THE PROBLEM WITH SMILEY FACES

Fun.  Creativity.  Laughter.  Engagement.

Bah, humbug.  We’re tired of the happiness@work drumbeat.

And we ignore the overwhelming amount of articles and treatises and tomes that explain, in five, eight, ten or 12 steps, how to encourage those smiley faces in the office.

Why? 

Is it, as author William Davies insists, because corporate and government interests fix on the happiness quotient, without drilling into the context that started the not-so-content quotient?

Could our sadnesses be attributed to bosses who are negative or simply not great people managers?

Perhaps it’s due to the belief that happiness is 1) up to the individual and 2) somewhat fleeting in its appearances?

We vote for the last.  [Even though umpteen studies say that happiness is the ultimate productivity booster.]

Instead, from our forays into Fortune 500s and private firms alike, we find that the real test of engagement at work is the person who’s found a calling, who’s content in what s/he does, and who feels that s/he makes a contribution to the company.  Not happiness.  It’s all about the nature of the work (thank you, Dan Pink) and the deep-down belief that we make things happen – and that things don’t happen to us. 

Others might call it open awareness, the ability to see the big picture and not be held back by self-imposed limits.  Or simply another way of defining the ultimate selfie.

AN HOMAGE TO AWARENESS

Everyone’s doing it.

E-bookstores overflow with Mindful Work, Mindful Teen, even Mindful Birthing.  Participants at the Davos’ World Economic Forum could opt to sit in on a session.  Phil Jackson of the Knicks credits it with promoting general well-being.  Even Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, having introduced yoga and meditation throughout the healthcare giant, says those practices have reduced stress levels and pain while improving sleep levels and productivity.

With its origins in the Buddhist concept of sati, or the memory of the present, mindfulness was appropriated by a savvy scientist in the 1970s, who then parlayed it into a worldwide movement.

Is it mainstream yet?  Well, sorta.  Ellen Langer, a researcher into this topic for more than four decades, explains that, bottom line, mindfulness simply helps you appreciate why people behave the way they do.  Her perspective:  That life consists of moments – and if you make the moment matter, everything will matter. 

It reminds us of the reason many of us started in this business:  To make things matter and, by extension, to make ourselves matter.  By starting with awareness, the foundation for all of advertising and marketing and communications work, or so our thoughts went, we can awaken people to new things, new philosophies, new ways of being.  The challenge today (other than mastering the chaos around us):  To ensure that we’re mindful of what truly matters.