What does happiness have to do with success? As it turns out, a lot – 75%, to be exact. That’s because the dopamine that floods your brain when you’re happy also turns on all the learning centers in your brain.  Thus, happiness breeds success.

According to Shawn Achor, author of the international bestseller, The Happiness Advantage, and a leading expert on the connection between happiness and success, your brain is not only open to learning when you’re happy, but you actually perform better when you’re happy – your energy level, creativity, and productivity all increase.

In my last blog post, I shared Achor’s 3 criteria for success – optimism, social support, and the ability to see stress as a challenge rather than a threat. Raising your level of optimism to increase your happiness requires you to rewire your brain.

Despite what it may sound like, rewiring your brain is not hard. Simply do the following 5 things every day for 21 days:

3 gratitudes: Write down 3 new things you are grateful for each day, and you will automatically look for the positive, not the negative.

Journaling: Journal each day about 1 positive experience you had that day, and your brain will relive it, adding to your feeling of happiness.

Exercise: As you work out every day, you will teach your brain that your behavior matters.

Meditation: Meditating daily will help you overcome the ADHD society we live in, allowing  you to focus on one task at a time.

Random acts of kindness: Each morning when you open your email, send a short, positive message to someone in your network.

Achor says that if you do these activities, you will work more optimistically and successfully. With scientific backing to support his ideas, it is worthwhile to start them today. Select at least one you can commit to and work towards your 75%.  Good luck!

 As a leader responsible for an organization’s success, one thing that is always in the back of your mind is how to improve performance at work – your own performance and your employees’ performance.

The answer lies in psychology, specifically positive psychology, and one of the best people to learn about improving performance at work is Shawn Achor, author of the international bestseller, The Happiness Advantage, and a leading expert on the connection between happiness and success.

During his TEDx Talk in 2011 (which is very funny and worth watching), he said that if you change the lens, you change the reality.  What he means by that is if you change the way you look at the world, you can shape your success, because 90% of our happiness level is predicted by how we look at the world.

Achor says that right now, the accepted formula for happiness and success is backwards. We think that if we work harder, we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, we will be happier.  But this is wrong for 2 reasons:

1. Every time we achieve success, we change the goal posts for success.
2. By constantly changing what we consider successful, we will never reach happiness.

We need to completely change what we consider success, and the first step is understand that 75% of our success relies on our:

1. Optimism levels
2. Social support
3. Ability to see stress as a challenge rather than a threat

In my next post, I will share Achor’s formula for changing our happiness levels. Till then, spend 15 minutes writing down how can you improve each of the above 3 elements.

In 2010, Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked Professor Clay Christensen to speak to them about how to apply his principles and thinking around developing new technologies and building new growth businesses to their personal lives. In response, he shared with them a set of guidelines that have helped him find meaning in his own life.

First he explained that on the last day of class, he asks his studens to use the same techniques they learned in class to form answers to three questions:

1. How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?
2. How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?
3. How can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

These are tough questions to answer, including the 3^rd one, which on its surface, is quite funny.  However, considering that 2 of the 32 people in Prof. Christensen’s Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail and that Jeff Skilling of Enron was a classmate of his at HBS, well, you get the picture.

How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?

Remember that finding happiness in your career has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements.

As Prof. Christensen explained, “Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.”

Spend 10 or 15 minutes jotting down all the ways you can maximize your happiness at work.  What is something new you’d like to learn? What project would you like to take on? How can you help others within your organization? How can your supervisor better recognize your hard work?

Then distribute those questions to your employees or direct reports.  Their answers can guide you to become a more effective leader.

In my next post, we’ll focus on the second and third questions.

A successful leader is not afraid of change.  He or she is comfortable taking risks and making the big and small operational and organizational changes that will increase profits, expand market share, and even transform an industry.

Understanding the unique strengths necessary to be a successful leader begins with understanding how you interpret your own and others’ behavior and how you maintain power or protect against threats. There are 7 ways of leading, all with their own strengths and weaknesses:

Opportunist: Good in emergencies and pursuing sales, but so focused on winning in any way possible that few people will follow them over the long-term.

Diplomat: Good at keeping a team together and on track, but avoids conflict, thus making him or her unable to provide harsh feedback or make difficult decisions.

Expert: Good as an individual contributor, but relies on logic, numbers, and expertise and lacks emotional intelligence.

Achiever: Good at meeting strategic goals, managing others, and working on a team, but lacks the creativity to develop long-term strategic plans.

Individualist: Good in highly innovative and creative industries, but ignores inconvenient rules, processes, and people in order to complete projects.

Strategist: Good at generating organizational and personal change, collaborating, integrating their vision with the pragmatic steps needed to get there, and challenging the status quo.  As a leader, no weaknesses.

Alchemist: Good at generating social transformations and reinventing organizations in historically significant ways.  As a leader, no weaknesses.

One of the most effective ways to develop the skills of a strategist is by establishing a mentorship group with people in your network, such as board members, executives, and industry leaders.  By challenging each others’ assumptions and practices, you will all develop into stronger leaders.

Did you know there are three distinct styles of decision-making?  While we generally use all three ways, most of us have a preference for one over the other two.  Understanding these styles is highly useful, especially when working with others on a project or program, for decision-making will inevitably be part of the process.

The three styles are personal, practical, and analytical.

1. Personal: focuses on the needs of the team members and how to best use their talents
2. Practical: focuses on just getting it done
3. Analytical: focuses on getting it done correctly

Making decisions goes beyond styles, however.  There are seven motivational factors involved as well:

1. The motivation to achieve balance, harmony, and find form or beauty
2. The motivation to be financially secure
3. The motivation to be seen as unique, independent, and stand apart from the crowd
4. The motivation to have influence and control over one’s environment or success
5. The motivation to benefit others in a humanitarian sense
6. The motivation to establish order, routine, and structure
7. The motivation to gain knowledge or discover truth

Now that you understand the 3 decision-making styles and the 7 reasons we make the decisions we do, you’re better able to understand your team members – and that is key to good communication, teamwork, and your ability to manage.

To help everyone on your team benefit from this information, share it, and your team will realize long-term and sustainable results.

Good communication starts with understanding how you communicate and how your team communicates.  If you would like to learn more about your communication style and what is you key motivator contact us.  We offer short online assessments that will give you research validated insight.