People Who are Happy Do Better Work

There’s a school of thought called positive psychology. One of the areas of focus is the study of happy people and how they do better at work than unhappy people.

I know this is not a siren going off with something new. You might even be thinking, “OK, Captain Obvious, don’t you have anything useful to say about that?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about what having happy people working with you means and thought I might share a few of those thoughts with you.

We all want A players on our team.

Whenever I talk with construction folks, they tell me they want all A players on their team. I almost always get a blank look when I ask them what they’re doing to make this happen.

Too many business owners I know see A players as being born. In my experience, especially in the blue-collar world like construction, A players are more often than not made. And it takes longer than you want for that to happen.

To have A players, we need happy team members.

If there’s one thing, I know that when I see an A player, they are happy. That doesn’t mean all happy people are A players. At the same time, if someone isn’t happy, it’s almost impossible to be an A player.

Here’s the challenge with this. It’s hard for you to make someone happy who’s not. You can, however, set up a system for people to be happy in. This means that how you run your company can make B players A players because you make it easy for them to be satisfied and feel like they’re being heard.

The problem is that we don’t have a system to find out what would make our team members happy.

If I was to ask you what your system is for helping people to be happy at your company, there’s a good chance I would get a blank stare. If we have routines that allow us to hear what will make our people happy, there’s a chance many of the ideas would be easy to implement.

The challenge is that we don’t have a way to systematically get information about what would make our team members happier at work.

Do you find that you’re often frustrated with team members but can’t figure out why?

One complaint I often hear is that my team members never come up with ideas on how to make things better.?

There’s a good reason for this.

In many companies, when you stick your head out with an idea, it gets chopped off. I know I’ve done it, and every time I do this, I shut down the person speaking; too often, it is for their entire career at our company.

We are brought up to avoid pain. One way of making sure we don’t have pain is not to volunteer ideas. If I don’t volunteer ideas, there is no way for me to get yelled at.

This was a problem I had. I used to yell at people every day. We had few happy employees, and the work we did was mediocre. It never turned around until I stopped screaming and taking responsibility when things went wrong.?

Slowly, and I mean very slowly, people would start to speak up. At first, I had to cajole; after years, some of our team members would voluntarily speak up. It only happened after I changed my behavior and we put systems in place that made it easy for our team members to tell me what they thought.

I think we can solve this issue; it needs a different way of thinking.

The best way to get ideas shared with you is to become a good listener and take the time not to shoot ideas down as soon as they come out of others' mouths.?

Whether you have happy or unhappy employees will often be how you act. It also helps if you make values a part of your screening process when you hire team members to work with you.

It’s the little things that make a big difference. My question to you is, what are some of the little things you can do to make your company more fun to work at?

What if you were to put your team members in the role of an expert instead of you?

An idea that started turning things around was when I began treating our team members as experts. After all, no one knew more about their job than the person doing it.

When one of our pillars became, “You are the expert at your job, so act like it.” And, when we got serious about respecting this, not only did we have happier team members, but they were also the ones who engineered what had to change to make them happier.

My favorite part of the Scrum retrospective helps with this.

I’ve been singing the praises of using Scrum in the construction world for several years now. One of the parts of Scrum is what’s called The Retrospective. This is where you look back at the completed Scrum and review what worked and didn’t.

There is a follow-up to this, and many people skip it. It’s what I call the happiness question. When you include this in your retrospective, you are automatically treating your team members as experts and forcing them to become responsible for what it takes to be happy at work.

Here are the three questions in what I call the happiness question:

1. What did you love about the work you did in the last sprint?
2. What did you not love about the work you did in the last sprint?
3. What would have to change about the work you didn’t love to make it work you would love?

Do you see the genius in these questions? You will automatically put your team members in the role of experts, who become responsible for telling you what needs to change.?

It will likely take more than a few cycles before you start hearing helpful information and what they’re thinking. Remember, no one is going to stick out their neck to start. A little bit at a time and a little improvement at a time is what you’re looking for.

You can even do this to start.

Here are some simple things to do to start:

1. Understand and start to use the happiness questions in Scrum.?
2. You don’t have to run Scrum to do this. At meetings, you end them with these three questions. Instead of talking about the last sprint, talk about the time between meetings you’ve had. You can do this one-on-one or in groups. I recommend groups because group dynamics will get more people to speak their minds.
3. When you get suggestions, you have to listen first. You must follow up with what you’re going to do about the recommendations. If it’s easy, just have it implemented. If it’s going to take some time, let your team members know. If it’s something you’re not willing to do, say so with a reason why.?Being transparent is key here.

If you’re confused about the Scrum talk here, why don’t you click here and?download our free infographic?about what Scrum is and how you can use it.

After you take a look at the infographic and you want to have a conversation with me with any questions,?click here, and we’ll set aside twenty minutes to talk.

I want you to stop having B players and help them become A players. Knowing and helping your people become happier will go a long way.

Why don’t you hit return and tell me about having your employees become happier at work?