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Being Happy at Work Matters

By Annie McKee

People used to believe that you didn’t have to be happy at work to succeed. And you didn’t need to like the people you worked with, or even share their values. “Work is not personal,” the thinking went. This is bunk.

My research with dozens of companies and hundreds of people—along with the research conducted by neuroscientists like Richard Davidson and V.S. Ramachandran and scholars such as Shawn Achor—increasingly points to a simple fact: Happy people are better workers. Those who are engaged with their jobs and colleagues work harder—and smarter.

And yet, an alarmingly high number of people aren’t engaged. According to a sobering 2013 Gallup report, only 30% of the U.S. workforce is engaged. This echoes what I’ve seen in my work. Not very many people are truly “emotionally and intellectually committed” to their organizations.¹ Far too many couldn’t care less about what’s happening around them. For them, Wednesday is “hump day” and they’re just working to get to Friday. And then there’s the other end of the bell curve—the nearly one out of five employees who is actively disengaged, according to the same Gallup report. These people are sabotaging projects, backstabbing colleagues, and generally wreaking havoc in their workplaces.

The Gallup report also notes that employee engagement has remained largely constant over the years despite economic ups and downs. Scary: We’re not engaged with work, and we haven’t been for a long time.

Disengaged, unhappy people aren’t any fun to work with and don’t add much value; they impact our organizations (and our economy) in profoundly negative ways. It’s even worse when leaders are disengaged because they infect others with their attitude. Their emotions and mindsets impact others’ moods and performance tremendously. After all, how we feel is linked to what and how we think. In other words, thought influences emotion, and emotion influences thinking.²

It’s time to finally blow up the myth that feelings don’t matter at work. Science is on our side: There are clear neurological links between feelings, thoughts, and actions.³ When we are in the grip of strong negative emotions, it’s like having blinders on. We focus mostly—sometimes only—on the source of the pain. We don’t process information as well, think creatively, or make good decisions. Frustration, anger, and stress cause an important part of us to shut down—the part that’s thinking and engaged.⁴ Disengagement is a natural neurological and psychological response to pervasive negative emotions.

But it’s not just negative emotions we need to watch out for. Extremely strong positive emotions can have the same effect.⁵ Some studies show that too much happiness can make you less creative and prone to engaging in riskier behaviors (think about how we act like fools when we fall in love). On the work front: I’ve seen groups of people worked up into a frenzy at sales conferences and corporate pep rallies. Little learning or innovation comes out of these meetings. Throw in a lot of alcohol, and you’ve got a whole host of problems.

If we can agree that our emotional states at work matter, what can we do to increase engagement and improve performance?

Over the past few years, my team at the Teleos Leadership Institute and I have studied dozens of organizations and interviewed thousands of people. The early findings about the links between people’s feelings and engagement are fascinating. There are clear similarities in what people say they want and need, no matter where they are from, whom they work for, or what field they’re in. We often assume that there are huge differences across industries and around the world, but the research challenges that assumption.

To be fully engaged and happy, virtually everyone tells, we need three things:

1. A meaningful vision of the future. When people talked with our research team about what was working and what wasn’t in their organizations and what helped or hindered them the most, they talked about vision. People want to be able to see the future and know how they fit in. And, as we know from our work with organizational behavior expert Richard Boyatzis on intentional change, people learn and change when they have a personal vision that is linked to an organizational vision.⁶ Sadly, far too many leaders don’t paint a very compelling vision of the future, they don’t try to link it to people’s personal visions, and they don’t communicate well. And they lose people as a result.
2. A sense of purpose. People want to feel as if their work matters, that their contributions help achieve something really important. And except for those at the tippy top, shareholder value isn’t a meaningful goal that excites and engages them. They want to know that they—and their organizations—are doing something big that matters to other people.
3. Great relationships. We know that people join an organization and leave a boss.⁷ A dissonant relationship with one’s boss is downright painful. So too are bad relationships with colleagues. Leaders, managers, and employees have all told us that close, trusting, and supportive relationships are hugely important to their state of mind—and their willingness contribute to a team.

Added up, brain science and organizational research are in fact debunking the old myths: Emotions matter a lot at work. Happiness is important. To be fully engaged, people need vision, meaning, purpose, and resonant relationships.

It’s on us as individuals to find ways to live our values at work and build great relationships. And it’s on leaders to create an environment where people can thrive. It’s simple and it’s practical: If you want an engaged workforce, pay attention to how you create a vision, link people’s work to your company’s larger purpose, and reward individuals who resonate with others.

ANNIE MCKEE is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the PennCLO executive doctoral program, and the founder of the Teleos Leadership Institute. She is a coauthor with Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis of Primal Leadership, Resonant Leadership, and Becoming a Resonant Leader. The ideas in this article are expanded in McKee’s latest book, How to Be Happy at Work, forthcoming from Harvard Business Review Press.

Notes

1.A. K. Goel et al., “Measuring the Level of Employee Engagement: A Study from the Indian Automobile Sector.” International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management 6, no. 1 (2013): 5–21.

2.J. Lite, “MIND Reviews: The Emotional Life of Your Brain,” Scientific American MIND, July 1, 2012, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mind-reviews-the-emotional-life-of/.

3.D. Goleman, Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. (New York: Bantam, 2004).

4.D. Goleman et al., Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).

5.J. Gruber, “Four Ways Happiness Can Hurt You,” Greater Good, May 3, 2012, http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_ways_happiness_can_hurt_you.

6.R. E. Boyatzis and C. Soler, “Vision, Leadership, and Emotional Intelligence Transforming Family Business,” Journal of Family Business Management 2, no. 1 (2012) 23–30; and A. McKee et al., Becoming a Resonant Leader: Develop Your Emotional Intelligence, Renew Your Relationships, Sustain Your Effectiveness. (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2008). https://hbr.org/product/becoming-a-resonant-leader-develop-your-emotional-intelligence-renew-your-relationships-sustain-your-effectiveness/1734-PBK-ENG.

7.“How Managers Trump Companies,” Gallup Business Journal, August 12, 1999, http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/523/how-managers-trump-companies.aspx.

Adapted from content posted on hbr.org on November 14, 2014 (product #H012CE).