jaycross 's Public Library

Why write about happiness when so much of the global economy is still in a funk and people are manifestly unhappy across the world? Because emerging research from neuroscience, psychology, and economics makes the link between a thriving workforce and better business performance absolutely clear. Happiness can have an impact at both the company and the country level. And the movement to measure national well-being on factors other than GDP could be game changing: As we know, what gets measured gets managed. We’ve learned a lot about how to make people happy. We’d be stupid not to use that knowledge.

happiness

Recognize This! – The only qualifier for needing recognition in the workplace is being a member of the human race.

motivation

Positive Psychology Resources<br /><br />Welcome to the Positive Psychology Resources section of the website. When we set up the Centre in 2005 positive psychology was the main focus of our work. We think that there are some very useful and inspiring ideas and research behind positive psychology. However we now think its psychological focus too narrow and we aim to integrate some of positive psychology's insights into wider perspectives and frameworks. Some of this can be seen in the Flourishing Lives and Scottish Integral sections of our website.<br /><br />There are a huge number of resources in this section. Don't miss out by continually checking what is available in the left hand menu.

positive happiness

Numerous studies show that happy individuals are successful across multiple life domains, including
marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. The authors suggest a conceptual model to
account for these findings, arguing that the happiness–success link exists not only because success makes
people happy, but also because positive affect engenders success. Three classes of evidence—crosssectional, longitudinal, and experimental—are documented to test their model. Relevant studies are
described and their effect sizes combined meta-analytically. The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success.
Furthermore, the evidence suggests that positive affect—the hallmark of well-being—may be the cause
of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness. Limitations,
empirical issues, and important future research questions are discussed.

happiness

In July 2010 Burt’s Bees, a personal-care products company, was undergoing enormous change as it began a global expansion into 19 new countries. In this kind of high-pressure situation, many leaders pester their deputies with frequent meetings or flood their in-boxes with urgent demands. In doing so, managers jack up everyone’s anxiety level, which activates the portion of the brain that processes threats—the amygdala—and steals resources from the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for effective problem solving.<br /><br />Burt’s Bees’s then-CEO, John Replogle, took a different tack. Each day, he’d send out an e-mail praising a team member for work related to the global rollout. He’d interrupt his own presentations on the launch to remind his managers to talk with their teams about the company’s values. He asked me to facilitate a three-hour session with employees on happiness in the midst of the expansion effort. As one member of the senior team told me a year later, Replogle’s emphasis on fostering positive leadership kept his managers engaged and cohesive as they successfully made the transition to a global company.<br /><br />That outcome shouldn’t surprise us. Research shows that when people work with a positive mind-set, performance on nearly every level—productivity, creativity, engagement—improves. Yet happiness is perhaps the most misunderstood driver of performance. For one, most people believe that success precedes happiness. “Once I get a promotion, I’ll be happy,” they think. Or, “Once I hit my sales target, I’ll feel great.” But because success is a moving target—as soon as you hit your target, you raise it again—the happiness that results from success is fleeting.<br /><br />In fact, it works the other way around: People who cultivate a positive mind-set perform better in the face of challenge. I call this the “happiness advantage”—every business outcome shows improvement when the brain is positive. I’ve observed this effect in my role as a researcher and lecturer in 48 countries on the connection between employee happiness and success. And I’m not alone: In a meta-analysis of 225 academic studies, researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King, and Ed Diener found strong evidence of directional causality between life satisfaction and successful business outcomes.<br /><br />Another common misconception is that our genetics, our environment, or a combination of the two determines how happy we are. To be sure, both factors have an impact. But one’s general sense of well-being is surprisingly malleable. The habits you cultivate, the way you interact with coworkers, how you think about stress—all these can be managed to increase your happiness and your chances of success.<br /><br />Develop New Habits<br />Training your brain to be positive is not so different from training your muscles at the gym. Recent research on neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change even in adulthood—reveals that as you develop new habits, you rewire the brain.<br /><br />Engaging in one brief positive exercise every day for as little as three weeks can have a lasting impact, my research suggests. For instance, in December 2008, just before the worst tax season in decades, I worked with tax managers at KPMG in New York and New Jersey to see if I could help them become happier. (I am an optimistic person, clearly.) I asked them to choose one of five activities that correlate with positive change:<br /><br />Jot down three things they were grateful for.<br />Write a positive message to someone in their social support network.<br />Meditate at their desk for two minutes.<br />Exercise for 10 minutes.<br />Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.<br />The participants performed their activity every day for three weeks. Several days after the training concluded, we evaluated both the participants and a control group to determine their general sense of well-being. How engaged were they? Were they depressed? On every metric, the experimental group’s scores were significantly higher than the control group’s. When we tested both groups again, four months later, the experimental group still showed significantly higher scores in optimism and life satisfaction. In fact, participants’ mean score on the life satisfaction scale—a metric widely accepted to be one of the greatest predictors of productivity and happiness at work—moved from 22.96 on a 35-point scale before the training to 27.23 four months later, a significant increase. Just one quick exercise a day kept these tax managers happier for months after the training program had ended. Happiness had become habitual. (See the sidebar “Happiness and the Bottom Line.”)<br /><br />

happiness productivity

Welcome to the exclusive Lean Startup course where you will learn from the world's leading startup founders and experts, including Steve Blank, Scott Cook, Ash Maurya, Todd Park, and many more.<br /><br />Build: Lessons learned in agile, continuous development.<br /><br />Measure: Case studies on pivots & minimum viable product (MVP).<br /><br />Learn: Best practices in customer development.<br /><br />Recorded at SXSW Interactive 2012, this course is the only place where you can find all presentations and videos for the entire Lean Startup event!<br /><br />

lean

9 Tips for Becoming More Positive and Happy if you have ADHD

happy

great paper!

What percentage of people in Europe are flourishing
and what characterises them?
Felicia A. Huppert and Timothy T. C. So
Well-Being Institute, University of Cambridge

wellbeing

social media parody

Many companies are upside down in their logic.  Some are still spending 70% of their training budgets on formal training that covers only 10% of the organization’s development needs.  Learners need to do their job in an ever-changing environment, and it’s pretty certain that they’re not getting their most creative answers or most effective collaboration from classroom instruction alone.

informallearning intrepid promo

EVIDENCE THAT HAPPY & HEALTHY WORKERS = MORE ROBUST COMPANIES<br />It is my passion to work globally with companies of all sizes to cultivate a culture of wellness that leads to happier, healthier employees and a more robust bottom line.<br />Here are videos from experts who talk about how investing in wellness = huge benefits internally and externally to companies.

wellness happiness

Authentic Happiness is the homepage of Dr. Martin Seligman, Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of positive psychology, a branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.

positive_psychology seligman happiness

hacking high school

The following quotes on formal education and informal learning and formal education and social learning are original, feel free to use them but give credit to Stephen W Hart and leave a comment below about when and where you used them. If tweeting please include my twitter name @StephenWHart . If using on the web or in a Blog please linkback.<br /><br />

quotes informallearning

Recognition of Informal Learning (RIL) and
The Course in Assessment of Informal Learning (CAIL)
… the benefits for learners and for
Learn Locals
It has been suggested that about 80% of learning, understanding and
skills acquisition occurs informally.
Disadvantaged learners all have a history of informal learning. This may include:
- working in paid employment, voluntary or community work
- being involved in hobbies or interests as individuals or in groups
The benefits for learners:
A Recognition of Informal Learning (RIL) process has been shown to provide:
- an increase in confidence and self-esteem
- awareness and affirmation of their abilities
- a bridge into education and training
- a starting point for recognition of acquired skills and knowledge
- an experience of success in an education environment

assessment

Access to information and people is intoxicating. Creating an online portrait of who we are or who we want others to see is equality alluring.  But without direction, governance, and discipline, we are at risk of giving ourselves to the very networks we value rather than managing the platforms to our advantage. Our participation must be inspired by purpose and parameters. No, we are not obligated to connect with everyone who connects with us. We are obligated to maintain balance in who we are, what we value, and equally the value we invest in the communities in which we participate.<br />As Clay Shirky once observed, “There’s no such thing as information overload — only filter failure.”<br />My take? “Information overload is a symptom of our desire to not focus on what’s important.” It’s a choice.

information_overload

ICF Ironworks presents Idea Forge. In this episode, get smarter about brainstorming, and discover how the Gamestorming technique adds structure and fun to the ideation process.

gamestorming

Now I do see the value of having community builders, facilitators, stewards, leaders and whatever other term that you would want to use in this context. I think they are critical to help a community succeed, pretty much like any other of the traditional community job roles themselves, but I’m starting to think that we shouldn’t have put too much preeminence and paramount importance in the exclusivity of their role, because right there we have given carte blanche to businesses to disengage, withdraw support, sponsorship, leadership and what not, thinking that those smart community managers would be able to pull it off themselves, when we know that they would have had a much better and easier job if the businesses would be involved in helping manage and facilitate those communities themselves. 

community stewardship

IEEE