24 July 2009

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Tips for Team Members:
Are You Happy at Work?

By Brian R. King, P.Eng, PMP

As a project manager, an important question to ask yourself is:

Am I happy at work? 

There are many things that can affect the performance of a team. One of those things is happiness. Are you and your team members happy?

It’s a simple but necessary question. Happiness in the workplace means being engaged, involved and fulfilled. At the end of the day, you should have a sense of accomplishment.

Happiness is an intangible quality, but one that can bring tangible benefits to you, your team and your organization.

Happiness at work is very much within your control. Many situations that you encounter can be improved with some effort on your part. It is not where you are or what happens to you, but how you respond to situations around you.  It’s a leadership decision that you make for yourself, based on taking control and accepting responsibility for your own destiny.

You need to establish a clear vision and commit to a set of values that cannot be compromised.  With clarity on these two items, you can determine what is important in your life and career, and the means you will use to determine the “rightness of your path”.  You can decide – am I happy, or am I not?

These values include:

Attitude: Personal happiness begins with a positive attitude. You can increase it by choosing to be optimistic in interpreting and explaining what you experience during your day. 

Never underestimate the power of a positive attitude and optimism.  The decision to maintain a positive view and perspective of yourself despite the sometimes-negative working environment is not easy, but it can be done.

Job satisfaction: This is not simply attitude toward your job, but more importantly, the degree to which you identify psychologically with your job, and how much you consider your perceived performance level to be important to your self-worth. Perhaps you expect too much out of your job, in which case you should adjust your expectations. You may also not be in a position that matches your talents and passions. If so, your organization might have other openings that better suit you.

Patience: Patience is a virtue, but also a tool that happy people use frequently.  Taking the time to pause, reflect and think about a difficult situation allows you to transform potentially negative response into a positive one.  Positive thoughts can help diffuse a stressful situation and increase creativity and effectively resolve problems. 

Gratitude: Happiness is contagious. When you take the time to thank others and express gratitude to those around you, you are telling them by your actions that they are important.  And when a person feels important, their self worth, esteem and emotional well-being increases.

Personal happiness is a combination of attitude, personal leadership and taking responsibility for yourself, your actions, and your work.  It is not a passive, unresolved acceptance of those things around you, but an active life style where you challenge yourself, respect those around you, establish goals and commit to turning your vision into a reality.

Brian R. King, P.Eng, PMP is president of Millennium 3 Inc. Training and Consulting, which is driven to help businesses, government and associations improve productivity in leadership and organizational development. He is CEO and President of LEI – Lafleche Environmental Inc and a PMI Global Registered Education Provider, as well as a PMI SeminarsWorld® 2009 instructor. He welcomes your questions or comments on this tip.