Some facts & figures
Happy people perform better than unhappy people. There’s scientific proof for that. Some of the proven advantages of being happy are a higher individual productivity, a higher creativity level, more time focused on work, higher resilience, less traumatic stress, lower fear of failure, even longer life. All the more reason to give it the attention it deserves.
“A recent European Social Survey shows that only 17% of our Belgian society feels that they’re flourishing. The level of engagement within organisations shows very similar figures; only 13% is truly engaged.” — Rens ter Weijde — Chief Happiness Officer @The Energy Strategy
Our experience of happiness is partly determined by our DNA (50%) and our environment (only 10%). The remaining 40% is influenced by our own intentional behaviour. (source: Sonja Lubyomirski, University of California)
That means that we can create our own happiness to a large extent.
The PERMA model
Martin Seligman is the founder of positive psychology, a field of study that examines healthy states, such as happiness, strength of character and optimism. His book ‘Flourish’ (2011) was widely published.
Seligman developed the PERMA-model. “PERMA” stands for the five essential elements to experience lasting well-being. These are: Positive emotion (P), Engagement (E), Positive relationships (R), Meaning (M) and Accomplishment / Achievement (A).
Instead of focusing on happiness alone, it’s better to become more aware of all the things that make up well-being. It then becomes much easier to live a rich, meaningful life.
The program
Over the course of several weeks, we organised a series of 5 half-day workshops, each focusing on a specific part of the PERMA-model.
We dug deeper into different techniques and tools to help us become more aware of our own behaviour. We experimented with insightful exercises, some of which really made us step out of our comfort zone. (And some of which we never imagined ourselves doing on the job.)
E.g. stand in two circles facing each other and talk about the strenghts of the person opposite you for 1 minute, give an 8 minute presentation about your own strengths, write 1 positive remark on a post-it after someone’s presentation and hand it to them (or stick it on their forehead), formulate specific ‘From-To’s’ to change certain behaviour, meditation and visualisation exercises, visualise and analyse your personal network, etc. …
Creating habits
To truly change our behaviour (long term), we must ritualize it. Do many small things over and over again until they become a habit. (Also read this article on ‘how to prototype an organisation’)
A few examples:
3 good things: every night before falling asleep, note down 3 good things that happened that day. Helps us to focus more on the positive side of things, and helps us to find patterns in our behaviour.
RAK (Random Act of Kindness): be altruistic, do good for someone else without any direct gain for yourself.
Marbles in a jar: an experiment to measure happiness on the work floor.
Rituals @ Nascom
An important part of the workshops was of course finding ways to incorporate what we had learned into our daily work. And to create rituals here as well. We managed to formulate a few, and assumed ownership of them to take form over the coming weeks, months.
In general we need to apply the ‘moeit u’ (‘get involved’) rule and make it count for everything we do.
Step up, but also speak up. Say what you have to say, in a direct — but civil — manner. No beating around the bush. Direct feedback, we need it to stay focused on our goals and grow.
There’s also our ‘Brains, Books & Boots’ initiative. But we’ll tell you more about that later.
And then there are personal rituals, that everyone needs to develop on an individual basis. Whether it’s writing at least 1 page every month, or going for a walk during lunch because it helps you clear your head. If it works for you, do it.
It helps to create strength-based rituals, that start from one of your strengths. This makes it easier and more feasible to maintain. For it to become a habit, we must remind ourselves (and others) of it, every day, until, eventually, we don’t even think when we do it. It becomes a state of mind.
What did we think?
We noticed some mixed feelings on the floor. Some of us only attended a single session. Others went out of their way to attend all (or most) of them. And that’s fine. We all got something out of it.
Why didn’t we make it compulsory? Autonomy is one of the main drivers for motivation. And we live by it with our ‘2 feet principle’. If you feel like you’re not learning anything or aren’t contributing to the learning experience, you can use your two feet and step out.
“Am I happier now? I’m not sure. I do feel like we’ve become more ‘open’ since the sessions. It’s easier to go up to a person and tell him how you really feel about something.” — Wouter Walgraeve, Information Architect
The importance of a common language
We created a common language on well-being based on scientific research, and we created stories based on our own experiences. We need a common language to hover over ourselves and reflect on our own actions. And we need stories as memes carrying our culture, teaching our culture. Stories help us to spin a narrative out of noise, to see a plot. It’s the way our brain works.
We all need to become ‘meaning makers’, as Nadia so nicely described it. Give meaning to the things, the work you do. Give meaning to your conduct with colleagues and customers. We are happy to have enriched our vocabulary!
Originally published at www.nascom.be.
