

How to Succeed? Make Employees Happy - smanek
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1818183,00.html

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icey
Has anyone seen any data to back this up? This seems like the sort of
assertion that would be quantifiable - Every company seems to have its own
internal satisfaction surveys; and external sources have been doing employee
happiness surveys for years.

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kylec
In my opinion, if you're making employees fill out surveys about their
happiness, you're doing it wrong. What's needed is a culture where employees
don't just follow policy but help shape it as well. Contributions met with
positive feedback beget more contribution, and everyone feels as though they
have a say in how things are done.

Of course, not every idea is good. Instead of ignoring or dismissing the idea,
explain its flaws and ask them to present a revised idea that addresses those
points.

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icey
I didn't do a good job making my point. I'm not interested in having my
employees fill out surveys at all. I'm curious as to whether or not someone
has actually done any studies with regards to the claim that happy employees
equates to successful companies.

If a correlation can be made, then it validates the foosball tables and Wii
that seem to be ubiquitous in startups these days.

Otherwise, it seems like the article is saying "these two guys have successful
companies because their employees are happy"; versus the conventional wisdom
that successful companies tend to have happier employees than unsuccessful
ones. In other words, correlation does not equal causality.

~~~
dcurtis
Zappos. They focus on making both employees and customers extremely happy, at
all costs.

Apple. They focus on making a majority of their customers happy. They don't
seem to do anything remarkable for their employees, however.

Microsoft. They don't understand how to make their customers happy, nor do
they know how to make their employees happy.

All three of these companies are successful. There's a continuum of success,
and how far you get down that continuum depends on many variables. In the end,
it's a matter of business philosophy and focusing on what the business does
best.

When business people say that corporations exist to maximize shareholder
value, I always cringe. Businesses exist to make something people want, and
then to receive money in exchange for making or doing it. The point of a
corporation is to make the most awesome "something," such that lots of people
pay you for it. Simple.

To make the most awesome "something," you have to focus on what that something
is. Whole Foods is a retailer, so their employees interact directly with their
customers. In Whole Foods case, the "something" they provide is a point of
distribution of goods. Making their employees happy will have a direct,
positive impact on the quality of the customer experience in the store. But
this is not really quantifiable because you can't have a before/after
controlled study. The happiness that Whole Foods tries to instill in its
employees permeates the culture of the company; it's how they do business.
They can't simply turn off their company happiness meter and see if profits
drop.

You can, however, compare Whole Foods to the other health food stores that
don't focus on employee happiness... and the results are obvious.

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prakash
Here's the link to the full interview:

[http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/06/former_house...](http://time-
blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/06/former_housemates_john_mackey.html)

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zurla
"That's a little like saying the purpose of religion isn't to achieve
salvation" -- more quality journalism from Time

