and that tends to misconstrue the future. However there are several factors that play a role in the decision. Why is it that we need to learn how to be happy? I think what it stems from is the concept that we do not take enough ownership and I think that is one of the points I heard Alex address briefly. I wish he spent more time talking about the different factors of happiness rather then using happiness as a blanket term. Does what Alex say about being happy in the workplace extend to being happy outside of the workplace? I think this addresses the question about is happiness a state or trait.
-Lauren Goudreau
When I first started watching this video, I was intrigued by and believed in the idea that a person can change his/her circumstances to create stronger feelings of happiness in the workplace. Aside from the 2 components he introduced (results & relationships) he never explained how someone can change their physical workplace if they feel unsatisfied, which kind of threw me off. He also doesn't explain how someone can create happiness in the workplace even if they are in the "argh" category. He just says that it is best to leave - and perhaps that may be the most idealistic option, however, unless I interpreted the video incorrectly, it seems like he assumes people who are unsatisfied with their work have the option to change their job. What about the people who are forced into a job that they hate, but they not have the option to leave due to job availability, location, finances, etc?
I also am confused as to why Alexander presented his ideas the way that he did. First of all, he says people need to get 'results' in the form of praise - that is, they need to be acknowledged for their good work. I think a better way to explain how praise works would be to say that it strengthens people's feelings of recognition, or respect. Also, while Alex approached this idea by practicing high-fives and gestures, I think his approach I would have been better effective if instead of creating role plays, he stressed the point that praise works best when it is personable and specific - and then provided some sort of verifiable data to back it up. I didn't see any sort of empirical data or outside sources in his presentation aside from a few personal testimonies.
While I believe that having strong, healthy relationships are important for the workplace, he assumes that forming those relationships are an option, and that the people he/she is working with are going to be receptive to form a friendship or reciprocate the feeling.
My biggest question is this: what if someone follows his recipe for happiness: they say good morning to their co-workers, perform a random act of kindness, praise the people around them, but those actions go unnoticed? Are they still effective methods of increasing or creating happiness?
-Bianca Sturchio
I think that the speaker made some good points about how being happy at work is important for job satisfaction and that doing certain things to enhance happiness at work can improve job satisfaction.
However, I am skeptical, and I agree with the questions Bianca posed in her comment. She wondered if people followed his steps for happiness in the workplace but they go unnoticed, if these methods are still effective. I personally don't think those methods would still be effective if they go unnoticed by co-workers and bosses. I know from my own experience that at one of my jobs, I am always friendly to my co-workers, I do what is expected of me and I go beyond what is expected of me a good amount, I help out my co-workers and customers with things they might not expect. However, I rarely ever get praise from my managers for the good things I do, either because they didn't notice or because they don't care. When that happens, I become unhappy and I don't feel like I should try harder because it never seems to matter. My other co-workers and even managers seem unhappy and unsatisfied at work too, which makes it an altogether negative atmosphere to work in. This, and other reasons, make me dislike that job and dread going there. At my other job, I get get treated completely different. I get encouragement and praise for good things I do, no matter how small, my co-workers and managers are all friendly and have positive attitudes, and that makes me enjoy this job much more.
In other words: I believe that praise is essential in motivating people to do their jobs well, and in creating a positive, happy environment to work in. It is a form of positive reinforcement, creating good behavior in employees and making them enjoy what they do because they can feel like they are making a difference and their efforts are not going unnoticed. Praise only works if superiors pay attention to their employees more and notice the things they do in order to provide them with this positive reinforcement.
I really enjoyed this video, the speaker was pretty funny which makes people happy in the first place. One of his exercises very much resembled our gratitude assignment on a much smaller scale. He asked the workers to, write down, type out, or think about three good things that happened at the end of each work day. This makes people look at the good things regardless of all the bad things that may or may not have happened during their day.
I really agreed with the speaker when he talked about the two things needed in a work place to be happy, being results, and relationships. I think if everyone looked at their own work place and thought about these things they would also agree.
I currently work at forever 21 and for my parents business. At forever 21 when a customer is rude, or a manager isn't in a good mood, I usually like to try and put them in a good mood because then their attitude is better and wont affect anyone else. Also could anyone imagine going to work and not having anyone to talk to that was at the very least a work acquaintance. Everyone wants to be heard at work and wants to feel like there is atleast one other person who can relate or there is to talk to.
Jacqueline A. Nizer
I agree with the previous comments on feeling like I'm being sold something. I feel like the speaker could have gone about that differently. I also agree with Lorraine in that praise is needed in order to be happy in the workplace, regardless of other things. I believe that praise and acknowledgement are reasons why people who work for smaller companies are often happier. There is a more direct relationship between the person doing the service and the person often reaping its benefits. These relationships foster much more praise and therefore happiness and motivation to work harder.
Chelsea Craig
This was torture watching this guy and the room full of suits.
The two topics Results and Relationships do makes sense. I have worked pleanty of hard jobs in bad enviornments. An example was working at the Hannaford Warehouse. It was a giant refrigerator and you had to be in excellent shape to move hundreds of pounds of material per hour. So the job itself was bad but what made it a great place to work was that our team was crazy, obnoxious and had alot of fun depite working our butts off in a freezer. The results were that we were respected in the organization of being able to get the job done and also the result of working hard was that you could make some bonus money.
So from my experience there is some validity to what he is talking about. I do think the most important aspect of results would be agknowledgement and praise and the most important aspect of relationships would be respect.
Jim Morrissey
I don't feel like he's trying to sell me something, but perhaps that's because I came to this presentation knowing that I want his job. My career path in Psych is oriented towards making people happier at work.
(I also think it's important to understand the context of the presentation: unlike most speakers we've seen so far, this guy is a packaged product. He's not an academic at a TED talk or a university professor. I always feel like the news is trying to sell me something, but I think most people take that for granted. Perhaps if we saw more motivational speakers, we wouldn't feel so "consumerized" by his presentation.)
Therefore, rather than rehash the very good points I've read so far regarding the failures of his presentation, I'm going to add an auxiliary piece of thought. Over the summer at the Health Psychology Institute, a guy named Dr. Steve Levinson spoke regarding the general human failure to harness willpower in order to achieve personal goals. He recommended a series of ways to trick yourself into compliance with your goals when what you were doing wasn't what you wanted to do. Perhaps, for the ones in Kjerulf's lowest job-satisfaction category (the "Aaughs"), using these tools can be a way of tricking yourself into compliance to meet a potential goal: job happiness. Here's a real-life example: I work at a restaurant. Each server has to fill out a cash-out report at the end of his or her shift. If the owner made it a requirement for each of us to write down three things that we did well on each day's cash-out, it could have a positive impact on each worker's individual happiness, which in my mind is a necessary stepping-stone to relationship-building (if I'm in a pissy mood, no way I'm going to tell somebody they rock). Now, this is a superior requiring it of a subordinate rather than each of us taking it on as a personal goal, but I think it would still have an impact.
Also, who is really going to see a presentation like this? Is it the waitstaff at a tiny restaurant in Portland, ME? Nope. But, is it the small business owner who wants more profit? Perhaps more likely so. I wish there were a presentation like this geared specifically towards owners/managers and how they can create environments that foster happiness for their supervise-ees.
I loved that he used inspirational quotes throughout his presentation. I love using quotes in my own personal life and find them helpful in showcasing points that people are trying to make or get across.
I love how he threw out there the idea that psychologist call happiness PWB or personal well being. Just found that to be funny because we do talk in many psychology classes about peoples personal well being and how it can be a part of happiness. Though I do not think we use the two words interchangeably. We use them in related ideas or such but we do not see them as the same thing.
I found his categories at first to be kind of childish being argh, meh, and yay! Though they tended to work and make sense as the presentation continued.
I do agree that being in an Argh job can be bad and you need to do something about it or go elsewhere. I do agree with what others have said such as Lorraine that some people don't have that option and that sometimes you can try hard to find other jobs but get no luck because of the economy. If you try to employ these things he asks that still you can find yourself and co-workers unhappy. I know from personal experience. My job is horrible and I am one of the few at my work who does my job and goes above and beyond despite the others doing nothing and even management doing nothing but standing around talking. It is beyond crazy how when you help someone else out to be nice and go above and beyond and make their day easier those people cant even do their own jobs or work and leave it behind for others to pick up.
His whole high five display to show praise was horrible to watch for me because my work has the new "HIGH FIVE" campaign and to force others to give high fives or consider themselves available to be fired if they don't has taken all niceness out of a high five. I think it ruined it for me so personally I think praising with handshakes or words is all I will be capable of for a long time.
The part I disliked the most was that I had no idea what any of the people said for their stories they shared and it seemed like a waste of video and time to attempt to listen to something I couldn't hear despite my volume being all the way up.
I agree with the model he brings up about how profit comes from loyal customers and those are happy customers and those come from great service and great service comes from happy employees. He says that you need happy employees to start with to get profit and I can say that is true because at my work they push, push, push that we need to get results. We need more surveys coming in, we need to sell more, we need to have fast table turn time, and so forth. They push things to such extremes and threaten to cut hours if we dont meet demands and this in turn makes us unhappy employees and that effects how we work and gives not so great service because it bothers us and in turn effects profit. I agree with that model and idea.
Overall I found this video to be somewhat interesting with the few key points he throws out there but for how drawn out it was, and little evidence presented (would have loved to see more data), and how we could not hear the examples the people attending gave, I found this video to be dull and uninformative because I was trying too hard to pay attention.
-Christina Valeriani
The point that Josieda makes about the speaker being a “packaged product” is extremely important to consider. Without a doubt, the speaker is passionate about his topic. However, he has built a brand that can be sold to corporations in the form of a seminar. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with that, but it just means that what we receive in watching his seminar is more along the lines of a sound-bite about the topic. Achieving a sustained level of happiness may require that various systems and practices be in place on a daily basis. Additionally, his seminar is fraught with various pop-psychology techniques such as giving each other high-fives, saying “you rock,” etc. I don’t believe that these give long-lasting, tangible results for people. In fact, I believe that they dumb down the various aspects of happiness. If someone ran up to me at work yelling “you rock,” or tried to give me a high-five every day I would find it more annoying than uplifting.
However, to the speaker’s credit, he eventually speaks of various practical techniques that bring happiness and gratitude into a person’s life and workplace on a daily basis.
I believe that to a achieve happiness in the one’s life or in the workplace one must exercise various practices on a daily basis. He speaks of doing this. However, I wonder how many of the audience members will actually carryon these practices past a week. Will these employees carry these practices past even a month’s time? More importantly, how will these practices take hold in a place as transient as a large company?
My point is that, philosophically speaking, happiness is simple in nature, but finding it in a workplace is a bit more complex than what he describes. Anyone can understand that happiness in the workplace increases results and profitability. Additionally, I have no doubt that results and relationships help sustain happiness. However, resolving a person’s unhappiness may be just as important to sustained satisfaction in the workplace. Working with other people and their various attitudes, management styles, communication styles, etc. can be very challenging, thus, a high-five or a five minute break may not truly get to the root of more complex interpersonal issues. A person can be genuinely happy in their life, but unhappy in their workplace.
Therefore, happiness in the workplace requires a systematic framework that does not focus just on people being “happy,” but rather looks at happiness in working with others as a more complex and sensitive topic. Providing set times and spaces for employees to address satisfaction in relationships and results seems like it would have more lasting results.
It does indeed feel like he is trying to sell me something as I watch this. To me I get the vibe of "pop psychology" and I think he telling us a lot of things that all ready part of common sense. It seems that focusing on the positive aspects at work would probably make work a better place to me, but I do not think this is a groundbreaking concept. I have a hard taking him seriously.
Jessica Hews
I didn't particularly care for this video. I didn't really like how he kept doing child like exercises with the audience, as if we all don't know how to properly greet someone in the morning. Yes I feel like it is important to be sincere and enthusiastic when greeting or talking to a coworker, but practicing this isn't the issue, the issue is already a persons happiness at work. I guarantee if someone is already satisfied with their job and work then they will already greet people with sincerity, but if they are miserable at work then those are the people who don't look up from what they're doing a give a barely audible mumble.
I did find it interesting, however, that he was claiming the two factors that make us really happy at work are results and relationships, and that all other factors (such as salary, bonuses, titles, routines and policies, and work environment) have little effect on work related happiness. I can see how the results and relationships would be the largest factors of happiness, but I feel like the rest ties in with the results. If you're getting better results at work, chances are you are already happy with your job and the "other factors" that create happiness are present.
The last thing I just wanted to mention that I found slightly disturbing is the global happiness percentages he showed; 20% hate their jobs, 55% are so-so about their jobs, and 25% love their jobs. I'm wondering if these 20% who hate their jobs are the people who never got a better eduction in order to try and do what they want to do for a living, and are now stuck at a menial job. The 55% probably consists of people who work at their job to make ends meet, or because they make decent money and don't want to jeopardize that, but they still are not doing something they truly feel fulfilled doing.
-Christi Ledwith
I agree with the speaker's approach in that an ideal worker tries to make other people around him/her happy by being happy. Leading by example is one of the key ideas I took from this presentation. I'm sure I would be a lot happier at work if my boss was high-fiving me when he walked by. I think that having generally happy people in leadership positions is a way to promote workplace happiness, and being happy at work is a great way to get promoted into a leadership position.
-Jesse Miller
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