Putting Performance and Happiness Together in the Workplace

Both job performance and the employees' level of happiness

impact the potential of success for an organization.

Which of the following types of persons would you prefer to have in

greater numbers in your organization?

A. Happy Low Performers

B. Unhappy Low Performers

C. Unhappy High Performers

D. Happy High Performers

E. All of the above.

The obvious preference would be "D." Intuition aside, mounting

evidence suggests that happy high performing workforces correlate
with greater employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, productivity, and
profits. The majority of workplaces, however, are filled with "E": all of
the above.

The intersection between the dimensions of performance and

happiness will dictate whether an organization is able to sustain its
success. This article highlights the importance of both performance
and happiness to the long-term success of a business, describes the
key dimensions of happiness in the workplace, and offers a self-
assessment tool which individuals may use in thinking about their own
personal performance and happiness at work. A call is made to
practitioners and applied researchers to design, develop, and test
happiness-enhancing interventions to assist practitioners in their
efforts to boost happiness in the workplace.
The Performance – Happiness Matrix

In the context of performance management, "performance" refers to

actions that drive the achievement of key results. A "high performer"
is an individual (or work group) that performs the actions necessary to
drive key results. "Happiness" is the experience of frequent, mildly
pleasant emotions, the relative absence of unpleasant feelings, and a
general feeling of satisfaction with one's life." People who are happy in
the work setting are generally having more positive experiences than
negative ones in connection with the work place and their job.

An interesting and useful way of viewing people and groups across the
two dimensions of performance and happiness is depicted in Figure 1.
Happy and sad faces, with arrows symbolizing high and low
performance, represent the four permutations in this analysis. The
author often uses this matrix with executives to discuss their own
situation as well as that of the people in their organizations.
References in this article to the various quadrants are used for thought
and discussion purposes only. For more specific analysis of areas of
relative strength and weakness for a particular individual or group
within an organization, see the Performance-Happiness Self-
Assessment Survey.

Performance-Happiness Matrix
1. Quadrant #1: Happy Low Performer. These employees remain
happy in spite of poor performance. They may be especially optimistic,
perhaps mismatched for their current position, or need training. Tom,
for example, a new and inexperienced pharmaceutical sales person,
was positive about his future and hopeful that his current poor
performance would improve with sales skill training. He was optimistic
and hopeful about succeeding in this position, even though his current
performance was poor; as his performance improves, he would move
toward Q4 behavior.

2. Quadrant #2: Unhappy Low Performer. Many factors can

contribute to this condition, including a lack of performance
management systems, poor selection practices, and little or no
meaningful employee recognition. For example, Mary was frustrated
and unhappy in the workplace most of the time. Her job required her
to be detail-oriented, structured and willing to work alone for long
periods of time. The problem was that Mary was not good with details,
and she was creative and extroverted. She was an underperformer in
her current job with little chance of succeeding because her work
preferences did not match those required by her job.

Negative low performers can keep organizations from reaching their

full potential. Their own lack of success drags down overall
performance. Perhaps more significantly, unhappy low performers can
infect others with negative attitudes and become negative role models,
exacerbating the impact of their unhappiness, and allowing
counterproductive behaviors to creep into the workplace.

3. Quadrant #3: Unhappy High Performer. Various reasons may

underlie why an employee who is performing well may nonetheless be
unhappy in the workplace. For instance, employees may be unhappy
because their work is not challenging, or they are repeatedly asked to
do the same assignments because they are good at a particular
activity. Without challenging work, it is difficult for an employee to
become involved, engaged, or positive about his or her work, making
it difficult to sustain high performance over time. This may result in
the most talented and marketable people, who are unhappy, leaving
an organization.

For instance: Having been given the same assignments numerous

times, Peter was unhappy and frustrated. While he continued to be a
high performer in his current position, Peter believed that no one cared
about his development and was contemplating looking for another
position.
4. Quadrant #4: Happy High Performer. Happy high performance
presents the best prospect for long-term organizational success. A
high performer who is happy about his/her work will be much more
likely to sustain high performance over time and deliver key results.

A Closer Look at Quadrant #4, the Happy High Performer

People who occupy Quadrant #4 share some key characteristics. These

individuals:

1. Have a clear direction.

2. Find that direction motivating.
3. Focus on what is important and what they can influence.
4. Are linked to the resources necessary to execute key actions.
5. Talk and act in ways that promote performance and happiness.
6. Are significantly engaged in their work.
7. Find meaning and purpose in their work.
8. Have more positive experiences than negative experiences at
work.
9. Are grateful about the past and do not carry grudges.
10. Are optimistic looking into the future.
11. Achieve agreed upon results.
12. Are happy about their workplace.

Managerial leaders are encouraged to use the "Performance –

Happiness Self-Assessment Survey" to rate themselves on these
characteristics. This assessment tool is an informal survey that serves
as a springboard for a conversation about areas of relative strength
and areas where improvement may be indicated, with the goal of
personal growth toward Q4.

Paths to Performance and Happiness

Job satisfaction researchers have had a long standing debate as to

whether employees are happy first and performers second, or
performers first and happy second. However, both happiness and job
performance need to be addressed.

Various paths exist to maximize performance and happiness. It may

be relatively easier to move people from Q1 or Q3, rather than from
Q2, toward the high performing happy Q4. For instance, a change in
recognition and reward strategies may be sufficient to move people in
Q3 to Q4. In most situations, however, the "fix" to enhance people's
happiness in their work environment will be challenging. Tools exist for
increasing performance, but positivity enhancing interventions that
drive happiness still need to be developed for use within organizational
settings.

1. Increasing Performance. A managerial leader can maximize

performance by taking action in the following four areas:

1. Designing, developing, and delivering a clear and motivating

direction
2. Creating operational focus
3. Effectively and efficiently linking or coordinating resources
4. Ensuring that people practice effective influence skills

When managerial leaders effectively execute the action roles of

director, focuser, linker and influencer, performance is advanced. In
order to be a high performer, an employee must have a clear and
motivating direction, know what to focus on, know how to access and
link with resources to maximize his or her performance, and be
surrounded by people who practice effective influence or people skills,
including individuals who model and promote happiness.

2. Increasing Happiness. In looking at happiness in the workplace,

we find that a person's orientation in reflecting on the past, focusing
on the present, and looking into the future, is determinative of
whether he or she is happy.

• When reflecting on the past, the way to happiness is to be

grateful and "count your blessings." Happy people do not carry
grudges; they find effective ways to forgive others.
• In looking at one's present situation, individuals derive
happiness from being significantly engaged in their work, finding
meaning/purpose in what they do, and/or regularly having more
happy/positive experiences than negative ones.
• Individuals who are challenged while using their skills and
strengths will be engaged in their work. When an optimal
balance occurs between challenge and skill, a person becomes
fully engaged in the activity at hand. Such individuals are "in
flow" with their work.
• Employees experience meaning in their work when they
recognize that their work has an impact on others. Meaning is
often brought into greater focus when employees understand
what needs they are satisfying for the end users of their
organization's products and services. For example, when
production workers in a manufacturing plant recognize that their
 company's products contribute to environmental safety in
communities around the globe, they can see the greater good, or
meaning, in their work beyond the relative simplicity of
completing their own daily tasks.
• Finally, happiness comes from work experiences that yield
positive emotions, positive thoughts, and/or positive images in
people. Positive emotions in particular have the capacity to
"build and broaden" people's positive response repertoire. People
who approach tasks with positivity have been found to be more
productive, creative and resilient.
• When looking into the future, happy performers are optimistic
and hopeful. They utilize positive goals, self-talk and other
strategies to help them remain resilient as they move forward.

Perhaps the initial way for a managerial leader to think about how to
influence the happiness level of his or her employees is in relation to
the employee's present situation. For example, engagement with one's
work can likely be enhanced by having an individual assess her
"strengths" and utilize those strengths in her work. This may include
coaching to help the individual use her strengths in innovative ways.
An employee's level of engagement at work, and subsequent
happiness, is likely boosted when he or she has the opportunity to do
what he or she does best at work – utilizing one's strengths is a
positive experience. (This could likely help Mary, the Q2 Unhappy Low
Performer, move toward Q4.)

A Call to Action

Organizational leaders should strive to increase the number of Happy

High Performers in their ranks. Start by assessing yourself in relation
to the qualities of a high-performing happy person. With this
assessment you can develop practical action plans that help you move
toward higher performance and happiness in the work environment.

To increase the number of happy high performers in the workplace,

organizational leaders need access to proven happiness-enhancing
interventions. Unfortunately, there has been little work done in
organizational settings to address this need. As a foundation, there is
a growing body of applied research which seeks to validate happiness
enhancing interventions in self-help and mental health settings.
Practitioners and applied researchers working in organizations need to
focus more attention on developing practical happiness-enhancing
interventions to assist managerial leaders to help their people become
more engaged in their work, experience meaning in their work, and
experience positive emotions, thoughts, and images in relation to the
work and work environment. With tools to help people in organizations
enhance their happiness combined with effective performance
management systems, happy high performers will likely grow in
numbers within organizations.

Use this article as a springboard to look at yourself and your current

organization from a performance-happiness perspective. You are
encouraged to use the Performance – Happiness Self-Assessment
Survey that is provided to help you target potential areas for personal
change and fine tuning. Strive to become a happy high-performing role
model for others as you move towards building and sustaining a high
performing happy workplace.