The Government keeps telling us that being happy is more important than being rich, and will soon be supplementing GDP with a measure of GWB (General Well-being) to measure the nation’s happiness. In his latest address, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests that we seek real happiness, above and beyond economic and material wealth. And most organisations would freely admit to pushing happiness and well-being higher up their people agenda, perhaps as an antidote to the depressing financial times.

But one important and often over-looked finding in the psychological research is that being happy takes effort. I know this may sound odd, but it’s true.

In 2005, psychologists analysed the mainstream well-being research and identified that about 50% of happiness is inherited – i.e. genetic – while about 10% is down to our economic and cultural circumstances. The remaining 40% is believed to be down to effort. This means investing time in deliberate and intentional activities that will make us happier.

In other words, it is necessary to put effort into maintaining happiness, through activities such as being deliberately optimistic when problems crop up, or being consciously appreciative of our circumstances.

What is really interesting, though, is that psychologists Sheldon and Lyubomersky (2006) monitored people over a period of several months to identify what impact these activities actually have on our happiness. They found that a change in circumstances, such as gaining more money or moving to a new area, made people happy for a limited time only. Clearly the novelty of the change wears off.

On the flipside, they found that those who invested time and effort in a range of ‘happiness’ based activities led to longer-term increases in psychological well-being. In their conclusion, the researchers stated that ‘both effort and hard work offer the most promising route to happiness’.

So, when the Government and the Church tell us to be happy, they – and organisations – need to know that this doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work that has to be sustained, supported and measured. In other words, if you really knuckle down and apply yourself, you’ll be a lot happier as a result…

Stuart Duff is Head of Development at Pearn Kandola Business Psychologists

Phew! You and I survived the end of the world! Poor Harold Camping, the religious broadcaster who predicted that Judgment Day would arrive last weekend seems to have been out in his calculations – again. He has predicted this before, but this time he was very confident he’d got his calculations spot on.

While we may think that the preacher may be a little, shall we say, eccentric, his confidence as a forecaster may not be too different from professionals whose job it is to try to tell us how the future is going to shape up – e.g. economists, policy makers, senior executives and so on.

Psychologist Philip Tetlock carried out studies looking at forecasting and how experts react when they’re wrong. He contacted experts in the field and asked them to predict how certain real events would turn out. Several years later, he returned to these people once the outcomes were known.

Surprisingly, their expert predictions were hardly better than non-experts’ judgements. More surprising and disappointing was their reaction on hearing about their mistakes. Rather than trying to find out why they were wrong, i.e. reviewing their analysis and assumptions, they seemed intent on showing why they were in fact correct!

There were five rationalisations that they presented:

1. “I was almost right” – There may have been a few details that didn’t work out, but overall the prediction was correct.

2. “Things changed”- The prediction was based on certain assumptions and some of those changed, thus altering the outcome

3. “Things didn’t change” – The prediction was based on certain actions taking place, but they didn’t

4. “My method is right, but forecasting is difficult and you’re bound to make a mistake occasionally”

5. “Give it time” – Essentially, it’s too early to tell yet.

So rather than learning from their mistakes, the experts seemed to become even more confident in their abilities.

Even though these people may be confident, professional and knowledgeable, when they present arguments like these they reveal themselves to be sloppy and lazy thinkers.

Support for my last blog on the importance of appraisals and the difficulties of carrying them out has been provided by the BBC and Google, no less. Apparently, the Beeb has identified that poor performance management is costing it £50million per year. A new appraisal system will be put in place based on ‘conversations rather than paperwork’ – which echoes my sentiments precisely.

The problem with having a cumbersome process is that people won’t use it, so feedback is not given to employees. A former business partner of mine (and British Psychological Society Lifetime Achievement award winner) Sylvia Downs always used to compare it with playing darts blindfolded: anyone can (according to her) reach a reasonable standard, given two conditions: practice, and decent feedback.

The BBC found that less than half of the 3,000 employees in its Vision section received regular appraisals. It’s no wonder that underperformance is a problem: it wouldn’t be a surprise to find that some people may not even realise they’re performing poorly.

Google, on the other hand, has been looking at what makes a great manager in its organisation. Its analysts have pored over a whole set of internal data regarding performance, and found that the quality of manager had the greatest affect on a person’s well-being, job satisfaction and performance. These results have been converted into leadership qualities that it is seeking in its managers.

Number one on this list is the jargon-tastic: ‘be a good coach by providing specific feedback and solutions, balancing negative and positive’.

In any case, at Pearn Kandola we carried out a piece of research looking at discretionary effort, ie when people are prepared to go the extra mile. Over 40% of our sample thought coaching of their staff constituted discretionary effort – in other words, that it was over and above what they considered their day job to be.

So to manage performance effectively, we need:

- Clear, simple processes
- To concentrate on the conversation, rather than the paperwork
- To provide timely, objective feedback
- To coach other people

In order to do that, though, we need to realise that coaching is central to any manager’s role, rather than an addition to it.

I was interviewed on the radio on New Year’s Day, and was asked why that date was important for resolutions. In fact, we make resolutions at key moments very regularly (birthdays, anniversaries, etc). But they are more personal, and so not widely shared.

Another commonly-shared but less celebrated date is coming up, however: the financial New Year.  Whilst it may not bring any great joy, it does have its own particular cycle of activity – including creating business plans and establishing budgets. It may also involve the dreaded annual appraisal – which brings its own form of resolutions, otherwise known as objectives.

The appraisal is actually a very complex meeting because we’re trying to do so much in it: establish objectives, identify development needs, determine compensation, and so on. At its core, though, is an assessment of a person’s performance throughout the year, with the aim of providing a rating of some kind.

But providing accurate ratings is not as easy as it sounds. Read More »

Romance: what a wonderful word, conjuring up as it does (for many of us) positive emotions of love, security and warmth. But not for HR managers apparently. For them, it’s a different proposition altogether – problematic, anxiety-provoking and concerning.

The Society for Human Resource Management in the US has found that over three-quarters of its members fear some form of sexual harassment claim will result from a relationship between colleagues at work. As a result, there’s a quietly-growing tendency for organisations to develop policies on workplace romances both here and in America, driven primarily by employment lawyers.  (Songwriters Dorothy Kearns and Jerome Kern probably summed up organisations’ idea of a perfect relationship: “A fine romance with no quarrels/ With no insults and all morals”.)

This legalistic approach might seem an incredibly paranoid way to think about something that is, after all, quite natural (I’m referring here to a relationship that is consensual and welcomed by both parties). It is estimated that 10m workplace romances develop each year in the US, where 40% of employees have had one; and the figure is even higher in the UK, where 70% of people claim to have been involved in a workplace romance. Given how much time we spend at work, it’s not really surprising that relationships with co-workers are so common. Read More »

A survey in the United States showed that only 10% of Americans would make derogatory comments about black people, a dramatic reduction on the situation that existed in previous decades. This led some commentators to suggest that racism and prejudice were going out of existence. The truth is, though, that prejudice, like a virus, has mutated: we all know how unacceptable it is to voice our prejudices in public, and will only do so when we believe that others around us hold the same view. This is called modern prejudice.

Bigotry is now made public in three ways these days: unguarded remarks, secret recordings, or – most fun of all – broadcasters speaking freely without realising that their microphones are still on. Sky Sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray are the latest hapless victims of the third category, when they aired their views on female football officials (apparently they don’t know the offside rule, as it turns out).

They have been quite rightly criticised for their views, but we shouldn’t think that they are the only ones who hold opinions like this. In fact, we are all biased in some way; it is part of being human. Read More »

If I’m honest, I get a bit tired of the eulogising and adoration that pours from the mouths of contestants of Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC celebrity dancing show. They all talk about it being the best thing they’ve ever done and how MUCH they have enjoyed their time on the show. So I often switch off when contestants leave the show. Last week, however, I was struck by a fleeting comment from Kara Tointon, the eventual winner of Strictly. She essentially said that her experience on Strictly had made her a ‘better person’.

Rarely do we hear such a perfect and concise representation of some of the most important elements of psychology at work. These are concepts that all leaders will want to understand and apply. And here’s why.

Read More »

The TUC published research recently suggesting that almost one-fifth of workers want to work from home, but are prevented from doing so by their employer. The message from the TUC was that many of us would be better off working from home, with clear and undeniable benefits such as less travel time, less clogging up of the transport networks and, on message, a smaller carbon footprint (whatever that actually means).

In addition, the report lists that organisations would benefit from better staff recruitment and retention, improved motivation and productivity, reduction of sickness absence, reduction of travel costs and infrastructure cost savings.

So surely this is a ‘no brainer’? What employer in their right mind would deliberately choose to miss out on such clear and compelling benefits by preventing the 20% of staff who want to work from home from doing so? Why on earth would any employer say no to staff who are so willing to work from home when they could save so much in costs, and save the planet in the process?

Maybe (and I’m speculating here) it’s because this is another over-generalised and over-stated piece of research that is illustrative of the cause of much of the current misunderstanding around remote working? Maybe.

Why do I say this? Three reasons. Read More »

Returning from my annual summer holiday this week has left me with the usual strange mix of feelings. On the one hand I feel more relaxed, yet on the other I’m strangely irritable and impatient. I think I’m refreshed and ready for the year, yet I’m struggling to wake up in the morning. I think I’m focused on what I need to achieve, yet I seem to have forgotten how to do this job that I have been doing for some years now. What’s really odd is that I feel heavily jet lagged, without having taken the long-haul flight.

The strangest experience of all has been my increasing personal battle with email. Read More »

Banning so-called ‘weasel words’ like ‘try’ and ‘if’ is just a recipe for poor decisions and stupid mistakes.

Last week, Forbes Magazine announced a definitive list of words that you shouldn’t say at work. Now, I’ve generally become aware, through years of painful learning, that directing four-letter words at your boss isn’t particularly helpful. Other than that, though, I have always believed that most words are fairly useful, depending on their context.

Not according to Forbes. The magazine lists a number of words, including ‘try’ and ‘if’, and phrases such as ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I’ll get back to you’, that should instantly be hacked from our vocabulary.

The point of the article, written by a psychotherapist and business consultant, is to highlight ‘weasel’ words and make those of us who use them feel suitably ashamed and embarrassed. Read More »