The value of happiness in the workplace

Juan Humberto Young, who was recently appointed Academic Director of IE’s Executive Master in Positive Leadership and Strategy, is considered a pioneer in the design and implementation of services that apply positive psychology to business reality. He holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from Case Weatherhead School of Management and an MBA from Chicago University, as well as having undertaken a range of programs in the field of positive psychology and business management in companies and academic institutions that include, NYU and Upenn. Young is currently a strategy consultant and has developed an international CV in companies like KPMG and UBS, where he served as vice president of asset management and corporate finance for emerging markets.

We talked to him to find out more about what “happiness” means and how to apply positive psychology to the world of business.

Why is the “search for happiness” now so important, and specifically in the world of business?

Actually, the search for happiness is not suddenly more important – it always has been. Ever since the times of Greek philosophers there has been a permanent urge to seek out sources of happiness. The desire for happiness is also recognized as the right of all citizens, as enshrined in the US Constitution. What has happened in recent years is that we have gained a better scientific understanding of how to achieve happiness and, as a result, we now know that it is definitely possible for any person to attain it if they are prepared to be constant and dedicate energy.

In much the same way, there has always been an interest in the well-being of employees in the world of business. For many years the main objective was to achieve high levels of satisfaction in the workplace, but that is no longer enough. Companies have to be prepared for a new generation of professionals that will be keen to achieve a professional and personal situation that gives them a profound sense of well-being, and subsequently satisfaction in their life in general.

These executives will seek out organizations and roles in which they can feel fulfilled, they will want their work to make sense and to enjoy positive work relations, and they will want to feel a deep commitment to what they are doing. With the scientific development of positive psychology we have discovered that sustainable tools and strategies exist to attain happiness at work, which in turn translates into a greater socio-economic return, both for individuals and business organizations.

In the current business scenario you advocate that managers should adopt a positive leadership management style. What does that consist of exactly?

Over the last ten years research in the field of psychology has produced a new understanding of behavior in the workplace, and, in particular, a greater understanding of the differentiating factors that make for an outstanding performance by some people. This is what we call positive psychology.

Positive leadership is the result of this new line of research. It means that the manager leads using a style based on the premise that the psychological well-being of employees, and the financial well-being of business organizations are interrelated. These leaders focus on identifying and developing the strong/positive points of their employees, aligning them with their management teams and organization as a way to achieve high-level performance on a sustainable basis.

What is the strategic value of positive leadership?

One of the main tasks of every leader or manager is to take effective decisions in uncertain environments. It is precisely in this area that the science and art of positive leadership brings enormous advantages. In the seventies, the rigorous research of psychologist Alice Isen demonstrated that people who work under the influence of positive emotions have a greater cognitive flexibility and generate more ideas and creative solutions, regardless of the context of their work.

Over the last fifteen years, these findings have been corroborated again and again by different studies that discovered that positive emotions, in addition to increasing cognitive capacity, increase the capacity to make a swift recovery from adverse situations. Truly positive leaders, due to their highly-developed cognitive flexibility and their capacity to connect non-obvious aspects of behavior with rather more conceptual aspects, manage to create extraordinary competitive advantages.

You have invited world leaders in the field to take part in the program. What is it that makes them so important for the program?

In order to teach IE´s Executive Master in Positive Leadership and Strategy (EXMPLS) courses effectively, professors have to be sufficiently experienced in their specific functional area as well as being ahead of the rest in terms of being truly positive educators. Hence, the quality of the faculty we have for the EXMPLS is the best in world. Chris Peterson and Nansook Park, for example, are two great specialists in the field of individual strengths development, having authored the “bible” on the subject. Hersh Shefrin, one of five pioneers in the area of behavioral finance, has been interested for years in using positive psychology to resolve behavioral conflicts in the field of financial decision making.

Peter Huang has written extensively on the application of positive psychology in the field of law. Bernd Schmitt presents persuasive arguments that the client can contribute immense value to a business organization and shows how executives can use positive psychology to help clients achieve not only satisfaction but also happiness. Laura Roberts has designed methodologies to identify, align and maximize the different positive personalities at work. Each one of these professors has an accredited interest in advancing the condition of management science and in furthering the management of business organizations in a more sustainable way using positive psychology. That is what makes them extremely important for this program.

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