如何让你的团队忙碌并快乐着？

    但凡是探讨工作中快乐情绪的文章，几乎都在表达人们对它的渴望和追寻。但你到底该如何创造快乐呢？还有，如何利用它来达到更好的工作效果呢？

    员工越快乐，他们的工作效率就越高。这不仅仅是理论上的判断，最近的研究也已经证明了这一点。如果员工不快乐，或许他们看起来也是忙忙碌碌，但他们的工作效率却可能并不高。

    杰西卡•普莱斯-琼斯表示：“人们对工作的专注程度，和快乐之间存在较大的差异。”杰西卡目前担任人力资源咨询公司iOpener的首席执行官，并著有《快乐工作：充分利用心理资本以获得成功》（Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for Success）一书。

    普莱斯-琼斯认为，有更强烈职业道德的人，更容易专注于他们的工作，但这并不意味着他们就一定是快乐的。有许多高层主管，他们对自己的工作高度投入，但是，他们却宁愿辞掉现在的工作。

    普莱斯-琼斯表示：“你工作时越快乐，就越能感觉自己精力充沛（可以做得更多）。”

    iOpener进行的一项调查研究显示，在认为自己工作时很快乐的员工中，有78%的人同时表示，他们感觉工作时精力充沛；而在不快乐的员工中，仅有13%的人有相同的感觉。

    快乐的员工，会在工作中投入更多的精力，工作更长的时间，并且效率更高。他们在自己工作岗位上的任期，是不快乐员工的两倍，并且，他们的日均工作时间也要比不快乐的员工多出25%。

    Zappos公司的创始人谢家华认为，要让员工感受到工作的快乐，首先应该让他们感觉到，他们是一项伟大事业的一部分，让他们觉得自己与工作是相联系的。

    谢家华认为：“其实，快乐就是一种可感知的控制感。在Zappos，我们的客户服务中心不使用任何脚本；我们让所有客服代表自己决定如何与客户沟通。他们不需要获得层层审批。如果他们想要做一些特别的事情，那他们就可以去做。”

    要使员工感到快乐，某种程度上可以通过“人造快乐”的方式来实现。在2004年的TED大会上，哈佛大学心理学教授丹•吉尔伯特提出，人们有能力创造属于自己的快乐。当我们无法得到某种我们想要的快乐时，至少我们还有“人造快乐”。

    假如我们有能力为自己制造快乐，那管理人员可以提供哪些帮助呢？

让工作中的“快乐配方”发挥作用

    如何在组织内部营造快乐氛围呢？可以从培养基层员工做起——培养那些通常会支持战略规划的团队成员，而不是负责设计和实施这些规划的人。在对公司至关重要的项目中，委任基层工作人员负责更重要的部分。

    要使这种方式发挥作用，你需要撇开一些先入为主的观念，比如公司内员工的任务与职责：员工的学历、教育背景、甚至近期的工作经验等。你公司的基层IT分析师可能是最有创造力的文案撰稿人，但是，如果分配给她的工作，是整天面对程序编码，那她可能永远没有机会去为项目发挥自己最大的作用。团队一定要兼容并蓄，应该招聘各种各样的基层员工，并且，别害怕固执己见的新人。

1. 让团队负起责任

    不要把新人当作实习生。要信任他们并让他们知道。让团队自己确定开发解决方案的目标，自行设定期限和基准。在这个过程中，要为他们提供指导，并让他们负起责任，这非常重要，但这么做的目的是要培养团队成员的自主意识。普莱斯-琼斯表示：“人们想要更多的控制感。[如果企业]过多的干预，结果只能适得其反。”

2. 给你的团队起个名字

    只需给你的团队起个名字，便可以让团队成员在重要关头产生责任心和归属感。谢家华表示，管理人员总是认为敬畏或激励能够调动员工的积极性，但实际上，公司和员工的使命感才是更重要的。

3. 培养你的团队

    普莱斯-琼斯认为：“公司带给员工的自豪、信任和认可，是让员工感到快乐的关键因素。”为团队提供完成工作所必需的资源，甚至在重要项目开始之前，就认可团队是该项目的一份子。

    普莱斯-琼斯表示，一些企业已经开始通过分析内部的社交网络，确定哪些领导者最能让员工感到快乐。“我们说的并不是情绪上的起伏，或者某个人拥有乐观的态度，而是一种思维模式。”

4. 提供开放的沟通渠道

    允许团队向公司的最高层提出自己的观点，要让他们知道，他们将向高层陈述自己的观点，并且要对这么做的后果负责。如果可以的话，让他们去向首席执行官陈述。

    谢家华表示：“我们刚刚启动了一个新项目，即每个季度，如果有员工对某个点子非常热衷，那么，他可以在周六的季度会议上陈述他的点子，来获得公司的资金支持。这就像是为了获得内部风险投资而进行的推销。”

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    如果员工觉得，他们可以控制自己的工作，并且在不断进步，他们通常会更快乐，效率也会更高，而且这种感觉可以通过团队得以放大。就像一个管弦乐队一样，如果一个团队中有更多的层面，它就可以演奏出更响亮、更强烈、更美妙的音乐。如果团队感觉到他们参与了一项重大的任务，比如，共同提出一个大创意，或者共同实现一个大目标，那么，他们就能演奏出最美妙的“乐章”。

    本文作者琳达•米戈农，拥有从初创公司到《财富》500强国际化企业的20年的品牌营销、战略营销与直接营销经验，目前为YouTern公司董事会成员。该公司主要业务是为实习生与创业企业牵线搭桥。

    For all that's been written about happiness at work -- desiring it, seeking it, wishing for it -- how do you actually create it? And how do you use it to do better work?

    Aside from it sounding sensible, recent studies have demonstrated that the happier a worker is, the more productive they will be on the job. While an employee may appear engaged in their work, they may not be as effective as they could be if they were happy.

    "There is a big difference between how people report engagement and happiness," says Jessica Pryce-Jones, who is the CEO of HR consulting firm iOpener and the author of Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for Success.

    Pryce-Jones says that people who have a more vigorous work ethic find it easier to be engaged in what they are doing, but that does not necessarily mean that they are happy. There are many senior leaders who are highly engaged in their work but would rather leave their jobs.

    "The happier you are at work, the greater sense of energy you feel [to do more]," says Pryce-Jones.

    In survey studies conducted by iOpener, of employees who reported that they are happy at work, 78% also say that they feel energetic while at work, whereas a mere 13% of unhappy employees claim the same.

    People who are happy at work put in far more effort, work longer hours, and are more productive than those who aren't. They remain at their jobs twice as long and they work 25% more time than an unhappy employee works.

    For Zappos founder Tony Heisch, happiness at work begins with giving employees a sense that they are part of something bigger and that they feel connected to the work they do.

    "It's about perceived control. At Zappos, we do not use scripts in our call centers; we leave it up to each rep on how to interact," Heisch says. "There are no layers of approval. If they want to do something special, they can do it."

    Part of the employee happiness formula lays in the idea that happiness can be synthesized. At a TED conference talk back in 2004, Harvard psychology professor Dan Gilbert argued that people have the ability to create their own happiness, and that synthetic happiness is the kind we have when we don't get exactly what we want.

    Assuming that we are capable of making our own happiness, how can a manager help things along?

Putting a happiness formula to work

    One way to get started on building happiness at your organization is to nurture your junior staff, the members of the team who usually support the strategic plan rather than devise and implement it. Consider a vital project in the organization and delegate some of the meatier aspects of the project to a junior task force.

    For this to work, you'll need to put aside preconceived notions of the roles and responsibilities at your company: what someone's degree is in, their educational pedigree, and even their recent work experience. The junior analyst in IT could be your most creative copywriter, but when relegated to coding all day, she may never have a chance to collaborate in a way that can deliver the most to a project. Be sure to recruit an eclectic mix of junior employees to the team, and there's no need to fear opinionated newcomers.

1. Put the team in charge

    Don't treat it like an internship exercise. Count on them and let them know it. Have the team establish their vision for getting to a solution, creating their own timelines and benchmarks. It's important to provide guidance along the way and hold them accountable, but the goal is to give them a sense of autonomy. "People want more sense of control. [When organizations put] in more controls, they get the opposite of what they want," says Pryce-Jones.

2. Give your team a name

    Simply giving the team a name will introduce a layer of accountability and a sense of membership in something important. Heisch says that managers often think that fear or incentives inspire motivation in the workplace, but a sense of purpose in the company and in the employee's work is more important.

3. Nurture your team

    "Pride, trust and recognition from the company are critical factors in happiness," says Pryce-Jones. Give the team the resources they need to get the job done and provide them with recognition that they are part of an important project even before they begin.

    Some organizations have begun to analyze their internal social networks to determine which leaders foster the most happiness, says Pryce-Jones. "We're not talking about emotional highs, or that someone has an optimistic [attitude]. We are talking about a mind-set."

4. Provide visibility

    Allow the team visibility at the highest levels of the organization and make them aware that they will present their ideas to senior staff and that they are responsible for the outcome. Have them present to the CEO if you can.

    "We just started a new program where, once a quarter, individuals who are passionate about an idea can seek funding for it by coming to a quarterly meeting on a Saturday and presenting it," says Heisch. "It's like a pitch [for] internal venture capital."

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    When employees feel like they have some control over the work they are doing and when they feel like they're making progress, they are generally happier and more productive, and these feelings are often amplified when employees are part of a team. A team makes a bigger, bolder, richer sound, with more layers, like an orchestra. And the richest sounds come when the team feels that they are part of something big; a big idea, a vision.

    Linda Mignone has 20 years of experience in brand, strategic and direct marketing with start-ups to international Fortune 500 companies and serves on the board of YouTern, a company that matches student interns with entrepreneurial employers.