I have been a big fan of Ted Talks for a a few years and see it grow and grow in popularity. What relationship do you see between happiness and employee engagement?
Watch the following Ted Talk by Nancy Etcoff on the surprising science of happiness. If the video does not load in this window, click here.
I found the part on focusing on something other than yourself very interesting. I also notice in my teams that the people who focus less on themselves are happier AND are more engaged. I also find that the self focused people negatively affect the happiness and engagement of people they interact with.
I think I have a live example of that. I have 3 teams. We had a re-org and layoffs. All the teams have to do stuff that isn’t particularly fun.
Two teams have really pulled together to tackle problems together. They all work on a problem, volunteer to help at the mention of an issue, etc. In the team meetings, they are laughing, joking with each other, etc. They have made great progress in all their tasks. They are all active participants in the greater team activities.
One half of the third team is very intelligent people but more self focused. From the start, I kept getting a lot of “this isn’t best for me”, “this isn’t good for my career”, etc. When a problem came up, they would try to get someone else to do it or say it was someone else in the groups turn. They are struggling much more. They are less likely to volunteer to participate in tasks. The people on the other teams are actually isolating them. BUT when in a larger group setting, the people who aren’t so self focused in this team come out in response to the rest.
Julia:
Thanks for such a thoughtful and detailed comment on your experience and teams. I bet this is being replicated across the world on so many teams. I am enriched by what you wrote.
David