Good morning! Tal Ben-Shahar from the interdisciplinary Center in
Herzliya in...in Israel and his subject is happiness and I've got a real problem
stuff I have a problem with happiness. My mother always said to me "My boy if
all you're looking for his happiness you're gonna be very unhappy". What is this matter?
Yeah...Well...you know...the question is how we understand happiness if we
understand happiness to be a constant high positive emotions non-stop then
your mother is absolutely right...happy... we will not find happiness, however, if
we understand happiness to be also a deep sense of meaning...experience when
we pursue those things that we care about most then we can experience a lot of
happiness not only that we will experience happiness and we will also be
more successful...more generous, our life overall will be better.
Why do you think of your things has been simplified and I'm worried about that because in a
corporate world right we just got more and more complexity. Running a global
business is amazingly complex. How do you tell those?
Alright...so the key one when thinking about simplicity... Simplicity is combining simplicity with complexity.
So...yes...the work of the manager today of the of the average employee is a lot more
complex than it was even fifty years ago and fifty years ago it was complex
There's a lot of complexity now here comes the paradox...the paradox is that
when we introduce more simplicity in two parts of our day so even one or two
hours a day are focusing on one thing reducing multitasking for that one or
two hours that brief period of time will help us be overall more
productive, more creative will increase our levels of job satisfaction.
This one hour to two hours a day will help us better deal with the rising levels of
complexity. It's...it's almost you can think about it like a race car or a race
car every few rounds needs a pit stop... needs to take a break
Simplifying reducing complexity is like that break that enables the race car or
in this case...us as the manager that the employee to do even more in subsequently
Right...I get it but here's the thing you've run one of the most successful courses
and Harvard people want to learn about happiness but the culture or whether
it's the business school or the culture of business is...is no break
it's amazingly intense...it's 24/7....
Yes
and in the middle of the night your BlackBerry is flashing answer that...
Yeah...it's a...it's a very big cultural problem...it's a
very big systemic problem within...within the business world and it's gonna get
worse...it's gonna get worse because things are becoming more complex and
we're becoming more accessible 24/7 and we need to change that and we're seeing
some companies that are realizing that they're realizing that human being is
not a machine...human being does need breaks and what they're realizing and
the reason why they are introducing changes is that when we do give people
the breaks when we do give them the full night sleep...when we do allow them to
switch off they can be on much more effectively during the other hours and
initially, it's the change is going to come slow you know the way change
happens is it's slow, slow, slow and then very fast Why?...because people
need to see that it actually works and it's more an organization's introduced
this kind of approach rather than being marathon runners being interval runners
as more...more organizations see the success of this approach
the industry...the system as a whole will change as well but it will take time.
Is there talking about cultural race? Do you have more of an appeal in this
hemisphere? Do Americans and Canadians get it but Israelis don't or Spaniards
for that matter don't? You know...Is there a thing about this that is rejected by nations?
Um ...You know...on the surface there is more acceptance in North America for
you know...self-help or happiness or well-being however it's just on the
surface...you know...ultimately universally we all want to be happier and what is
different about positive psychology is that science that there is actual
data to back up assertion so it's not just...you know...some people who have had a
good idea perhaps whim or perhaps very charismatic and just promoting an idea
There is a science behind it and when the science clearly shows that taking
more breaks or thinking about your employees and your own well-being
contributes to...to the bottom line when science shows it it's very difficult to
argue with it whether it's in the u.s. Spain or China where a lot of this work
is taking place right now.
Yeah...Have you got specific companies that you would say
are moving that way and are good examples that we should be looking at
and saying then getting it right?
Yeah...there are a couple of them so the most
famous one would be Google and they are that they understand that when you
manage people you're managing a person... a whole person which is...you know...their
their emotions...their...their behaviors their thinking and you need to cater to...
to the different needs of each of these systems...WL Gore another company in
effect your cortex and other companies heralded by many as one of the best
companies in the world to work for extremely innovative organization they
also implement a lot of these ideas. Now the thing about positive psychology is
that it didn't...it doesn't invent the will what he does is it focuses on what
works it learns from what works so it will go to Google it will go to WL Gore
it will go to the and the...the positive elements of specific organizations learned
from that and then spread the word.
It's...but that seems fairly simple...you know...
How do you as somebody has the responsibility of a whole organization?
How do I fit this? This is a complete lifestyle change.
Well...so these ideas are simple...they're common sense in fact but as the French philosopher,
Voltaire once said "Common sense is not that common especially when it comes to
application". The thing about these ideas is that...the proposal is not a
transformation of a life it's not an all-or-nothing proposition it's not that
well...now I need to take very long vacations come home at four o'clock in
the afternoon every day and...and...and when I work just do one thing at a time it's
about introducing very small changes so it's that extra hour of folk or hour of
focusing on one thing during the day... it's the taking five minutes aside after
lunch to just take deep breath...it's the taking a walk now having a meeting but
walking while having that meeting so you know trying to multitask of what I like
to call task multiplying.
Great...well I'm hoping after this interview I'm going to
put some of those into place and I'm going to be happier from now...
and I hope that I leaned as well I will gain a lot from this session.
Thank you very much for coming today
Thank you very much
Thank you.