Put Happiness to Work

Put Happiness to Work Plot Summary

Introduction

In today's high-pressure workplace, the gap between employee potential and actual engagement has never been wider. Organizations invest billions in engagement initiatives, yet global engagement levels remain stubbornly low—hovering around 30 percent in the United States. Meanwhile, burnout, turnover, and diminished productivity continue to plague companies of all sizes. Traditional approaches that view engagement as merely a performance metric are missing something fundamental. What if we've been thinking about engagement all wrong? The missing ingredient isn't more perks, better benefits, or even higher pay—it's happiness. Not the superficial kind that comes from free snacks or casual Fridays, but authentic, activated positive emotions that energize people to do their best work. The research is clear: happiness isn't just a pleasant byproduct of success; it's a precursor to engagement, innovation, and performance. By understanding the science of happiness at work and implementing practical strategies to increase positive emotions, leaders can transform their teams from merely functioning to truly flourishing.

Chapter 1: Recognize the Power of Authentic Appreciation

Authentic appreciation is both recognizing the good things people do to support you and your team and letting them know you noticed. It's an active expression of gratitude that creates a powerful virtuous cycle in the workplace. When employees feel genuinely valued for their contributions, they experience a surge of positive emotions that directly fuels their engagement. Dr. Lisa Hagel, superintendent of Genesee Intermediate School District in Flint, Michigan, faced an extraordinary challenge when COVID-19 forced her district's staff, teachers, and students home in March 2020. The community was already reeling from the effects of long-term lead poisoning in their water supply. Recognizing the fear and uncertainty her staff felt, Lisa began sending nightly emails acknowledging their challenges while highlighting stories of staff members helping and supporting each other. These messages became a lifeline of positive connection during isolation. This wasn't new territory for Lisa. Following the water crisis, she had already established a culture of appreciation throughout her district. She provided administrators with budgets specifically for recognition, created "WOW boards" where staff could post notes of appreciation, and even instituted a program where orange superhero capes were ceremonially passed between staff members who did something positive. These consistent, repeated practices of appreciation hardwired recognition into their everyday work. The results of these efforts became apparent when, two months into the pandemic, Lisa received a text telling her to go outside. She opened her door to find a parade of cars stretching down her street. As each vehicle passed, drivers placed handmade signs of thanks in her yard or shouted words of appreciation. With tears in her eyes, Lisa realized that all her efforts to create a culture of appreciation had come full circle. Her team was now showing her the same kind of recognition she had championed. To implement authentic appreciation in your workplace, start by training yourself to notice positive actions. Create a habit of writing down three specific things you're grateful for each day, making sure at least one relates to work. Be specific about what you appreciate and why it matters. Then, deliver your appreciation effectively: be timely, be specific about the impact, and match your delivery style to the recipient's preferences. Finally, create systems that make appreciation unmissable—dedicate time in meetings for recognition, utilize peer recognition platforms, or create physical spaces like gratitude boards where appreciation can be displayed. Remember that appreciation is a renewable and self-expanding resource. The more you give, the more it multiplies, creating a culture where recognition flows naturally in all directions.

Chapter 2: Build Meaningful Social Connections

Social connection is the feeling that we belong, that we are valued, and that others care about our welfare and we care about theirs. It's as fundamental to our well-being as food, water, and shelter, and it's the number one driver of happiness according to decades of research. In the workplace, social connection isn't about becoming best friends with colleagues or sharing intimate personal details—it's about creating the conditions for people to feel seen, heard, and valued as they work toward common goals. Consider Sally, an executive assistant at a major university with a Division 1 basketball team. Five years ago, her colleagues would have described her as disengaged—she was shy, kept to herself, and was always out the door at exactly 4 p.m. Her transformation began when she volunteered to organize a March Madness tournament bracket competition for her office. Initially, her conversations around the competition were purely transactional, but over time, she became increasingly animated, sharing stories about what watching tournament games with her family meant to her. Five years later, Sally has become the person everyone goes to for information about what's happening in the office. She proactively steps up on projects and anticipates her colleagues' needs before being asked. The tournament gave her an opportunity to connect with colleagues, which led to a sense of belonging, which then boosted her overall engagement. Her story illustrates how creating even small openings for social connection can transform someone's entire work experience. Building meaningful connections requires creating psychological safety—an environment where people feel comfortable expressing ideas, asking questions, and being themselves without fear of embarrassment or rejection. Google's Project Aristotle, which studied hundreds of teams to determine what made some more effective than others, found psychological safety to be the single most important factor in team success. You can cultivate connection by focusing on micromoments—short but meaningful interactions that build trust and rapport. Start one-on-one meetings with personal check-ins before diving into business. Create opportunities for team members to share something about themselves through simple exercises like asking "What are you looking forward to this season?" at the beginning of meetings. Put your phone away during conversations and give people your full attention. Look for opportunities to help others, which research shows creates a positive feedback loop of connection. Social connection isn't a nice-to-have—it's essential infrastructure for a high-performing team. When people feel connected to their colleagues and leaders, they're more engaged, more creative, more resilient, and ultimately more productive.

Chapter 3: Transform Stress into Productive Energy

Stress has gained a terrible reputation in our society. We're told it causes 60-80 percent of doctor visits and is linked to the six leading causes of death in the developed world. This has spawned a multibillion-dollar stress-management industry focused on reducing or eliminating stress. But what if our approach to stress is fundamentally flawed? What if stress itself isn't the problem, but rather how we respond to it? The author shares a personal example of waking at 3:30 a.m. with racing thoughts about an unfinished presentation for a potential long-term client. Instead of working productively, he finds himself distracted by emails, unable to focus, and eventually giving up—promising himself he'll somehow complete four days of work the next day. This experience illustrates how our typical responses to stress—flight (distraction), fight (pushing through aggressively), or freeze (avoidance)—often undermine our productivity. Research by Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal and others has revealed a surprising truth: stress itself isn't inherently harmful. In fact, stress can be a powerful source of energy and focus when we understand how to channel it. The key lies in distinguishing between two types of stress responses: threat response and challenge response. A threat response occurs when we don't believe we have the resources to meet demands, flooding us with cortisol and narrowing our thinking. A challenge response, by contrast, occurs when we perceive that we have the resources to meet demands, providing energy while keeping our cognitive abilities intact. The ASPIRe tool set (Acknowledge, Shift mindset, Purpose, Inventory resources, Reach out) offers a practical framework for transforming stress into productive energy. Start by acknowledging when you feel stressed rather than suppressing it. Shift your mindset to view stress as enhancing rather than debilitating—studies show this simple reframe can significantly improve performance. Find meaning and purpose in what's causing your stress; we only stress about things we care about. Take inventory of all your resources—personal strengths, team support, tangible assets, and network connections. Finally, reach out to help others, which activates a tend-and-befriend response that can boost motivation and courage. This approach doesn't mean seeking out more stress, but rather learning to work with the inevitable pressures of modern work. When implemented at both individual and team levels, these tools can transform stress from an enemy to be avoided into a source of energy that propels achievement. The next time you feel pressure mounting, try ASPIRe to channel that energy productively rather than being overwhelmed by it.

Chapter 4: Leverage Your Signature Strengths

Signature strengths are the unique combination of talents, skills, expertise, and enthusiasm that motivate and energize each person. They have two essential elements: you must be good at them, and they must give you energy when you use them. This energy component is what sets signature strengths apart from simple skills or talents and makes them valuable in generating the positive emotions that drive engagement. The author shares his experience building Pink Heart, a theme camp at Burning Man. Every year, he and his team arrived on a desolate piece of land in 110-degree heat to construct a camp that would host thousands of visitors over a week. This pressure-cooker situation was perfectly suited to his signature strengths: connecting with others to understand each person's skills and hopes, using harmony to resolve conflicts before they arose, applying efficiency and adaptability to develop detailed plans while remaining flexible, and employing positivity to keep the team's energy up through inevitable challenges. Importantly, he also recognized the signature strengths of his team members. Those who loved seeing progress led the structural build. Detail-oriented individuals handled electrical setup. Those who loved hosting managed the kitchen. People with aesthetic strengths handled decorations. Those with empathy and caring circulated with refreshments. By matching tasks to strengths, what could have been an exhausting ordeal became one of the most fulfilling experiences of the year. This approach runs counter to traditional development, which focuses on becoming "well-rounded" by improving weaknesses. Most of us were taught in school that success means getting A's across all subjects, regardless of our natural abilities. But the workplace doesn't reward being moderately good at everything—it rewards excellence in specific areas. To identify your signature strengths, start with a formal assessment like CliftonStrengths® (formerly StrengthsFinder). Then prioritize your results based on which strengths truly energize you. Create a document defining your top five signature strengths and collect stories that demonstrate them in action. Share this information with your team and look for opportunities to apply these strengths more intentionally in your work. As a leader, help your team members identify their signature strengths through one-on-one conversations and team exercises. Look for opportunities to redistribute work based on strengths and assign new projects to people whose strengths align with the task requirements. Remember that development focused on enhancing strengths rather than fixing weaknesses yields significantly better results—research shows a 36 percent improvement in performance when focusing on strengths versus a 27 percent reduction when emphasizing weaknesses. By organizing your team around signature strengths, you create a work environment where people are naturally motivated and engaged because they're doing what they're best at and what energizes them most.

Chapter 5: Find Purpose in Everyday Work

Meaning, at its core, is a feeling that your life has value and purpose. It's a powerful driver of engagement, with research showing that employees who derive meaning from their work report 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and are 1.4 times more engaged. Yet many people struggle to find meaning in their daily tasks, believing that meaningful work is limited to certain careers like healthcare, education, or social services. Ed, a construction project manager, illustrates how anyone can transform their relationship with work by finding meaning. He came to the author for coaching because he was considering closing his company and starting a new career. While Ed found meaning in his personal life through values like compassion, generosity, and environmental stewardship, he felt he had to "turn off" these values at work. Building 27,000-square-foot mansions with enormous carbon footprints felt mercenary to him—something he did just to pay the bills. A fortuitous opportunity at Deer Park Monastery changed everything. Ed first volunteered and then was hired to manage the design and construction of a state-of-the-art nunnery featuring innovative green designs. Working closely with the monks and nuns, he discovered how to incorporate mindfulness concepts into the construction process. This experience revealed that instead of running away from an industry fraught with conflict and distrust, he could find meaning by transforming his role within it. Ed became known as "The Zen Builder," giving presentations nationwide on reducing conflict in residential construction projects and coaching general contractors on improving client interactions. He still builds estate homes but incorporates green building concepts to significantly lower their carbon footprint. By aligning his work with his core values, Ed transformed a job that felt meaningless into a fulfilling career. There are two primary pathways to finding meaning. The first is Purpose-Meaning: seeing your work as contributing to something bigger than yourself. This involves identifying how your work benefits others, even in small ways. The second is Values-Meaning: aligning your activities with your deepest-held values. This requires understanding what you truly value and shaping your work to honor those values. To find more meaning in your work, start by bringing your team together to brainstorm: Why does your team exist? Who benefits from your work? Then collect stories from customers or others who have been helped by your work and make these stories unmissable through visual reminders, regular sharing in meetings, or bringing beneficiaries in to speak directly with your team. For Values-Meaning, go through a values prioritization process to identify your core values, then look for ways to express these values more consistently in your work. Remember that meaning doesn't require changing jobs—it requires changing perspective. By connecting daily tasks to deeper purpose or values, even the most mundane work can become meaningful.

Chapter 6: Navigate Negative Emotions Effectively

Negative emotions—disappointment, frustration, sadness, anger, fear, guilt, anxiety, embarrassment—are an inevitable part of being human. Yet many of us go to great lengths to avoid or suppress these feelings, especially at work. The author shares his own struggle when he transitioned from venture capitalist to happiness speaker. He expected his new career to bring unending happiness, but instead found himself spiraling into depression and insomnia as he suppressed any negative emotions that arose. It took nearly two years of therapy, medication, and self-reflection for him to realize that you cannot simply cover over negativity with positive thinking. Some negative emotions must be experienced if we want to live a flourishing life. It was only when he turned to face his negative emotions that he was able to restore balance and find sustainable happiness. There are two types of negative emotions we experience: necessary and gratuitous. Necessary negative emotions are the unavoidable "first darts" of human existence—the authentic responses to real challenges like disappointment when we don't get a promotion or grief when we lose someone we care about. Gratuitous negative emotions are the "second darts" we throw at ourselves—the additional layers of negativity we add through rumination, catastrophizing, or harsh self-judgment. Learning to distinguish between these types of negative emotions is essential to emotional agility—the ability to face emotions with awareness, acceptance, and the power to choose how we respond. When faced with negative emotions, follow these steps: First, be aware of what you're feeling. Second, name the specific emotion. Third, let it be without trying to suppress it. Fourth, determine whether it's necessary or gratuitous. Finally, make a conscious decision about how to respond. For gratuitous negative emotions, tools like healthy distraction, changing your physical state, or challenging negative self-talk can help break their grip. For necessary negative emotions, practices like expressive writing (15 minutes of continuous writing about your feelings for four consecutive days), self-compassion meditation, or sharing your struggles with a trusted person can help you process them productively. As a leader, you need to create space for your team to express negative emotions. Start by modeling authenticity—sharing your own challenges shows that vulnerability is strength, not weakness. Create psychological safety in one-on-one meetings by slowing down, asking what's going on, giving permission to be human, and approaching with curiosity rather than defensiveness. Remember that negative emotions, when properly channeled, can be powerful motivators—anger can drive positive change, guilt can motivate reparation, and anxiety can help catch potential problems before they occur. The healthiest approach isn't to eliminate all negative emotions but to maintain a balance of about 80 percent positive to 20 percent negative. This gives room to harness the power of negative emotions while maintaining the benefits of positive ones.

Chapter 7: Develop Your Coaching Mindset

Manager-coaching happens during one-on-one meetings with your direct reports where the focus is on their development. It creates opportunities to support your team members' progress, make goals clear, remove obstacles, help them tap into resources, provide recognition and encouragement, guide them to find meaning, and support their success and well-being. When done well, it builds trust and allows you to tap into each person's expertise and creativity. The author shares a cautionary tale from his experience learning to free dive. During a deep dive, he suffered a serious lung injury because his coach had failed to provide complete instructions for a breathing exercise. Afterward, the coach dismissed the boat to save money and then left the author alone at an underdeveloped hospital with limited language skills to communicate with doctors. This experience taught several crucial lessons about coaching: care about your people as human beings, ensure they have clear goals and key information before launching them, and take responsibility for your team's actions while remaining available when challenges arise. Traditional managers operate through authority and personal expertise, often taking a directive approach that undermines autonomy and intrinsic motivation. Manager-coaches, by contrast, hold people accountable while facilitating growth and understanding. Research shows this approach is far more effective—the Gartner Group found that employees who reported to effective manager-coaches were 40 percent more engaged, exhibited 38 percent more discretionary effort, and were 20 percent more likely to stay with their organization. Effective coaching starts with genuine caring about your employees as people, not just as productivity tools. Ask more questions and talk less—aim to speak for only 20 percent of your coaching conversations. Focus on the positive, with a ratio of about 80 percent supportive, growth-oriented time to 20 percent constructive criticism. Act as a resource rather than a fixer, helping employees find their own solutions rather than telling them what to do. Structure your coaching sessions for success by requesting a pre-meeting email from each team member about what they've accomplished, what they haven't completed, and what they want to discuss. Prepare by reviewing your notes and their email, focusing on their development. During the meeting, stay attuned to them, ensure you're talking less than they are, and end with clear action steps and accountability. Use your coaching conversations to get to know your people as humans—their goals, needs, signature strengths, and core values. Believe in their potential, even when they doubt themselves. Encourage job crafting by giving them flexibility in how they accomplish their work. Help them find their intrinsic motivation by asking questions like "Why might you want to change?" and "How ready are you on a scale of 1 to 10?" Connect them to resources beyond yourself when you don't have all the answers. The most effective manager-coaches are "connector-managers" who create a positive environment, provide targeted feedback in their areas of expertise, focus on quality relationships, and connect employees to others for development when needed.

Summary

The seven strategies outlined in this book provide a comprehensive approach to transforming workplace engagement by focusing on what truly motivates people—authentic positive emotions. By recognizing the power of appreciation, building meaningful connections, transforming stress into energy, leveraging signature strengths, finding purpose in everyday work, navigating negative emotions effectively, and developing a coaching mindset, leaders can create environments where people naturally want to bring their best selves to work. As the author reminds us, "The power to significantly improve your team, to create a more positive environment for your people and higher levels of engagement, is now in your hands." The most effective approach is to start small and build momentum—choose one strategy that resonates most with you and your team, implement it thoroughly, and allow the virtuous cycles it creates to make implementing additional strategies easier. Remember that you can't force happiness or engagement on anyone, but by creating the conditions for positive emotions to flourish, you'll find that engagement naturally follows. Today, take one concrete step from any strategy in this book and watch how even small positive changes can ripple outward to transform your workplace.

About Author

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Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor is an American educator, author, and speaker known for his advocacy of positive psychology. He is best known for his research reversing the formula of success leading to happiness—his research shows that happiness in fact leads to success. Achor spent 12 years studying what makes people happy at Harvard University. He later authored The Happiness Advantage and founded the Institute of Positive Research and GoodThinkInc. His TEDx talk "The Happy Secret to Better Work" is one of the 20-most viewed TED talks.

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