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Put Happiness to Work summary

Name: Put Happiness to Work
Rating: 4.4 (30 reviews)
Author: Eric Karpinski

Eric Karpinski

7 Strategies to Elevate Engagement for Optimal Performance

4.4 (30 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

Put Happiness to Work by Eric Karpinski offers evidence-based strategies to increase happiness in the workplace. It provides practical tools to create a positive work environment, improve motivation, and enhance overall well-being.

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Put Happiness to Work
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What’s in it for me? Learn to harness happiness in your organization.

Imagine being a manager and walking into your office, sensing an aura of disinterest, a lack of motivation, and witnessing eyes frequently glancing at the clock. You've tried multiple strategies to boost your team's enthusiasm, and perhaps even poured resources into engagement programs that promised big changes. But the numbers, frustratingly, remain stagnant. The problem might not be the programs, but rather the target: engagement. What if the missing ingredient is something more fundamental, something that everyone craves but that is often pushed to the side in the professional world – happiness?

Put Happiness to Work challenges conventional thinking by arguing that the key to true employee engagement isn't just about aiming for performance outcomes or numerical targets. Instead, it's about tapping into an innate human desire for positive emotions.

In this Blink, you’ll discover how, as managers and leaders, you can harness the potent power of happiness to transform workplace productivity. Not only will your employees thank you for it, but so will your bottom line.

Engaged teams are happier – and more productive

Happiness means many different things to different people.

For some, it conjures images of bubbly, energetic personalities, giving high-fives and radiating joy. But in a broader context, happiness encompasses all positive emotions, be it joy, hope, contentment, love, or even feelings like pride, gratitude, curiosity, and inspiration. The desire to feel these emotions is universal, shared by every individual.

That desire extends to every aspect of life – including our working lives. The fields of positive psychology and employee engagement have grown immensely over the last decade. At the heart of the research conducted in those fields is the question of what people need at work to not only get by, but genuinely thrive. The key takeaway from that research? Positive emotion – that is, happiness – is the gateway to true engagement. Get people engaged, meanwhile, and you’ll be well on your way to boosting your team or organization’s output.

Take it from a study from 2002. Researchers examined data from a vast sample of businesses, spanning 8,000 units and almost 200,000 workers. They found that businesses with higher employee engagement scores witnessed improvements across the board – from customer satisfaction and productivity to profitability. Furthermore, these engaged workplaces saw a reduction in unwanted aspects like employee turnover and accidents. It's not just about feeling good; there's a direct correlation between employee happiness and business outcomes.

But here's the catch. Some organizations, in their quest to foster workplace happiness, confuse it with merely having fun. They introduce perks like picnics, pool tables, or massage chairs, mistaking these temporary pleasures for genuine engagement. The reality is, meaningful workplace happiness goes far deeper. It's not just about fleeting pleasures, but about creating an environment where positive emotions can thrive and lead to genuine engagement. And this is where many leaders find themselves at a crossroads. Recognizing the value of fostering the right kind of happiness is one thing, but understanding how to achieve it is another.

To truly harness the power of happiness at work, leaders need to go beyond surface-level tactics. It's about implementing concrete strategies that delve deeper than just fun distractions. And as we'll see in this Blink, these strategies can unlock unparalleled engagement, productivity, and success for organizations.

Appreciation makes for happy, productive teams

Engaging teams effectively hinges on one essential component: authentic appreciation. True appreciation isn't just about noticing the valuable contributions of team members – it’s about actively acknowledging and expressing gratitude for them.

Lots of leaders brush off the importance of appreciation: they've heard it all before or assume they're already doing enough. Research suggests otherwise. Plenty of surveys show the gap between the perception of senior leaders and the reality experienced by frontline managers and individual employees. The former believe they’re dishing out more than enough appreciation; the latter feel starved. Simply acknowledging the importance of appreciation isn't enough, then – there has to be a genuine, consistent effort to express it.

True leaders care

Social connection, simply put, is the feeling of belonging, being valued, and caring for others’ welfare as they care for ours. It's as vital to our well-being as water, food, and shelter. Dating back 50,000 years, our ancestors thrived and survived by being able to coordinate with others to tackle the challenges of a dangerous world. But there’s more recent evidence of just how important social connection is. Take a landmark Harvard study published in 2012.

It tracked the lives of 724 men over several decades in order to see what factors had the profoundest impact on their sense of well-being. Spoiler: it wasn’t money, career success, or status – it was social connection. In a nutshell, people who were closely linked with family, friends, and their community were much happier than people who weren’t. And this subjective sense of well-being was closely linked to better life outcomes. In other words, they were also likely to enjoy better health and live longer.

Stress isn’t all bad

Stress is often seen as a productivity killer. Mostly, we respond to stress by seeking distractions, ignoring it, or becoming confrontational. Put differently, we engage in a fight-or-flight response. That’s understandable: countless studies have highlighted the harmful effects of stress on our health. Not only are significant percentages of doctor visits stress-related, but stress has also been linked to major causes of death such as heart disease.

So far, so familiar. What might surprise you, however, is that stress isn't universally negative. In fact, there’s good evidence that some stress can be a good thing. Call it eustress, a word that combines “stress” with the Greek prefix eu-, meaning “well” or “good.” Eustress has positive effects on motivation, performance, and well-being, and high achievers know how to harness it for superior performance.

Effective leaders manage – and coach

Let’s wrap things up by taking a look at coaching.

Now, coaching and managing aren’t quite the same thing. Managers, simply put, give orders; their authority is top-down. Coaching, though, from a managerial perspective, isn’t about telling people what to do – it’s about fostering growth, understanding, and happiness among direct reports during regular one-on-one meetings. This approach centers on the individual's development, setting them on a path to success and enhancing their well-being.

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What is Put Happiness to Work about?

Put Happiness to Work (2021) delves into the shortcomings of traditional methods of enhancing employee engagement, highlighting how genuine motivation stems from happiness. The book reveals the particular types of happiness that can amplify engagement, guiding managers and team leaders to strategies that benefit both employees and organizational performance. The underlying message is clear: prioritize happiness, and everyone thrives.

Put Happiness to Work Review

Put Happiness to Work (2020) is a book that explores the importance of happiness at work and provides practical strategies for improving our professional lives. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Packed with actionable tips and techniques, it equips readers with the tools to create a happier, more fulfilling work environment.
By combining scientific research, real-life examples, and practical exercises, the book offers a comprehensive and insightful roadmap to finding happiness at work.
Its engaging and relatable anecdotes create a dynamic reading experience that keeps the book from ever feeling dull or monotonous.

Who should read Put Happiness to Work?

Managers seeking increased team engagement
Enthusiasts of positive workplace psychology
Professionals aiming for organizational transformation

About the Author

Eric Karpinski boasts a decade-long career in integrating positive psychology tools into corporate settings, serving prominent clients such as Intel, Facebook, and IBM. As a pivotal figure in Shawn Achor’s GoodThink team, he masterminded the Orange Frog in-house certification program, equipping over 100 facilitators to foster positive organizational change. With a foundation in science from Brown University and an MBA from the Wharton School, Karpinski's multifaceted expertise sets him apart in the field.

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