Applying the Seven Habits of Happiness to Your Organization
See Pursuit-of-Happiness.org for more info.
Happiness is understandable, obtainable, and teachable.
In the book Connected, Christakis and Fowler explain that you can influence as much as 15% of your friend’s happiness, and as much as 10% of your friend’s friends’ happiness. So, one effective way to spread happiness is by applying the 7 Habits of Happiness to your organization, or work. Here are a few ideas related to each habit to help you get started:
- Build close relationships:
- Go to lunch with a friend; invite them to bring along someone you don’t know.
- Go to lunch with a peer and let them know how much you appreciate their work.
- Once a day, send a group email recognizing someone in your organization.
- Volunteer or care for others:
- Organize a charity outing – help a local school, plant trees, or do work for a local shelter.
- Conduct a food drive or toy drive at the office.
- Work with HR to see if the company will match donations to a local charity; then, run a drive.
- Engage in a healthy, active lifestyle that promotes physical vitality:
- Organize a walking group at lunch.
- Organize a company sports team like Soccer, Volleyball, or Softball.
- Organize a weekly Yoga class.
- Find meaning and purpose:
- Start a Dream Manager program (see The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelley).
- Find out the company vision and values and share them with your team.
- Conduct a team meeting and discuss each team member’s purpose or dreams.
- Practice mindfulness and positive thinking like optimism and gratitude:
- Send an email to your team around 3 pm everyday listing 3 things that were positive today. Encourage them to do the same.
- Start every meeting with 3 things “we are doing right.”
- Encourage team members to take short breaks throughout the day to breathe, meditate, or take a short walk.
- Find Flow:
- Work with your team identify the tasks that they truly enjoy and find challenging.
- Work with team members to delegate work that aligns best with their flow activities.
- Identify new challenges you or your team members can take on that you especially enjoy doing.
- Identify your unique strengths and use them for a purpose that is greater than yourself.
- Encourage team members to post a list of their strengths outside their office doors or cubicles.
- Identify the strengths of each team member and assign roles and tasks to match those strengths.
- Identify your own strengths and volunteer for roles or opportunities to assist that leverage those strengths.
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