
New study shows we work harder when we are happy - evo_9
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/new_study_shows/
======
lifeisstillgood
I love Middle Temple - it's about half a square mile of neatly manicured lawns
and cloistered offices for some of London's highest paid Barristers. About 700
years ago they put a wall up around it and basically had their army face down
the Kings army. It's been a legal enclave ever since, you walk through a tiny
door in one of London's busiest streets and wham, lawns, quiet, collegiate
atmosphere, rich lawyers in their own quietish rooms.

Basically it's how knowledge workers with power and money have chosen to work
for half a millennia.

It's how all knowledge workers should work if they want to act at their peak.

Don't really need a study to show treating people like cattle is not the way
to get the best results.

Edit: I know someone who works there will probably say it's not _that_ good,
and the grass is greener I am sure but I swear it's hands down better to be a
junior counsel in any of the Temples than pretty much any other office
environment in London, outside of Universities and Monarchy.

~~~
lelandbatey
I'd definitely agree with this. I live very near Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory, and it's pretty much that exact thing.

It's a big chunk of land with large grassy areas, roads lined with towering
trees, and a sky as huge as you can imagine. Here's a picture I took there
about this time last year:
[http://i.imgur.com/IqlUadN.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/IqlUadN.jpg)

~~~
growupkids
Anecdotally, the PNNL people I've worked with were, well not very good at
their craft. PNNL is in the middle of nowhere, unless you're at the top of the
game doing highly specialized work there that truly can only be done at PNNL
(and not kidding yourself either), you're out of touch and not contributing.

------
pasbesoin
I did all sorts of things -- and filled many often "menial" tasks outside of
my official job description.

All I ever really wanted was a quiet workspace where I could concentrate.
Corporate America nonetheless continually insisted that this one thing was
impossible, "unproductive", and not going to happen.

"Happiness". Our latest buzzword. Well, my consistent message was that I
needed this one thing to be "happy". And my results, even without this being
provided, were far above average.

 _ALL_ this "talk" and "analysis" about what makes people "better workers", is
-- put into this context -- bullshit. It is simply _BULLSHIT_.

That is it, in a word.

Companies that don't have "productive workers"? Stop looking at the workers.
Start looking at yourselves. And if you can't actually _listen_ to what your
workers actually _have to say?_ Well then, just fuck off.

~~~
alexqgb
The basic "problem" with what you're asking for is that it inverts the power
relationship between management and labor. In asking for a quiet space to
think and act accordingly, what you're really expecting is autonomy. Within
this environment, managers become facilitators / concierges. They are
manifestly _not_ the "leaders". Nor are they bosses in any traditional sense
of the word.

From the perspective of capital, this isn't such a bad thing. After all,
capital cares about the ends, not the means. Management, on the other hand, is
intensely concerned with he means, and specifically, with any means that don't
assure them a position of social dominance.

This is not a call to cut out the middlemen that sit between capital and
labor. Rather, it's a suggestion that both capital and labor would be better
off if the role and status of management were changed quite dramatically.

As an immediate consequence, professional management roles would start
attracting a _very_ different sort of candidate. Ideally, this change would
represent a structural imposition of the No Asshole Rule.

~~~
pasbesoin
There is a hypocrisy. Language about wanting "educated" workers who are
"empowered" to solve problems.

The environment that is created and fostered is exactly the opposite.

I "paid my dues". I delivered, and exceeded -- as repeatedly acknowledged by
my management.

Despite that, there was very limited acceptance of my input into what would
make things better.

The problem with calling this a "problem", is that it puts the finger right
upon the hypocrisy of _ALL_ this language and discussion. Employers are saying
one thing, and doing exactly the opposite.

My message to younger folks is precisely this: _DON 'T_ buy in to _ANY_ of
today's messaging.

If you don't see concrete, useful _ACTIONS_ , it is simply, as I said,
"bullshit". End of story.

There: I just saved you twenty years.

P.S. And that means actions _NOW_. Any and all language about what is to come?
Empty. Just substitute a big NULL -- or perhaps even an error condition, if
you perceive it may be part of an intentional effort to deceive that goes
beyond just "normal" empty messaging.

P.P.S. Despite the validity of what I've said (I think), I find my personal
bitterness is again spilling over into my comments. Time for another break
from making them.

By the way, some of those "menial" tasks were -- of themselves and due to
interactions with colleagues -- actually the more enjoyable parts of some
jobs.

Too bad that so much of actually, physically "getting the job done" seems to
be looked down on, these days. Do it too much or too willingly, and you risk
getting pigeon-holed as either too culpable/readily-exploitable or otherwise
not... "management material", for lack of a better expression for it.

P.P.S. I meant to add that in my experience, some of the specific events
described in the OP were actually for me some of the most depressing
experiences:

Official "parties" and "celebrations" one attended because it was mandatory or
expected, refreshments and other expenses were all "budgeted" in a rather
obvious fashion, and conversation had little to go beyond work topics or the
same conversation that was already happening cube-side and "at the water
coooler".

All the more sad when employees were expected to kick in to cover the
expenses.

A genuine evening out that one paid for oneself and where one had some fun?
Fine. These "we're going to celebrate now" events -- not so much.

I guess some people enjoy them. To me, much of it seemed terribly transparent
and shallow. For my part, I still tried to and mostly succeeded in being
genuine during them. But it was not that much "fun" and didn't make me very
"happy", and because of my honesty often put me somewhat on the periphery,
socially.

"Forced conversation", as the alternative. Ugh.

~~~
zobzu
tl dr: "talk != actions" except it hurts more when its tied to income or
employment.

------
PhasmaFelis
It is just so depressing that people have to be _told_ this. I don't
understand how corporate types got so inhuman.

~~~
zobzu
You'll notice all successful corps have happy, hard working people, who
believe in what they do.

They'll always eventually change into unhappy people with no cause left to
work for.

That generally seems to happen because as soon as the company is successful,
people see opportunities of getting rich and squeezing as much as they can
from it "before its too late".

Ie the wealthiness of one seems to be worth making thousands miserable in
their eyes. Since they're not _directly_ making people poor and it takes some
time I'm sure they don't even feel bad about it.

Of course, some people are better at keeping the ethical trajectory for a
longer time and some companies are successful for a longer time than others.

I believe that the basic trigger for this to happen are called "free market"
"capitalism" and "board of directors", "share holders".

It also means stuff will go up then down (and eventually up and down again
and/or die). As human, we're pretty at good at going up/down in all areas.

------
dkulchenko
It's interesting that the difference in productivity is only 12%. I'd think a
happy developer would be significantly more productive than a miserable one,
far beyond 12%, just from personal experience of coding when I'm down and when
I'm not.

~~~
rcthompson
Doesn't this imply that if a company is spending more than 12% of its
workforce-related costs on perks and other happiness-inducing stuff, then it
could save money by cutting all that and hiring 12% more workers?

~~~
vbuterin
No, because perks aren't just there to make employees more productive. They're
also there to make sure they stay at the company in the first place.

~~~
rcthompson
Excellent point. I hadn't thought of that in this context.

------
mallamanis
Wow, and we needed research to get to that conclusion! As if someone would
have any doubt that this is the case...

------
angersock
So, I think that there is something that a lot of businesses have trouble
dealing with:

 _Employees are a leaky abstraction._

People are what you employ--and even if they present the IEmployee interface,
they are still human beings who get mad, get happy, fight, fuck, flee, cry,
laugh, and do all the other things that are more complicated than just taking
in object A and emitting object B.

The best people I've worked with understand this, and have been understanding
and supportive when things in life go sideways--and then their teams do the
best work.

Especially in a knowledge/creative industry such as software engineering, it
can be very hard to produce anything useful when you're
stressed/scared/sad/pissed about something. Oftentimes, you need to go deal
with those pesky facts of being a person and then come back, at which point
your work will be much better and overall time loss lessened.

Trying to drive employees to produce when they're not at their best, or
allowing them to drive themselves when they clearly have other things that
need sorting out, is ultimately counterproductive.

For straightforward manual labor, one can make an argument that it shouldn't
matter (and even then, consider accidents on the job when somebody's mind was
on personal problems), but again creativity is very closely tied with how
you're feeling.

Interestingly enough, this is a great time to plug universal healthcare--it
helps lessen the burdens on companies and employees to deal with health
issues, and that in turn helps plug some of the leakiness.

------
pdevr
Interesting study.

1\. Did they measure short-term happiness vs long-term happiness? The study
involved making people feel good for a short period of time and a task whose
duration was for a short period of time.

2\. Is it enough to make your employee happy right before he starts on a task,
even if he is miserable throughout the remaining period? What will be the
effects of productivity in such a situation?

3\. The paper refers to Erez and Isen (2005): "positive well-being induces
subjects to change their allocation of time towards more interesting tasks,
and that, despite this, the subjects retain similar levels of performance in
the less interesting tasks".

Doesn't this mean that a person's state of happiness does not have much of an
effect for doing mundane tasks?

------
pcurve
Maybe I'm weird, but I work harder and produce better work when I have axe to
grind, and unhappy. Also, I've noticed that happier coworkers eventually get
lazier and more complacent.

~~~
micheseco
I believe there's also some relation to the task/type of job you are doing, if
you work alone or as part of a team, etc.

------
walshemj
Obviously going for this years ignoble in economics then :-) to be followed up
by an in depth proof that water is wet and kittens are cute.

------
gesman
It's so funny that for 99% of people the word "hardness" is equals to
"productivity".

------
frade33
Now how about doing some 'real' research on methods, which would make people
stay happy at work.

------
npsimons
See also Shawn Achor's "Happiness Advantage" for similar themes from an
employee POV.

------
honksillet
Evil boss would read these results as we are happy when we work harder.

------
epx
News at 11

------
michaelochurch
Long blog post on this question:
[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/gervais-
macle...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/gervais-
macleod-8-human-nature-theories-x-y-z-and-a/)

The Theory X workplace believes people have to be intimidated into working.
Theory X managers love to micromanage, to play psychological games, and to be
mysterious and slightly terrifying to the people below them.

Theory Y holds that people do their best work when they're happy, enabled, and
trusted.

Who's right? Mostly, Y. It is almost obviously true that people do their best
work when happy. There is one issue with Theory Y workplaces, which is that
while being decent and liberal in trusting people with their own time and
energy tends to pay off without fail when creativity and output are measured,
one does have to take a hard-line (even zero-tolerance) approach on certain
ethical issues. It goes back to what Lord Acton said about judging talent at
its best and character at its worst.

The reason there are so few Theory Y/R&D workplaces left is that, in the 1980s
(Reagan Era) people sold out their companies to snag private equity jobs
(thanks, Boomer yuppies!) making the case that maybe workers shouldn't be
liberally trusted. The Theory Y workplace died out because it couldn't defend
itself against what people became in a time of increasing economic inequality
(more specifically: potential for personal advancement through unethical
means).

As much as they're reviled here, the three-letter agencies (NSA, CIA, etc.) do
a great job of this. They're Theory Y work environments in general (employees
are treated very well) but take a "need to know" stance on high-level secrets
that could kill people if lost, and have a zero-tolerance policy regarding
leaks. They take a mostly Theory Y approach on peoples' ability to work hard
given the right context, but are X (that is, very conservative with trust) on
the things that need to be protected.

------
a3voices
How do you define "happy"? One person's hell can be another person's heaven.
It seems very subjective.

~~~
zobzu
so if the ceo and executive are happy and all minions are unhappy, that's ok,
right.

~~~
rohanpai
I don't even understand why you would say this...

This is not what the parent comment said... it just asked how 'happiness' is
measured.

