Smart Business Growth with Nicky & Ness

Happiness as a Business Asset with Declan Edwards

• Nicky & Ness • Season 2 • Episode 5

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In this episode, Nicky and Ness delve into the world of workplace happiness with Declan, a happiness researcher and consultant. They explore why happiness in the workplace is crucial and discuss strategies for cultivating happiness within teams and organisations.

Episode Highlights:

  • Strategic Advantage: Happiness predicts organisational success, boosting profitability, productivity, and reducing turnover.
  • Understanding Happiness: Emphasises eudemonic happiness—contentment, connection, and purpose.
  • Workplace Dynamics: Challenges of finding happiness without autonomy over teams or leaders.
  • Key Drivers: Relationships and purpose are crucial for workplace happiness.
  • Measuring Happiness: Importance of nuanced understanding beyond traditional metrics.
  • Balancing Fulfilment: Balance hedonic happiness with eudemonic happiness for long-term fulfilment.
  • Overcoming Adversity: Embrace fear and excitement as growth signals.
  • Psychological Safety: Essential for honest feedback and emotional expression.
  • Culture of Happiness: Prioritise a culture where individuals feel valued, supported, and empowered.

Learn more about Declan Edwards:
Personal Happiness Scorecard (for individuals): https://buhappinesscollege.com/scorecard/

Workplace Happiness Self Diagnostic (for leaders):
https://buhappinesscollege.com/workplace-happiness-self-diagnostic/

Workplace Happiness Diagnostic Report (for teams): https://buhappinesscollege.com/workplace-diagnostic-report/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/declan-edwards-bu-happiness-college/
https://wwwbuhappinesscollege.com/workplace-happiness/ 

Learn more about Nicky and Ness https://businesstogether.com.au

Buy a copy of Healthy Hustle: The New Blueprint to Thrive in Business & Life www.healthyhustle.com.au

Follow us on socials
Instagram - @b2businesstogether
Facebook - @B2BusinessTogether

Connect on LinkedIn
Nicky LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/connectwithnicky/
Ness LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessamedling/

Give us a call
Nicky Miklos-Woodley 0403 191 404
Vanessa (Ness) Medling 0400 226 875

Or send us an email hello@businesstogether.com.au

Music by Jules Miklos-Woodley

Nicky:

Welcome to the Smart Business Growth Podcast with Nikki and. Ness.

Ness:

We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of country, the Turrbal and Bunurong people of Brisbane and Melbourne respectively, where Nikki and I both work and live both work and live. Declan Edwards is a happiness thought leader and the founder of the award-winning social enterprise BU Happiness College. Since founding the college in 2017, declan's work's been featured globally in publications including Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today and the ABC. He's also appeared as a guest on a wide range of podcasts and radio shows and presented masterclasses throughout Australia and the US. We are so lucky to have him on today, but, most importantly, declan is grateful to have created a movement that makes a positive impact, such as increasing members' happiness by an average of a whopping 57% within their first 12 months at the BU Happiness College and helping workplaces stand out in their field as employers of choice and accredited happy workplaces.

Ness:

Our chat today is a little longer than normal because we covered so much gold, from the definition of happiness and how happiness is achieved to why happiness in the workplace is the ultimate strategic advantage for big and small businesses alike. Declan shares the five ingredients to happy teams and deepens this by explaining the three different levels of happiness that can be measured by businesses to ensure that they maintain a happy workplace. Once you've had a listen, be sure to come back to the show notes, as Declan shared some links to some free resources that are essential for you as a leader and, let's face it, just as a human being. Enjoy, declan, as a happiness researcher and consultant, helping so many different workplaces. We are so grateful that you're with us today sharing your insights and research around happiness, but I was thinking as a starting point. It would be fabulous if you could please share with us why you believe happiness in the workplace is the ultimate strategic advantage.

Declan:

Yeah, it's a great question and I think it's one that's getting so much more focus recently. So many more leaders and organizations are going oh wow, would you look at that? When we have happy staff, good things seem to happen down river, and we know from years of research. In fact, a great pioneer of this work was a man called Sean Aker who led happiness research. He wrote a book called the Happiness Advantage, and what he found was a lot of these metrics that organizations traditionally would aspire towards and traditionally rate as success. I'm talking things like higher profitability towards and traditionally rate as success. I'm talking things like higher profitability, higher productivity, higher revenue, lower turnover all these things that we traditionally would go oh, that's what our goal is.

Declan:

He found that happiness was actually a precedent to all of those. It was a predictor of them. So, for example, some stats from his research found happy sales team produced 37% more sales than unhappy sales teams. We know that happiness leads to all of these other factors as a common thread. So, rather than an organization chasing 20, 30, 40 different metrics and goals, we go hang on. All of these are more likely when we start with the fundamental question of are our team happy here? Do that first, everything else follows.

Nicky:

Wow, I love that status Somebody who has a sales background and still does sales coaching. And oh so happy sales teams. Let me just read so happy sales team leads to 37% more sales.

Declan:

Yeah, and a lot of people ask does money buy happiness? And I point to that and go hey, we know that happiness buys money.

Nicky:

Yes, I love that. That would flow into all areas of business and teams as well, not just sales, but that's such a measurable. If that's not reason enough, then it reminds me of this whole mindset shift around if or when I have X, then I'll be Y. It's actually, you know, if we focus on being happy where we are now, if we focus on being content, being able to be satisfied, I want to pick your brain as well around. This might sound like a basic question, but what is happiness?

Nicky:

Because there's so many different definitions and meaning of what is happiness. What is it it? There's so many different definitions and meaning of what is happiness.

Declan:

What is it? It's a big and important question. Look, it's a question that I think humanity has been wrestling with we know as far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, and so when I talk about happiness as a happiness researcher, I don't just mean that dopamine driven, achievement oriented, fleeting type of happiness that we often think of in the Western world. We tend to think of the real excitement-driven happiness that comes and goes quite quickly. It's almost joy. Now, don't get me wrong. That's still nice to have in life. It's still nice to experience joy and accomplishment at work. But we also want to look at this broader approach to happiness, which is called eudaimonic happiness, which is an annoyingly complex word. I wish they didn't choose that.

Ness:

It's not a very happy word, is it, I know right.

Declan:

It's an ancient Greek word and it essentially just means focusing on contentment, connection, the things that help us feel well. So this type of happiness is a little slower to build, but it lasts a longer time. This is more going to be built in relationships. It's more going to be built by doing something that you genuinely believe in, and so I always say to people hey, there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all recipe for eight billion people on the planet. But what I do know from the research is if everyone starts going, what's my blend of hedonic joy, excitement, dopamine, happiness and contentment? That's steady as say, happiness. If you get the two working together, that's fulfillment, and that's the type of happiness I talk about with organizations and teams. We need to get both.

Ness:

Yeah. What do you think, though, is the driving force behind somebody achieving that in a workplace? Because I think about it. With your family, with your friends, with your hobbies, we choose things and people in our lives that bring happiness and joy to us, and we want to be around them more, and we want to hang out with them more. We go to work, and, quite often, we're not really given the opportunity to choose our team, or to choose our leader, or to choose who we want around us. So how does it play out, then, when you are put in a situation where you don't have that choice, but the ultimate goal is for you to achieve this sort of happiness?

Declan:

Yeah, and look, it's a valid point because traditionally most of the approaches that are taken to how do we improve staff sentiment and staff experience at work, they do hedge towards that hedonic achievement outcomes Okay, pay rises or promotions, or goal setting and goal achievement, or upskilling, development, or let's take them on an experience and do an offsite retreat day and again. Those things are all valuable, they're all useful, but they don't meet that need for that slow estate contentment. So if we look at eudaimonic happiness or contentment, there's two big levers that drive it. One is relationships and the second is meaning and purpose. So you're right in saying, hey, we might not be able to choose the people that we work with, but what we can do is do our best to forge good quality relationships. In fact, there was a recent study done that found one of the biggest drivers of how much people enjoyed their work was whether or not they said they had a work best friend.

Nicky:

Did they?

Declan:

have someone they worked with who they felt genuinely cared about them and they genuinely cared about them in return. We are wired for connection, and so it doesn't have to be with your whole team. It doesn't have to be necessarily with your leader, although if possible, it does help to have a great relationship with your leader. But start with that. Do I have one person in my workplace that is my work best friend, someone I really get along with and connect with and who has my back? And then, on the meaning and purpose side, this doesn't mean you need to feel like you're solving the world's biggest problems by showing up to work each day. I think sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to go. I need to figure out the purpose of life and, geez, if you do, send me an email.

Nicky:

Yeah, and us, yeah, all of us.

Declan:

I know, right, it's a good question, but I think let's just start with going hey, do we feel our work does something more than just give us a paycheck? And whether that be for you, the meaning and purpose I derive from my work is I get a lot of growth and learning, or whether it's like a lot of flexibility and it allows me to do other things in my life that matter to me, like pursue hobbies or creative pursuits, or maybe there's something that you do that you're like hey, I know that the reason we do that is it actually makes a pretty phenomenal difference to our consumer or our customer or our client. Okay, now that's got meaning and purpose. It's not just ticking a box of. That's the process and that's how we do it. I think meaning and purpose can be recognized and nurtured and cultivated, even in the day-to-day tasks that we probably often take for granted as just part of our jobs.

Nicky:

That's so true and I remember reading an article by Harvard Business Review a couple of years ago and it talked about, presented some study results around what actually purpose means to individuals, and they interviewed a cleaner at a hospital who found so much purpose in their work and for them that was the purpose that they needed and the meaning that they were attaching is, by the work that we do, we're helping sick people, we're helping the doctors, we're helping all the staff. This is a big contribution that we're giving and there was so much pride in that. And I think even in teams, when we look at dynamics of teams, we don't want in this world, if everybody had purpose, that was like big picture and I want to run the world and I want to be a leader, I want to be a doctor. Then we've got a room full of doctors but we've got no other people that have to do the day-to-day tasks and work to allow them to do their job as well, and it was just really mind-blowing for me.

Nicky:

I'm very driven personally, so it was a great reminder for the people around me and not everybody has the same purpose and it doesn't have to be what I might see as big or I don't even want to say little, but different. It's just as meaningful in a different way, and we need to have these different roles and find purpose and meaning in what we're doing, regardless what that role is and so many people I've worked with in teams I'm just happy to rock up to work. I want to do my job, I get my money, I get to spend that with my family and go traveling, and that's enough for me. And then there's others who are really career driven. So I think it's just a really interesting perspective. Let's A not assume that meaning and purpose for other people is what it is for ourselves, yeah, and be open to that and focus on those relationships I also love.

Nicky:

I remember back in the day, the gallop do you have a BFF at work? And that confused people. I don't know how to answer this. Do I have my best friend? She doesn't work here, or he doesn't work here? So educating what that means in the work environment.

Declan:

Yeah, and there's such good examples. I love the examples that you just shared because I'm a huge believer in the saying impact matters regardless of scale. At the end of the day, I think all of us have this core driving desire to get to the end of our life and go A. I feel like I lived a happy and fulfilling life.

Ness:

And.

Declan:

B. I feel like I made at least one other person's life happier and more fulfilling. If we can do that, that's a pretty meaningful and impactful life, regardless of scale. So let's not take that for granted.

Ness:

I think sometimes when I talk to people who are feeling disillusioned with their business or they could be leaders and disillusioned with their career, they've lost connection with purpose. They've got stuck in the weeds. We talk about Juggle Street, everything to everyone else. That whole business feels chaotic, the busy trap that we get stuck in and all of a sudden you're scratching your head, going why did I choose to do this in the first place? Because it's just draining me. I can't be present for my loved ones. I'm always on, I'm always working, but it's that whole thing around that and what we talk about is being able to step back and go.

Ness:

Let's reconnect to purpose here. That's such an important thing to do and a business that doesn't engage their team in purpose, in why does this business exist? What are we here to achieve and what role do you play in it? Like the cleaner, nick, it's that whole thing around. Your role is just as important for the patient's experience as having a specialist doctor who's going to do everything they said they're going to deliver on. So when we bring that back to the individual, declan, what would you say if someone is feeling disillusioned, if someone is feeling like there isn't that connection, that they're not feeling happy. What's the starting point for them to start to move beyond that?

Declan:

Yeah, I think, particularly a lot of really driven, career-oriented people that I've met, like people who end up in leadership or management positions or people who start a business and run a business. They often end up on what we call, in happiness research, the hedonic treadmill, which we've all been on before. I still get caught on it every so often and as soon as I say it I guarantee there's going to be listeners who have a moment where they go oh yeah, I'm on that right now. So the hedonic treadmill is defined as I'll be happy when insert anything you want. After it, I'll be happy when I get the next promotion. I'll be happy when we land the next big deal. I'll be happy when I finally have my holiday. It's like always chasing happiness around the next corner. And so it again comes back to the idea of leading with happiness, because I once read somewhere this saying which has stuck with me for my whole life and it really shaped my beliefs and approach about happiness and research and happiness. It said sacrificing happiness in the pursuit of success is the greatest failure, and I think so many of us do that. We sacrifice our own happiness, we sacrifice our well-being, we sacrifice our relationships in the pursuit of quote-unquote success, and often when I'm talking to these people, I go whose definition of success are we chasing in the first place? Yes, sometimes it's not even yours, right, and so what I'd encourage everyone to do is as a raw starting point. It sounds so simple, but at the end of the day, you cannot live a happy and fulfilling life, you cannot have happy and fulfilling work, until you start defining what your definition of happiness is. Now, of course, there's all these great tools and resources and models from fields like positive psychology, which is my background, that can help give a template for that, but you still need to put your unique flair, your unique spin. So I always say to people start first and foremost.

Declan:

What is your blend between hedonic happiness and eudaimonic happiness? So what's your blend between I want joy, excitement and achievement versus I want contentment, meaning and purpose? Both are valuable. We do need both, but you might lean a little more towards one or the other. Cool, let's start with that. The next thing I would encourage you to do is go. If I was writing a recipe, what a happy career looks like for me, or a happy relationship, or a happy health practice, or happiness in my finances, whatever area of life you're looking at. Let's go career for now. If I was writing a real recipe and I could only have five ingredients that were must have ingredients, can't take them out of the recipe. What are the five ingredients that I want to put in that recipe?

Nicky:

only five only five.

Declan:

I'm generous. This is a. This is a. Sometimes you will find your values. That's a big conceptual exploration and values. Gets a little scary where you say tell me a recipe with ingredients in it people find it less your values. I'm generous five for those who are familiar with brene brown's work and research. I love brene brown. Yeah, I spent a half day at a master class with brene a few years ago and she said two. You said, said you get three.

Declan:

So I was like, oh, that's a little bit too much, I'm going to get five.

Nicky:

I reckon there's a super challenge in there. So start with five and then, for those who want to take it, to those high achievers.

Declan:

Yeah, for the people who are the real high achievers.

Ness:

I'm like, okay, I'm going to get it to two, yes, and get a plus tick, absolutely, I love that. That's so five ingredients. It's a really good way of looking at it, because you think about even a recipe that gets made by many different people. I google recipes because I'm not really a chef, I don't cook, and I go, oh, how do I do chili con con again? And then I get overwhelmed because everybody's got a different recipe for an ingredients for creating a chili con carne dish. So it's the whole thing about. It will be unique and that's probably one of the best things about it, isn't it?

Nicky:

I bet that's the same thing for happiness, right, like the chili con carne. There's so many people out there talking about things like joy and happiness and the meaning of life, and so I love the simplicity of this and, like you've just said, yeah, I'm just repeating what you're saying, but that it is unique to you. Like we just talked recently about self-care, what works for me could be different for you could be different, for Declan could be different. And at the core of all this is that relationship, that meaning that's. I love that balance of the slow burn with the. I feel like it's that short-term high versus the foundational, and you don't have to sacrifice a short-term high as long as you've got the foundational aspects. Maybe, and maybe then that changes what those short-term high like, the meaning to the short-term high perhaps.

Declan:

Correct and that having those foundational aspects.

Declan:

What we know from research is if you do have a strong sense of connection in your life, if you do have a strong sense of meaning and purpose, if you are looking after that eudaimonic happiness, that slower burn happiness, when you top up with moments of excitement and joy and experience and accomplishment, the come down that follows isn't as rough, because when you come down and you almost bounce back off that contentment, that underlying slow state happiness acts as a little cushion.

Declan:

So everyone's having those moments where you're like I see it all the time with people at work. I'm like they're working so hard on a big project or a big like next milestone, they're putting so much effort into it and they achieve it. They get their goal and they feel bloody good about it for two days and that's it. And then there's normally a come down where you're like that I put in that much work to feel that good for that short of an amount of time and then what our brain does is go I need to find the next big goal, I need to find the next big milestone. Maybe that's when I'll finally feel happy. For longer term it won't be like that.

Declan:

So I would say don't chase accomplishment, don't chase achievements, don't do things that bring joy and excitement. Definitely do that stuff, it's great, but make sure you've got those foundations of connection and of meaning and purpose to just help give us a bit of cushioning.

Ness:

Because I would imagine that without that's where we think that the success, the definition we have of success which sometimes in the business world is about money right, when I get the and this happened to me in my first 18 months of business hitting that 100K contract, it was like yes, and I've told this story before that it had just the effort it had taken to get into that and just what I thought I would feel like, and the sweats when I was trying to get this across the line with the client and my voice quavering, and I walked out of there and he'd signed and I rang my business coach and he's celebrating with me. And then I got home and my kids weren't there and I was single and I had a cat and I'm like getting champagne out of the fridge looking at the cat going. You're not going to drink this with me, are you? And if I drink the whole bottle, I'm just going to end up feeling awful.

Ness:

And I really thought it was going to have a massively different impact than what it did. And I woke up the next day and life was not different. And so I so resonate with what you're saying in relation to that and and I guess, the way I'm interpreting it and I'm curious to listen to it from your point of view. Is the those highs that you think you want to get to? If the rest of what's needed for the foundational piece isn't, is missing, then the work achievement is never going to hit the mark for you yeah, it basically just means that those highs are going to come with some pretty rough lows.

Ness:

Yeah.

Declan:

And it doesn't have to be like that Now again, I'm not saying that if you nail this balance and you reach fulfillment for yourself of like, hey, I do a lot of things that help me feel content and I do a lot of things that help me feel joy, these different expressions of happiness that doesn't mean that every moment of every day is going to be happy and fulfilling. It just means you're a bit more readily able to handle the challenges and curveballs of life and of work. You bounce back more effectively and when there are good moments, you tend to enjoy them a little bit more rather than gloss over them, and I think that's a pretty cool way to live a more fulfilling life overall.

Nicky:

That's definitely the theme that I'm picking up as well. When you first started sharing about the definition of happiness around, one of the first things I thought was this gives us the ability to be able to handle life's ups and downs better. So we're all going to struggle in different areas. We all face adversity in different ways. That's a guarantee. But how we move through those times is up to us, and I think having these foundations and it's like you can be a happy person, but you don't have to be smiling and bubbly all the time, which is a really cool definition. Particularly for me, somebody who's outwardly bubbly, and I think people got to expect that all the time it's almost like a superficial happiness. But we can go through the shit side of life, the tough times, not be smiling all the time, actually be in working through the pain, but overall still be a happy person. Is that fair to say?

Declan:

Yeah, definitely, and there are. This is the beautiful thing about human beings, and even in an organizational setting, I don't really care what industry you're in, chances are a fair chunk of your business is related to people, even if you sell products like people are a massive part of any organization. So a lot of these principles of psychology on an individual level, they do scale to an organizational setting. I think what's beautiful about human beings is we can feel emotions that seem opposite at the same time. Just think, in your life there's probably been plenty of moments where you felt a weird blend of loss but also freedom. You probably felt moments of grief and gratitude together. That's a common one where we lose a loved one.

Declan:

We're grateful for the memories and times we did have, but we're grieving the loss that's occurred there. I always talk at BU. We have this theory. I call it the internal human compass for making good decisions and, I kid you not, I've made every major decision in my life for about 10 years now using this inner compass.

Declan:

Whenever seemingly opposite emotions come together for me in an equal blend, I call it the green light theory.

Declan:

There's something in me that's going hey man, this is the right move.

Declan:

And so when I'm looking at decisions to make with Be you Happiness College, with my company, when I'm looking at decisions in my personal life, I look at my options and I tend to ask myself either what's equally challenging but freeing so I actually seem to be opposite emotions.

Declan:

But when I find an option that I'm like, oh, that's scary, it's challenging, it's daunting, but I think it's going to be quite freeing or what's equally scary and exciting. And I promise you, if you take a moment to think back on your life, at some of the biggest decisions that made a pretty substantial impact in your business or in your life in the lead up to those decisions and moments, or in your lie in the lead up to those decisions and moments. I would put money on it that there was at least a moment there where you felt a weird blend of fear and excitement, or you felt a weird blend of challenge and freedom. It's almost like there's something in us that goes hey, lean in, that's the right path. And when we learn how to tune into that and recognize that, ah, cool things happen.

Nicky:

That's so true because sometimes that fear is like a compass, or we might be. The excitement and the fear, particularly around it, can be a compass to say this is it, this is the next level of growth for you and we talk a lot about. There's always a price of entry for our next level of growth and that could be like dollars that you're investing in a course or program or whatever it might be, but it could be getting out of your comfort zone, facing that fear and doing it anyway. Yeah, really cool, really cool internal compass. Do the smart growth survey in under 60 seconds to get your hands on our smart growth blueprint. You'll get immediate access to our four favorite strategies for sales, profit planning and team, and you'll identify which phase of smart growth your business is currently in, whether it's crisis, build growth or momentum mode, so that you can move your way to the next phase with ease. All you have to do is click the link in the show notes when we're so.

Nicky:

Obviously, we all work with different teams and have done for a number of years, and even as an employee, a leader in corporate. How do we measure happiness? There are so many measurement tools in the workplace. There's the Gallup, I talked about BFF at work, which I found confused people sometimes, and it's almost. I think there's a lot of benefits to being able to manage and measure things like engagement. Obviously, happiness is connected to that, but there's also some downfalls. For example, it's a pinpoint in time. It might not measure what last week, last month, two months ago, it might be different to next week. Maybe you're frustrated with your manager, or that you had a conversation you didn't want You're going to mark them down. Or perhaps you don't feel that it's psychologically safe to give your honest opinion, or perhaps you want to people-please them as a team member. So there can be some nuances on.

Nicky:

Is this data actually accurate and how much can we rely on it? And I know personally I've seen that sometimes business owners or leaders will rely on it too much. It's almost like puts it in a box or they're just like no, we're not even going to. No, I don't want that. I don't even want to look at it. So I'd love for you to talk to us about how do we actually measure this, because you've got some pretty epically awesome stats around teams becoming 57% happier. I know that's your personal experience working with what you deliver for your clients. They can become 50% happier by working with a happiness coach. Also, side note, how cool is it that there's personal happiness coaches out there? Let's just pause for a moment. That's super, super cool. Okay, back to the question. Over to you.

Declan:

I'm speaking my language.

Declan:

And on a quick note, I do think it is pretty damn cool that this person is having a speech out there. I describe it almost as a personal trainer for your mind and emotions rather than for your body. What excites me about this field and this industry is it wasn't that long ago that having a personal trainer and going to a gym was unheard of. No one did it. Now it's a status symbol in some way. How amazing is the world going to be when it is no longer not only not stigmatized, but it is a status symbol to say, hey, yeah, I'm working with someone to better understand my mind and emotions.

Nicky:

Oh, yeah, bring it on.

Declan:

That is going to be such an incredible world. I think we're moving there. So, yes, you're speaking my language. The yes, you're speaking my language. The other reason you're speaking my language is because this question about how do we measure happiness, particularly in an organizational setting and in teams this was literally what I've spent the last 14 months of my life doing. This was my master's thesis in positive psychology. I kid you not. My entire thesis was let's read the newest, most up-to-date, most evidence-based research on this from all around the world and find the common themes oh, I love it let's just say it was a big 14 months.

Declan:

I'm glad it's done.

Nicky:

I'm glad it's over thank you and we get to reap the benefit and the reward of your hard work, so we're also very happy about this.

Declan:

Yes, let's share what I found from it. So the big takeaway, big summary and this is what I used at the Happiness College to build something that we call the Workplace Happiness Diagnostic. So the big takeaway was this three tiers of depth with this data. So I'm going to start at tier one, which is our most top level overview general metric, and it is the core question of are our people happy here? Everything else comes downstream from that. We spoke about how that leads to better productivity, that leads to better retention, that leads to better performance, better profitability, better sales. But a lot of organizations don't get back to that core question. They're so busy in the details and the mass of are we looking at well-being, are we looking at engagement, are we looking at leadership, are we looking at all these other things that they forget that the purpose of doing that in the first place is to increase staff experience, which is just another word for how happy you are to your team. So that's tier one. If we go down to tier two, this was the biggest finding of my research, which was what are the main pillars that happiness in the workplace is built upon? And these five I guarantee you're going to sound a lot more familiar because this is where most organizations have spent the last 10, 20, 30 years looking and measuring. So the first one I found was well-being, so workplace well-being being a huge one there. The second one, engagement. The third one, culture, so underlying the previously called intangibles not intangible anymore, very tangible, very measurable. We'll talk about that. So culture being the glue that ties it all together. The fourth one was leadership and interestingly, this one actually has the biggest impact on the preceding three. They all influence each other, but leadership really does influence wellbeing, engagement, culture, quite quickly. It is a bit of a faster route to address the others. And then the last one which, to be honest with you, I debated about whether or not I was going to include this fifth pillar because it's almost a lag measure of the first four. If you nail the first four, this one tends to go well. If you're not doing well the first four, this one tends to drop. The reason I kept it in there is because it almost gives us a sense of how long has this been a challenge, for it gave us a sense of time. So the last one is resiliency, which is how ready are your team to embrace and adapt to change and challenge.

Declan:

And talking about change and challenge in an organizational setting, four years ago, we went through the start of a global pandemic that massively disrupted how people work. Now we're facing the disruptions of ai and machine learning. If you are a leader in an organization and you think that challenges and changes to the way that you work are slowing down, I promise you they're not. There's only going to be more coming. And so that's why I went hey, we do need to include resilience here. A because it gives me a hint on if the proceeding for have been low which I've actually seen this with some organizations they scored low on the first floor, but resilience was still high and I went. That's interesting what's changed recently? And they went. Oh, we went through a massive restructure, new executive team. All these changes Hasn't hit the resilience bucket yet for the team. The team's still willing to do the work to get through the change. They're not resistant to that yet. They're not resentful towards it yet. I've seen other organizations. Things are starting to track upwards, but resilience is still low because they've gone through years of shit times Yep, right, and so we need to give them time to rebuild that resilience bucket. That's why I include resilience. I also include it because we're going to need resilience now more than ever as business owners and leaders. So those are the core five men.

Declan:

To quickly go to tier three resilience. This is the most nuanced, it's the most detailed. This is often where, when I'm doing the diagnostic tool that measures all of this, all three tiers, all different expressions of happiness and we give a report to a team. I'll be honest with you. Tier three normally the only people who want to talk to me about it and see it are people in like head of HR, people in culture roles. They want to get into the details and the nitty gritty, which I love. So this is where we start to go hey, you didn't score that well on well-being, what the hell does that mean? And so we go to another tier down. Tier three of depth.

Declan:

What we know in research is there's seven distinct types of well-being at work. So we measure that differently. We go hey, you were scoring really high in social and physical well-being, but your team's emotional well-being or their financial well-being is really low. So we need to look at strategies to specifically address those expressions of well-being. In engagement, there's three different types of engagement. So when I say to a company are you measuring engagement? And they go yeah, here's a single number. I go. This tells me nothing.

Declan:

I don't know what to do with this. So that's the depth we need to get to. We do need the overarching A. The big question is are your team happy, yes or no? Then we move down through these different pillars and then into each expression of the pillars to get into that nuance and detail, to be able to confidently say, through an evidence-based lens, through data-driven insights this is what you're doing really well. These are where your gaps are and this is what you need to do to address those gaps. You do that well as an organization.

Ness:

Then there's your people and culture strategy on a silver platter for the next 12 months. Wow, I love that you said just for the next 12 months too.

Declan:

This is a new question.

Ness:

You don't brush your teeth once and then never have to go to the dentist because you're done Right. It's an ongoing piece because change, you know, circumstances, external factors come in and impact us. So it is really that ongoing piece but it sounds like a pretty solid foundation if you are paying attention to these areas.

Declan:

Yeah and look. The most common way to address those areas, once you've got that as a framework, it is going to be through surveys and look. There's ups and downs to that you highlighted so beautifully, psychological safety being a huge part of that. Psychological safety, incidentally, if you break down the culture part, is one of the underlying tier three measures in culture we look for. We see psychological safety is low.

Declan:

The first thing I start to do is question the reliability of the rest of the data. People putting what they think they have to put here yeah, so that's one of the first bits of data I look at. When we analyze the thing with surveys, I say they're the best tool we have in a flawed toolkit. There are ways to make them better. First and foremost, do them so they're actually anonymous. Don't tell people they are. But then you can see the back-end data and although it says there's no name or no role, it's all so-and-so's. Worked at the company for three years, they're in this person's team, they're in this department, oh, and they're using those words. I've heard someone use those words before. I've seen that in their emails. Oh, this is Jenny, right, that's not anonymous.

Declan:

You say people know right. So I always tell organizations the best thing you can do is don't get the raw data. If you can do this, third party and look. Obviously I'm biased because we offer that.

Nicky:

Yeah.

Declan:

My job to come in and do it, but I think there's something really magical about hey, you're never going to see the raw data results of this.

Nicky:

Yeah.

Declan:

You're not going to be able to get bogged down in it or overwhelmed by it. You're just going to see what you need to see to make good strategic decisions. So that's step one is make it anonymous and ideally third party. Second one decide on how often you're going to do it. My recommendations for this are full depth. So all three tiers once every 12 months. Find a way to measure all of them through evidence-based surveys. Once every 12 months. Do your pulse checking about every quarter or so, but only look at that middle tier. So those five pillars. If you can get a rough gauge on well-being, engagement, culture, leadership and resilience going up or down every three months, that's enough, right. You don't need to get into the depth and data. You'll just overwhelm yourself. And then the other recommendation I have for this is please, for God's sake, do something with it when you get the results.

Nicky:

Yeah.

Declan:

It's such a quick way to tank trust and sentiment in your team, to be like hey, we're going to send you these surveys because we care about getting your perspectives, but, by the way, we don't care enough to do something with it.

Nicky:

Yeah.

Declan:

So many organizations make this mistake, either because they mean, but then they get all the data back and go wow, this is a lot to sift through and we don't have the resources or time because we've got so much else on our plate. Yeah, and so it's. Before you know, it's six months, 12 months goes by and they're like shoot, we haven't actually done anything with it yet. Or they get the data back and this is more malicious, I don't say this as often and they go oh, these aren't the results that we wanted, let's just bury them, yeah, or and hope no one asks about them again yes, or it's coming up again in 12 months.

Nicky:

Geez, we haven't done anything for nine months. We better quickly do something.

Declan:

So people think we've done something and then we get the next results if you're gonna do it and I'm so clear organizations where they hire us in to use our workplace happiness diagnostic tool, I'm like, hey, if, hey, if you're going to do this, part of the deal is I'm going to be barking at your front door making sure that you're doing something with it, so like you're getting a lot of accountability out of that and you're ready for that journey. And if you're not, then don't do it.

Nicky:

Yeah, yeah, like it's the same thing in the work that Ness and I do. If there's no follow on, if there's no embedding, if there's no, just donate that money to charity. That's what we say, because it's going to work better for you, it's doing more good than wasting it. And there's so much that I love about this framework. Thank you for talking us through that. What I particularly love is that there is the pulse check, that is, the different levels. Let's just do a bit of a pulse check without it being overwhelming, because I've also seen teams and businesses where there's the collective eye roll. We're doing this again. There's another survey, but what you said around and what I'd add is we've got to sell the value. Why are we doing it? So that's why I point you point three around do something. Yeah, you'll crash your culture if you don't.

Nicky:

I think what you said about the anonymity is really crucial, and that because my question was how do you? Because, again, how do you make it anonymous? But that's it. It's a third party. Don't get access to the raw data, because you know what Our teams are. Smart Leaders like you're human, so you might be curious. You might not even mean to deduct and deduce and realize oh my gosh, that's Jenny from the block because of the words that she used, like you might not even mean to do it.

Nicky:

Your intention is good, but there we are going. Oh no, and if that's her, then I. No, don't go down the rabbit hole, don't even put that box of chocolates in front of you for temptation. So I think that's a really key point. How do you truly make it anonymous, because then your team will feel safer. How do you set it up and roll it out with your team? Make sure, ideally, you do have those pulse checks so it's not just a one-off. We were talking to a leader last week. She does yearly Gallup and all sorts of things in between, but she said I know that October is the most stressful month for my team because of the nature of our business and it's when people are feeling most tired, so that's when we do our engagement survey.

Nicky:

I'm curious to get your thoughts on that, Declan, because I was like whoa, you're doing it for genuine results, not to get something that looks good on paper.

Declan:

Yeah, I think that's exciting, that's really cool to hear. I would say the only downside of that is it may lead us to overlook and gloss over the good moments as well. So again, that's where a pulse survey would help, right. If you good moments as well. So again that's where a pulse survey would help, right. If you're also doing a little check. In moments where we're less stressed, less under the pump, we're not in as much seasonal pressure, it gives the team you go oh yeah, this is a really nice moment.

Declan:

So we can I always say marinate in the good moments. I love speaking our language yeah, percolate on a baby yeah, good moments, while still confronting the challenging moments and not ignoring them?

Declan:

Yes, and so the only other thing I'll say with the strategy, with this and with surveys is I do strongly recommend, at least once a year, when you're doing the deep dive on it all, do it comprehensively and cohesively. I've seen too many organizations that go, hey, we're actually scoring pretty well on engagement, we're testing engagement, we're measuring it. Scoring pretty well on engagement, we're testing engagement, we're measuring it, but we're still losing great people. What's going on here? We come in and do the measurement. We go, yeah, you are scoring really well on engagement. You don't have an engagement problem, you have a wellbeing problem.

Declan:

And so when we only measure one of those five pillars it's like a puzzle, but you've only got 20% of the pieces and so the picture doesn't make sense. And so I can give examples of industries where we see that a lot high engagement but still low well-being, low resilience, low in the others a lot of the four purpose industries. So education not for profits, engagement actually tracks relatively high because there's so much people know why they're doing what they're doing. They tend to feel pretty confident in what they're doing. The gap is not an engagement problem, it's normally well-being, whereas then there's completely other industries where well-being tracks relatively well.

Declan:

Engagement is a gap yeah, again you can't solve it with only 20 percent of the puzzle pieces. You do need to, at least once a year. You, oh, this is how this all links together. This is how this is connect.

Nicky:

I also. That's such an important point. So whether you're reaching out to Declan we'll put the link in the show notes or you've got another engagement tool, make sure you're looking at how holistic it is. I also love what you talked about around looking straight at that psychological safety and going okay, now I'm questioning the validity or the reliability of the results, because that's feedback in itself, isn't it? Seriously, we do say this because we have amazing guest speakers on but far out. We literally could just spend hours here talking. We're all geeking out over this stuff I know.

Nicky:

But I do want to bring it back to. We always have one actionable action that we would love our listeners and viewers to walk away with, and my thoughts around this are but I'm happy to open it to the floor is we've talked about some really great ways of establishing are the team happy? And engagements or happiness surveys, et cetera. But what's one thing that leaders, business owners or just even not just but team members checking in with each other? What's one action that people can do in the next 24 hours in a really simple human way to check in on the happiness within their team?

Declan:

Yeah. So look at the end of the day. If I was to summarize over 10 years of researching happiness now into the first two steps that everyone needs to take, it's A start defining what a happy life looks like to you as an individual, not to anyone else.

Ness:

And.

Declan:

B, start measuring it, because of the whole saying what we measure, we can manage, and so on. The specific action to address that. I'm going to be a little bit cheeky here, but it's for a good cause, so let's do it. My team and I actually developed about three or four years ago two different free tools that people can take. I'll send the links so you guys go to them. One's the personal happiness scorecard. One is the workplace happiness self-diagnostic. They're free to take, they're nice and short. They're literally just designed to give you a bit of a starting point where you'll get a personalized report or score at the end that says hey, this is what you're doing well with your happiness, this is where your gaps are, and it's up to you to then take the next steps from there. And as part of our social enterprise goals, part of our work with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we actually donate a day of drinking water to a community in need for every one of those that's been completed, and over the last four years we've just hit over 8,000 days.

Ness:

Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, something I'm deeply grateful for.

Declan:

So if I say, hey, what's something super actionable that you could do in the next, literally in the next 20 minutes, you could do. I think there's seven minute tests. Go to the personal happiness scorecard or go to that workplace happiness self-diagnostic. They're both on the BU Happiness College website under the free resources tab. And, yeah, just do something to start checking in on your happiness for yourself as a individual and your happiness for your team.

Ness:

Well, you've alluded to it. I know what I'll be doing.

Nicky:

I'll be doing that right now.

Ness:

We will make sure that the links are in the show notes, particularly just straight to those free resources. But as we often say, if somebody wants to friendly stalk you, declan what's the best way for them to do that.

Declan:

LinkedIn's probably the best. So if you head to LinkedIn and search Declan Edwards Orr, my professional nickname has become that Happiness Guy, which has been cut us a lead into. So if you search that Happiness Guy, you'll find my work.

Nicky:

You have to do a hashtag if you don't have one already. Hashtag that Happiness Guy, of course. Yeah, there you go, there's a gift back to you.

Ness:

It's been an absolute pleasure. I love the energy of this conversation. I agree, like we've been we're way over time, but it's been useful and I really hope that our listeners and our viewers have taken as much out of it as what I know Nikki and I have. So thank you so much for your time today, declan, and really looking forward to staying in touch and keeping abreast of all the work that you're doing out there to make workplaces much happier. So thank you.

Declan:

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Ness:

And we'll say goodbye for now. We'll catch you in your ears again on our podcast next week. Bye, see you later. Thanks for listening to today's ep. If you loved what you heard, connect with us over on LinkedIn and let's continue the conversation over there. Nikki and I are obsessed with helping businesses install smart business growth strategies and leveraging people leadership for peak performance. We bring two business minds and two perspectives into your business, and our number one goal is to make sure that your business is thriving, your team are thriving and you are thriving. We offer a 30-day business diagnostic, taking you from chaos to clarity in just 30 days. Are you curious to find out more? Send us an email or go old school and give us a call. Until next time, happy listening and here's to thriving in business and in life.