JOY IS THE NEW COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

“The results of over 200 scientific studies on nearly 275,000 people – found that happiness leads to success in nearly every domain of our lives, including marriage, health, friendship, community involvement, creativity and in particular, our jobs, careers and business.

Data abounds and shows that happy workers have higher levels of productivity, produce higher sales,perform better in leadership positions and receive higher performance ratings and higher pays, they also enjoy more job security and are less likely to take sick days, to quit or become burned out.” From The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor, who studied this at Harvard Business School.

Whenever I ask an audience ‘’what is the number one thing that people want in life?”; without exception, the vast majority answer ‘happiness’! Happiness is only one component of joy, which is what people really want – and need!

Joy consists of 12 pillars or building blocks: Gratitude is the foundation; compassion and grace, hope, reverence, generosity- giving and receiving, forgiveness, energy and vitality, listening, laughter, love, cheerful enthusiasm and equanimity are the others.

Most of these pillars are now being shown in the field of positive psychology to be important components for healthy teams, productivity, performance, creativity and a healthy bottom line. They are critical leadership skills that can be learned and developed.

Being happy at work has also been found to create environments where colleagues collaborate better, spend more time volunteering, receive better supervision evaluations, are more highly rated by customers, are better decision makers, and exhibit less work turnover.

There is a big difference between joy and fun. Joy is much deeper and comes from a sense of serving and gives people far more fulfillment than just have ‘fun’ or a ‘good time’ that has no purpose or meaning.

We all want to enjoy what we do, to feel energized by it, to learn, develop, grow and feel we are making a difference. Gen X and Y will walk if they don’t feel it, while the rest grow disengaged.

We all want to be treated with respect and honor (reverence); to feel acknowledged (gratitude); to be listened to and heard; to laugh and lighten up; to be forgiven for making mistakes or offences; to be surrounded with cheerfully enthusiastic people even if it’s a challenging time! We want to feel cared for or at least liked; to be full of hope for the future; to be around compassionate and generous people; to have a sense we are serving and making a difference (love); to be in a place where there may be urgency but not crises and stress (equanimity) and the be energized, not drained by work/the atmosphere at work/the people at work.

Corporate joy is not the common language of the corporate world – but it is the new competitive advantage. Some of these values are appearing in organizations that are transforming themselves to meet current challenges – but employees are often cynical. Progressive leaders in the USA and Australia have begun writing about these issues and how important they are for change; and neuroscience is showing us that our brains can and need to change – they are not hardwired and inflexible.

There are many emotional experiences that can cause us to change instantly; or that facilitate us to make a conscious decision to change. The science of change can’t at this stage tell us what happens when we make an instant change – because it happens in the heart and it’s magic! The power of the heart can transform our perceptions, beliefs, behaviors and feelings instantly.

The decision to change can be exciting and rewarding – but the rewards need to come early and often with celebration of achievements as soon as they happen. That inspires us to keep going.

A healthy, joyful, profitable corporation is a living, organically emerging organism. All the parts need to be connected, communicating and treating each other with reverence and respect. It needs to be connected to, and communicating with it’s customers and partners in business. In the current financial economy, a transformation is needed in the way companies operate.

Social responsibility is another way to say CEOs and leaders must find the corporate heart and connect to it – and make sure that all parts of the company, customer and community are connected to that heart – where the joy is created – and results follow.

A Leaders’ job is to

• change people’s behaviors
• create an environment in which people can be the best they can be
• help people to believe in themselves and their own abilities

Corporate Joy gives them the skills to do all of these!