Happiness, Happiness…

I picked this up from Jack Yan today.

The University of Leicester has produced the first World Map of Happiness. It’s a great concept – and clearly one that has a lot of resonance at the moment, following BBC2’s recent series on The Happiness Formula. Personally, I’m a big fan of Bhutan – with its concept of Gross National Happiness. Even the World Economic Forum at Davos have been getting in on the act, with a focused workshop

So, if Happiness is becoming visible in academic, political and economic thinking, how about corporate thinking?

Happy employees sounds like a good start. And, for those of us in communication, cultural and change work, making employees happy should be part of our job description, shouldn’t it? We can always argue about the boundaries and the limits to our ability to make others happy, and we can certainly discuss the limits on how we might do it in the organisation, but it’s a firm starting point to evaluate what we do. So how many people have you made smile today? How many smiles can you create in the next hour?

And, with greater reach, how can you amend what you’re doing now to prompt smiles in addition to meeting your immediate objective?