HAPPINESS TRAPS

Avoiding work-related pitfalls

BY Jayashantha Jayawardhana

Life is far too short to be unhappy at work. Yet, even some of the most talented and competent professionals among us feel miserable, unfulfilled and disengaged. So consider the fictional case of Amalka – let’s say she is a senior manager at a leading FMCG.

She is smart and hardworking, and has risen through the ranks by following the rules. She makes good money, married a man she loves and is devoted to her children. On the surface, she leads a fantastic life – the kind that many dream about or wish to emulate.

Amalka had everything she thought she wanted but she was still unhappy. Things were tense at home and work no longer gratified her. She was tired of workplace politics and embittered over the incessant changes that were supposed to fix whatever was wrong with the organisation in a given time.

She resented the long hours she had to put in; and even though the next promotion and bonus weren’t half as enticing as they used to be, she still worked as hard as ever since striving to achieve was a habit.

But Amalka blamed all her misery and disenchantment on her colleagues and superiors. Upon reflection, she admitted that stress and unhappiness were affecting her work relationships, family and health.

Amalka even noticed that she had begun compromising on her ethics in small ways. What she didn’t realise was the link between growing frustration and the dwindling ability to do her job effectively.

Though these issues are universal, the good news is that they’re not beyond remedy. But to fix these problems, we must first be able to see what’s ruining our happiness at work.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review (HBR), Dr. Annie McKee – an academic, author and cofounder of the Teleos Leadership Institute – identifies three common ‘happiness traps’ that seem productive on the surface but are ruinous when taken to the extreme.

AMBITION TRAP Being ambitious is a largely positive trait – because ambition is what fuels our drive to improve ourselves and pursue greater goals. But the trouble begins when our ambitions are coupled with hyper-competitiveness and a single-minded focus on winning.

McKee describes with brutal clarity what happens next: “We become blind to the impact of our actions on ourselves and others; relationships are damaged and collaboration suffers; we start chasing goals for the sake of hitting targets; and work begins to lose its meaning.”

NORMS TRAP It seems that nearly every organisation has an inexhaustible list of ‘shoulds.’ They claim that we should do A, B, C and D, and avoid E, F, G and H.

Some of these organisational norms, which seem ironclad, ring hollow and shatter like eggshells under critical questioning. A few are impractical and exist miles away from organisational realities.

Occasionally, there are sound norms too; but they’re imposed from the top on the bottom without clearly signifying their purposes and who must follow them. This results in resentment. Far too many of these organisational norms impel us to act in ways that run counter to our intuitive sense of fairness, values and beliefs – and that ruins our happiness.

OVERWORK TRAP Some of make a habit of spending every waking moment working or thinking about work, leaving us little time and energy for anything else. We have little time for family and friends, exercise, healthy food or even sleep. And we go to work even when we’re ill!

We don’t take the time to get to know people at work or put ourselves in their shoes before rushing to conclusions. McKee observes: “Overwork sucks us into a negative spiral. More work causes more stress; increased stress causes our brains to slow down and compromises our emotional intelligence; less creativity and poor people skills harm our ability to get things done.”

To move from trapped to happy, we need to improve our personal and interpersonal competencies – emotional self-awareness and self-control, as well as organisational awareness.

We must indulge in some soul-searching and delve into the true source of our unhappiness at work. It could be one or the other; or it could easily be a combination of many factors.

Identifying why we are unhappy solves more than three-quarters of the problem. McKee proposes three ways to free ourselves – viz. meaning or purpose, hope and friendship.

Purpose matters because we all want to support a cause we care about. Hope then makes it possible for us to navigate complexities and handle stress, fear and frustration, as well as understand hectic organisations and lives.

Friendship matters because if we work with people where there’s mutual liking and respect, we’ll enjoy being at work. Many of us spend most of our waking hours in our workplaces – so it should be a source of happiness if we’re to realise our fullest potential at work.