Our Director, Claire Gray, shares some really insightful words on the importance of happiness in the workplace and how this translates in to our Bain and Gray culture.
In my 13 years of running Bain and Gray, I see time and again how our employees thrive in their work as they become part of the Bain and Gray team, which in turn brings with it happiness and success. The emphasis is on working together, supporting one another and working to a common goal. Regularly we give our team time to discuss their work and success, as well as staying tuned in to their wellbeing inside and outside work.
According to a popular Harvard Business School course called Leadership and Happiness, you have to learn to be happy yourself to lead a happy, effective team. And a central belief of the course is that happiness isn’t about the luck of the draw. It’s very much a learned attribute.
Dr. Arthur Brooks, who teaches the course, discussesthat happiness is a product of regularly nurturing four key areas of life – family, friends, meaningful work, and faith or life philosophy. He says that being happy and fulfilled puts people in a strong position to compete in the work market and cultivate the happiness of other members of their teams. Everyone wins.
I see part of my role as a leader is to look for solutions, positives and turn negatives into experiences to learn from and to harness in order to move forward positively. It is not always the high achievers who are necessarily the most positive within a team. In my 25 year career I can pinpoint those incredibly high achieving sales people who were the unhappiest members of the company and the least positive influences in the team dynamic. In my experience they can tend to be too self-critical and defer gratification which can lead to burnout.
The advice is logical – cultivate positive emotions and live in the present. If something goes wrong, try to fix it, then move on and don’t be overwhelmed by the things you can’t change.
At Bain and Gray we take emotional awareness, relationships, communication and balance as seriously as more traditional business objectives. Whilst financial projections and planning are key to any business; it’s time to embrace the rise of soft skills and an increased appetite for more balanced lives.
