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The Happiness-Success Dilemma

Does happiness follow success, or being a happy person generally is automatically likely to help you succeed? This is a classic question that we must have asked ourselves at some point.

There are countless stories which tell how being successful doesn’t always lead to happiness, and how lonely it can get at the top.

On the other hand, there are countless jokes telling us how one would much rather be crying in an expensive car than on a bicycle. Such jokes though lead to another conversation about whether success can only be measured materialistically, but we shall take a look at it later.

In terms of being a professional- how do we think about these questions? Research cited by an article by Fast Company gives us a sense of where we can begin answering this from. Conducted in the defence sector of the US, the researchers followed the employees from various job functions for five years. The employees were measured for their relative happiness and optimism from time to time using various psychological tools and questionnaires. The results were compared with the number of employee awards they got. What were the findings, and how are they relevant to the workplace in general? Let us have a look.

The Findings:

The research concluded that ‘those with the highest positive well-being affects had almost four times the number of award recognitions as those in the group with the lowest well-being scores.’ Moreover, they also found that ‘people who could be considered unhappy compared to their peers still earned awards for performance, but they earned them at a lower rate than people who were happy overall.’

Perhaps, it is not about being happy but more about being optimistic?

In a nutshell, the research indicated that generally optimistic people performed their jobs well. The article goes on to say how the employers thus should try to assess the levels of optimism and happiness of their employees from time to time, and try to keep the environment in the workplace as conducive to optimism as possible. Of course, as we have talked about in one of our earlier articles, optimism doesn’t mean ‘toxic positivity’ but rather a never-give-up attitude.

Research and jargon aside, a common-sense understanding tells us– as is mentioned in an article on Medium— that whether it is a client, a senior or a colleague, anyone would prefer to interact with someone who is optimistic, and thus solution-oriented. Skills, qualifications, competence might be at a similar level, but one would much rather have an interaction with someone who is a pleasant person. And hence perhaps that is why success might follow happiness automatically?

Another Perspective:

 This is a topic that can never be researched enough and we have one more nuance added to this. Earlier in the article we mentioned if success can only be measured in materialistic terms. Another perspective is that success and happiness can be better connected for us when we change the definition of success according to our values.

Many a times, we measure our ‘success’ by definitions given by other people, other people whose lives and careers are very different than ours and end up feeling bad about ourselves.

So, perhaps, before we think if happiness follows success or if being happy automatically makes us successful, we should first define what success means to us. As the above cited research puts it:

  • Barbara Bush defined success as how you treat others, from family to strangers.
  • Albert Schweitzer defined success as loving what you do.
  • Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh says success is all about living in accordance with your values.
  • Author Maya Angelou believed success is about enjoying your work.
  • Billionaire Richard Branson believes success is about engagement.

And then perhaps, we shall be better able to align our happiness and success in a better way?

Conversations and research about success and happiness go on. One has to anyway work towards being successful, whatever their definition and context of success might be, and perhaps one might as well do it happily and optimistically. What are your thoughts about this dilemma, and what is your definition of success and happiness? Do let us know in the comments!

Being Yourself at Work: A New Perspective

There are codes of conduct and decorum around a workplace and the space for authenticity, to ‘be yourself’ in it is interesting. We have written about the need to cultivate a culture where one feels safe to voice feedback, ideas and emotions that might be leaning on the negative side. We have also written about the role of humour and laughter in the workplace, and how one might utilise those elements to lighten the atmosphere, loosen the tension and be our authentic selves at work. In other words, being more of ‘yourself’ at work.  

Themes like these bring us to a question: what are the limitations to being yourself at work amidst the decorum?

There are countless advice pieces which suggest one to ‘be yourself’, whether we are talking about interviews, management or day to day workings. But what does it mean to ‘be yourself’? Is it just about showing our full range of emotions? Is it about being honest all the time? Is it about following a certain set of principles no matter what?

Let us delve a bit deeper into what being this could imply, and if there is an appropriate way of being yourself at work.

Cases of Different Selves:

An article about authenticity by Mindtools gives us examples of two individuals, and how they have their own way of functioning. They tell us about Eva and Joe. Eva is confident and talkative. She is someone who doesn’t hesitate to voice her opinions, even the negative ones. She can be honest to the point of being blunt. She talks about her personal life openly and would also not hesitate to express positivity in the form of openly expressing her gratitude, happiness and respect for people around her.

And then we have Joe. He is someone who is generally quiet. He comes to work, sits in the meetings, does his work and leaves. It is not that he is cold or rude- when talked to, he is pleasant and warm. He is calm, confident and has great ideas to offer if asked.

Both are being themselves in their own ways by being true to their personalities, adding much needed honesty in the workplace. Eva is honest about her extraversion; Joe is honest about his introversion. Being authentic differs for each individual. Any workplace needs a diversity of voices, all authentic in their own ways, a multiple kind of personalities, of selves to keep it thriving. A song needs multiple notes, harmonies and melodies to sound good.

Each individual has a way of being themselves, it is a matter of how well you can contribute with your unique brand of self.

Contributing By Being Yourself:

The article by Mindtools goes on to point out how the authenticity of Eva, that is, her way of being herself might make some people be on an edge about her reactions: what if she says something too blunt? Her reactions might often leave little space for others to open up. On the other hand, Joe’s way of being himself might make people hesitant to approach him: what does he really think about xyz issue? What if he gets annoyed if his work gets interrupted? He might often struggle to engage with people.

The article goes on to provide a way to go about it too. People like Eva can “trim their authenticity” for example, while dealing with sensitive situations, and people like Joe can be a little less “self-possessed”, and try to find more “similarities and connections with others” to express that he can relate to people. It is not simply about being yourself, it is about being yourself skillfully.

In other words, there are parts of being yourself which sometimes work well, and sometimes are best left outside of work. After all, most of us do have a work-persona and an outside-of-work -persona, and it is all about navigating that complexity.

So, how does one navigate the question of being yourself at work? Is there a right time to be yourself at work, a right extent? An article by Forbes gives us a few things to keep in mind. One major question we can ask ourselves and by which we can contribute by being ourselves at work is:

  • Does being yourself serve you and others?

 If the answer is yes, it might be a good idea. Does that meeting need a joke to lighten the tension- go ahead and say it. Does a situation need you to call a spade a spade to arrive at a solution? Go ahead and be honest; someone like Eva would do well here. Does a colleague dealing with some personal issue need you to respect their privacy? Then someone like Joe is needed here.

We need to think what could be the impact of ‘being yourself’. We need to look at the context and assess how well we are likely to contribute to the situation.

We all have our unique ways of being, looking and operating within the world. Being yourself with some decorum and awareness of context and situation, is key to bringing in new perspectives, a diversity of thought and have a positive impact at the workplace.

Obvious Insights for Better Productivity

In our earlier article we talked about the power of the ideas that sound obvious. In a culture where innovative, out of the box thinking is encouraged to the extent of ignoring the basics, the simple, effortless obvious ideas are often the ones which actually push discussions and brainstorming sessions further. Building up on it and continuing on this line of thinking about the obvious, we dug up two other insights, backed by research of course, which remind us about the power of obvious and seemingly counterintuitive ideas.

Such ideas seem like they might not work well, and might hinder productivity and motivation. But ‘countering the intuitive’, sometimes, these are the kind of ideas that might give the necessary push needed to get things done.

So, let us take a look at them quickly!

Complaining can (sometimes) be Productive:

As suggested in one of our earlier articles, suppressing negative emotions can actually lead one to be demotivated and unproductive. Picking on it and narrowing it down further, complaining can actually lead one to think in the right direction.

Generally, the work culture doesn’t encourage complaining. Whenever we find ourselves complaining, we tend to catch our thoughts and remind ourselves to be grateful about all the other possibilities. Research by Harvard Business Review, and as quoted by an article by Growth Partners Consulting suggests how teams which engage in complaining once in a while actually perform better. They often engage in complaining, or as the article puts it ‘visiting Pity City’ and that actually helps them because of,

‘…the safety they feel with each other and how these behaviours build relatedness within the team, an important psychological need for motivation.’

Sometimes, you just need to get the complaints out of the way, out of system to move on to finding solutions, instead of letting those thoughts become unwanted pieces of furniture in your mind. Venting a little might let the others who might be feeling similarly know that they aren’t alone, enhancing the sense of relatedness, teamwork and team-chemistry.

So obvious when we think about it, but that is the thing with these ideas- they hide in plain sight. Just like the next one.

Working Endlessly Doesn’t (Necessarily) Lead to Getting More Work Done:

It is almost as if we take pride in ourselves when we think we have been working endlessly. We clock in the number of hours and we feel the kick of being productive. Some of us even blame others for not working hard enough when they don’t get the desired results, and hard work equals to long hours, right? Long hours equal to getting more work done, right? Well, not always.

Research by Human Performance Institute shows that taking frequent breaks- not working endlessly for long hours- can lead to more productivity. In fact, they have also named the phenomenon; they call it ‘oscillation’, the time we spend strategically to recover from stress. Oscillation is done to ‘shift between energy expenditure (stress) and restoring energy (recovery).’ The article cited above tells us further,

‘It sounds elementary but the research is undeniable. Taking short, intermitted breaks throughout the day enables our body and mind to recover from this energy expenditure. As a result, we make better decisions, think more critically, and prioritize effectively. We are more productive when we take breaks.’

Be it the Pomodoro technique which tells us to work with intense focus for 25 minutes, and then take a break, or the 80/20 rule, which says how 80 percent of output can come from only 20 percent of causes, suggesting that we work smarter and not harder, there are multiple examples of models which show that oscillating between periods of intense focus and refreshing breaks can work better instead of toiling endlessly.

Be it the surprising power of the obvious, or the quiet sense of relatedness that complaining leads to, or the underrated activity of taking rest, the seemingly counterintuitive insights are often the ones that can lead to more motivation, productivity and work satisfaction, countering the notions that entrench the contemporary work culture.

Too Obvious…Obviously !

There are articles all over the internet telling us all about out-of-the-box thinking. We are encouraged to brainstorm innovative and ground-breaking solutions; we are encouraged to think differently. We are told to move beyond the obvious and find ways to come up with fresh insights.

But somewhere, we forget about the surprising power of stating the obvious.

Stating what is seemingly obvious. To us.

The Deceptively Simple:

Let us delve further into this. What is it about brainstorming that makes us hold back on our ideas? Often, we underestimate the value of seemingly simple solutions. Additionally, we just assume everyone thinks the same way as we do.

An article by Teresa Colon on Medium tells us about some seemingly obvious solutions which no one voiced. The writer goes on,

‘One good example is the time my company was assembling a customer summit. We had channel partners who wanted to attend (for those unfamiliar, those are essentially resellers) and we were nervous about getting enough customers to sign up. It was critical for the defined success of the summit that it was customer-heavy and -focused.

What’s the obvious answer here?

Obviously, it seemed to me, the partner who has the most customers in attendance gets to go. It incents the partners to encourage their customers to sign up and gives them a stake in the success of the event. It seemed so obvious to me that I didn’t bother even speaking it aloud. I assumed that someone else was already working on that angle.

It wasn’t until thirty minutes into the conversation, when we were still brainstorming ideas for signing up customers, that I verbalized what I thought was obvious.

I got blank stares all around before the “ahas” showed up on their faces. Apparently, what was obvious to me wasn’t obvious to them.’

Or maybe, it was obvious to everyone but no one thought it was an insight valuable enough, innovative enough, ground-breaking enough to be spoken out loud. Everyone might have been wondering about the sheer simplicity of the idea, the sheer obviousness of it. And who wants to hear the obvious, they all must have wondered.

Turns out, that obvious, deceptively simple insight was what pushed the discussion forward.

The Ridiculousness of the Obvious:

As mentioned earlier, in a culture that stresses the need to innovate and break rules all the time, the obvious sounding solutions actually become the need of the hour. Some ideas seem so obvious that no one thinks worth voicing them, and as a result, the one who does voice them becomes an innovator! It is almost a comical situation where one takes a detour because they think the main road would be jampacked, only to realise everyone thought the main road would be jampacked and thus everyone ended up taking the detour, creating a traffic-jam there. The one who took the main road found no traffic.  

Moreover, most of us are stressed out, and often overburdened and it might take a nudge for us to see the obvious.

Organisational Psychologist Adam Grant gives us more nuances to think about in an article:

‘A few years ago, the people analytics experts at Google stunned me with one of their recommendations to managers. They had been studying how to onboard new hires effectively. After running surveys and experiments, they came back with a list of tips. Here’s the one that jumped out at me:

Meet your new hires on their first day.

People analytics has transformed HR and talent management into a data-driven field. Since Google was a pioneer in the field, I was expecting an aha moment. Instead, I got a duh-ha moment — a sudden flash of the blindingly obvious.’

Grant goes on to wonder how as an Organisational Psychologist his work has been to present ‘the counterintuitive’, ‘the unexpected’, ‘the overlooked’. But then he goes on to say how,

‘…Google’s analytics team had done the exact opposite of all that: They had confirmed the most banal of my expectations. I felt like I was hearing from Pelé that the key to becoming a great soccer player is wearing shoes. Who needs to be told to meet their new hires on their first day? What kind of manager wouldn’t do that?

A busy one, it turns out.

A manager who is so preoccupied with their work and burdened with so much responsibility that a simple idea like this just doesn’t register or strike. We are a busy species and sometimes, we forget the value of simple actions. It takes a sudden realisation to see how simple and uncomplicated a situation can be.

The sudden realisation of the value in taking the main road when everyone is busy taking the detour.

The value of obvious ideas is thus often overlooked because of the widespread culture of pushing innovation a bit too much. We often underestimate our own ideas and thinking, assuming it might be obvious to everyone, only to realise much later that not everyone thinks the same way as we do. Effortless, obvious, simple solutions are what’s needed amidst a culture that can become monotonous, tiring and one that stretches us in all directions with countless commitments.

When it is Okay to be Negative

Relax, it is okay to be negative sometimes!

A positive attitude, as we have talked about in our earlier posts almost always gets one through. It is important to always find the silver lining on stormy clouds. But is there such a thing as excessive positivity? Can an excess of positivity make one unproductive? Is it possible to overdo the positive attitude and end up achieving the opposite of what set out to achieve?

In any context, even the professional, it is important to acknowledge the full range of human experiences. We have an older article written about using humour at workplace, and how that is a much-needed cheer amidst the straight-faced and formal professional world, a much-needed human touch. Humour humanises leaders, and alleviates stressful situations at workplaces. Why? Because it acknowledges the full range of human emotions and psychological states.

Similarly, negative emotions also need to be acknowledged. It is one thing to find the positives in a negative situation, and it is a different thing to not even acknowledge that something is wrong, that something needs to be fixed. There are times that it is better to let people express the negative emotion instead of trying to sweep it under the positivity carpet.

Take this scenario given here, in article by Growth Partners Consulting:

Michael works for a boss that seemingly refuses to acknowledge how bad their work environment has become. He has tried to discuss it with his boss but feels dismissed. She seems to ignore the problems and spins everything into a positive, “This is such a great growth opportunity! Let’s focus on what we’re learning.” or “Hey. Cheer up! At least we have jobs, right?” or “Look on the bright side. Everyone is working hard and that means they’re committed. Thank you for all you do.”

Michael feels his boss is ignoring reality. It’s nice that she thanks him, but it feels hollow, and his concerns trivialized. Her optimism doesn’t help, and his frustration is building.


Here, in this scenario, the constant positive attitude is actually leading to frustration and demotivation!

Wellness and mental-health jargon often calls this forced attitude of positivity as ‘toxic positivity’. Let us thus see why it is sometimes necessary to acknowledge the negatives and what should one do when faced with stormy clouds and the option to look for silver linings is not exercisable.

Problem-Solving Needs Acknowledging the Problem:

In the example given above, it would be much better if the said boss acknowledged that the work environment needs improvement instead of telling everyone to ‘cheer up’. Constantly looking at the positive side might hinder the view of the bigger picture. How does one focus on the ‘growth opportunity’ as she mentions, if we do not even acknowledge what is it that we need to grow beyond?

It is About Making People Feel Heard:

Making people feel heard isn’t always limited to ideas and brainstorming. It isn’t always about getting everyone participate to in a meeting or getting everyone’s perspective about major company decisions. Making people feel heard is also about providing an environment where employees and co-workers feel safe in giving feedback which might be a bit unpleasant or leaning on the negative side. It is also about letting one articulate their sadness, discomfort, dissatisfaction, disagreement and grievances in a way that will help them get around it.

So, what should be done?

The article cited above goes on to list out some ideas one can adopt instead of sweeping the negative emotion under the positivity carpet. Listening first and resisting the urge to solve everything right away is one approach mentioned. Listening makes sense, but wait, resisting the urge to solve?

 How does one solve problems if we resist the urge to solve? The catch is to facilitate problem solving. Sometimes, people do not even want solutions, especially when the negative emotions are stemming from a tragic life event- they just want an acknowledgement of the problem and an acceptance of reality.

When faced with a dialogue and conversation about something negative, it is best to listen, ask questions which makes one feel heard and, in the process, arrive at possible ‘solutions’ instead of straight up ‘offering’ a solution always. Questions like:

  • What would be helpful to you?
  • What is the most realistic next step that would be helpful to you?

As Organisational psychologist Adam Grant sums it all up in a Tweet,

‘Pressuring people to be positive turns emotional intelligence into emotional labour. Toxic workplaces police people’s emotions. Healthy workplaces offer freedom of emotional expression. Showing stress or sadness isn’t unprofessional. It’s human.’