Are you out of your mind?
I recently attended a workshop that focused on creating healthy workplaces. The subject matter was not about health and safety initiatives as you might initially think. What was being discussed was how we create a healthy environment that strikes a balance between people, performance and profit.
During the afternoon we talked about the changing nature of work, we talked about toxic worker/boss relationships and that some companies are just “crappy” places to work (Quotation marks denote technical jargon commonly used by people to describe their workplace).
When I reflected further on this and the many other conversations I’ve had with people about “crummy” jobs and “jerk” bosses what I realized was that we were actually discussing “happiness” in the workplace.
The thing is, though, no one really wants to talk about being “happy” at work because it seems somehow immature, unsophisticated or maybe just too intangible. Conduct a quick experiment; walk out into your workplace, pick someone at random and ask them: Are you happy at work? See how long it takes them to answer.
Happy has somehow lost its meaning in the workplace. Instead of being a state indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy it now seems to conjure images of clowns with balloons or butterflies and ballerinas spreading stardust from a pill bottle prescribed by your doctor because you keep coming in complaining about your “crappy” job.
Too bleak? Maybe so but my point is that happiness is a choice and is actually standard operating equipment for humans. The reality is that we spend our lives learning how to be unhappy and we generally do a pretty good job of it.
We do this precisely because we are human. As we learn and grow we build filters to deal with all the data that we are bombarded with and through these filters we construct mental maps of how the world works.
“I have to get an MBA so I can sit in a corner office to be successful,”
“I have to make piles of cash so I can buy everything I want to be cool,”
“I have to marry a trophy spouse so I can have lots of s_x to be happy”,
“I have to get a divorce so I can leave my spouse to be happy.”
Here the mental map is: I have to get something to do something to be something.
The interesting thing about all these mental maps that we carry around in our heads is that they are mostly inaccurate and incomplete. So we end up following them, thinking that this is the way the world works and one day when we are sitting near the pinnacle of our habitual wanting, we find ourselves asking: How did I get here?
Have you ever done that? Taken action to get a certain outcome and ended up with the exact opposite? Or maybe you have tried to recreate the circumstances that achieved a certain outcome only to accomplish a different or unexpected result?
That is the consequence of investing in outcomes and unconsciously following mental maps that are inherently flawed.
The if-then map that so many of us follow does not actually serve us. If I get a better job then I’ll be happy, if I get more money then I’ll be happy, if my boss has a heart attack then I’ll be happy. We spend our energy and focus on changing the if instead of just being, you guessed it, happy.
Now I can feel the groundswell of discontent building in the habitually outcome oriented, results are all that matters people out there, which usually culminates with, “Are you out of your mind? If we don’t focus on outcomes we’ll never get anything done!”
Outcomes are important, they give us direction but what we must realize is that we have no control over outcomes. When we are totally invested in something we can’t control we become easily frustrated when our course or the process begins to move in a different direction or obstacles appear in our path. We begin to meddle, we micromanage and we try to force the outcome to come about.
The only things we really have control over are our actions. What we will do now, in this moment, to move toward our goals. When we begin to invest in and focus on the process, not the outcomes or the results, we create an environment that cultivates creativity, innovation and fulfillment.
Success is not a straight line calculation. I know very few people who can chart a course from point A, where we are today, to point B, the outcomes we want to achieve, and get there in a straight line; with no obstacles, course corrections or major detours.
What’s more is success is only one component of happiness. The other dimension that most people fail to recognize or consider is fulfilment. Being fulfilled is not about achieving or possessing, it is about our values. Things like gratitude, optimism, curiosity and integrity. It comes from the inside, not the outside.
To be truly happy we need both success and fulfilment. They are the map and compass we need to effectively navigate life.
Bringing the two together creates the context for attaining abundance in our lives. We let go of the idea that the outcome or result defines us. If you succeed wonderful, if you don’t succeed still wonderful because we use our map and compass to assess the situation, pick a new goal or outcome, re-orient and keep moving.
As we build an abundance mentality our judgments about “crappy” workplaces, “crummy” jobs and “jerk” bosses fade away.
Action Point:
Some quick tips about creating an abundance mentality in your workplace:
- Clarify your values. What is important to you and those you work with?
- Live your values. Don’t sacrifice them for profit, expediency or to smooth over ruffled feathers. Use them to explain why you are making certain decisions.
- Identify your key objectives and then focus on the process for getting there. Be flexible and tolerate mistakes. You may need to fail or make a mistake to realize that you must take a step back or move sideways in order to find the right path.
- Enjoy the ride. Happiness is a way of being not a reward for working the longest hours or making the most check marks on your to do list. Clarify your expectations for yourself and those you work with and then let go of “what if” and embrace “what now”.
© Dial Solutions Group Ltd. 2010 All Rights Reserved
Dial Solutions Group is a workplace consulting firm that helps companies build teams that accomplish dreams through the use of our unique methodology – The People Strategy Cycle™.
David Dial can be contacted at 403-265-6544, 1-888-979-9798 toll free in Canada and the US or by email at david@dialsolutionsgroup.com .
For more information about our firm or about permission to reprint this article visit www.dialsolutionsgroup.com
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Tags: Human Capital, Human Resources, Leadership, Talent Management
