How Can We Manage To Be Happy?

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2

HOW CAN WE MANAGE TO BE HAPPY?

John M. Hasselberg, JD, MBA

Associate Professor of Management

College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University

132 Simons Hall, SJU, Collegeville, MN 56321 jhasselberg@csbsju.edu

1-320-363-2965

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

1


HOW CAN WE MANAGE TO BE HAPPY?

ABSTRACT

We are at our best when we are happiest and happiest when we are at our best.

Management bridges people, enabling us to build sustainable organizations and societies that foster human flourishing.

W. Edwards Deming insisted that creating “joy on the job” is the fundamental role of management. David Cooperrider is lead developer of “A positive revolution in change:

Appreciative Inquiry”. As he and his colleagues define it, “Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them.” This evolution in post-positivist and social constructionist theories is a useful tool for building happier organizations and societies.

The Bhutanese prefer to see their country judged by how high they are on a Gross

National Happiness index rather than a Gross National Product index. This approach to socioeconomic valuation is gathering growing attention in other nations. Surveys have consistently shown that Danes are the happiest workers in the world. To what can we attribute so much happiness in two disparate parts of the world?

In this paper I will explore what happiness is and how conceptions of it and frameworks for it have evolved. I will address what it means to live happier and more fulfilled lives I will examine how to manage to find joy in our work and to help those whose work we are responsible for coordinating to find it. I will explore organizational, theoretical and applied frameworks involved in fostering such a shift.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

2


INTRODUCTION

“One generation plants the tree and another gets the shade.” –Chinese Proverb i

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. –Margaret Storm Jameson ii

How can we manage to be happy ? How can we manage to be happy? How can we manage to be happy ? Nuance. Context. Definitional details. Normative expectations. Metaethical perspectives. Cultural preconceptions and assumptions. On which syl la

’ble we place our em pha’ sis can change world views.

What are our criteria for happiness? What rules do we presume? What are our assumptions about what it means to be happy and how to achieve happiness? Is it really something we can achievement? From whence and whom do these rules emerge? How are they evolving as we and our globally interconnected cultures evolve? Which cultural preconditions for happiness have we imbibed with mother’s milk? Whose are the best? Most useful? Most enlightened? Most humane? Most fulfilling? Can we adopt the criteria of others and other cultures as we wish? Is culture—“what we do when we think we’re not doing anything,” as I define it—so deeply embedded we’re doomed, happy or not, to adapt to whatever definitional milieu through which we’ve emerged? How can people create and manage systems and organizations to promote greater happiness by all stakeholders? How? Ought we? Must we?

Do we have an affirmative responsibility to encourage, create and inspire happiness in our friends, our families, our co-workers and our societies?

Yes. We do. Otherwise what is the point of managing anything at all? If not for the greater benefit of the people with whom we engage, if not for enhanced happiness through greater ability to express one’s own gifts, strengths, ability to make a contribution, then what would be the point? Peter Drucker (2001) is quite clear that this is a fundamental contribution of

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

3

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 the field of management to the abundance that we experience in our developed societies. But is this what really makes us happy? And how sustainable is this material abundance? I argue that in fact effective management necessarily emphasizes “joy on the job”, as Deming (1994) advises us to pursue. “Joy on the job” is a prerequisite for creating sustainable organizations, inspiring self-actualized individuals and developing humane societies.

So how do we get there from here? And where exactly is “there”? When Drucker (2001) was asked how he could predict the future so well he said that he couldn’t, he just was better than most people at seeing what’s happening right now and then thoughtfully extrapolating on that.

So, what’s happening right now that we can build on so as to manage to be happy in the future?

This paper is explores the intersections between organizational management, spiritual development, real and apparent goods, and happiness. It is in intersections that we find creativity and possibilities for new ways of thinking, feeling, acting, living (Johansson, 2006). “The key difference between a field and an intersection of fields lies in how concepts within them are combined….When you step into the Intersection, you can combine concepts between multiple fields, generating ideas that leap in new directions—what I call intersectional ideas.” iii The work of W. Edwards Deming at the intersections of mathematics, statistics and organizational development and that of David Cooperrider (2001) and colleagues (Barrett & Fry, 2005) in developing the Affirmative Inquiry model manifests intersectional thinking at its best.

.

COMMON PICTURES

In a personal conversation many years ago with Edmund Pellegrino, then Director of the

Kennedy Center for Ethics at Georgetown University, said that any conversation about ethics and values required participants spend about forty percent of their time defining the terms they were

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

4

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 using. Leif Klingborg (2010) of Swedish leadership consulting firm LLK focuses heavily on helping people to find common pictures with which to work to be at all effective when leading teams in organizations.

I developed the “Prepositional Theory of Management.” I simply define management as

“getting things done (insert appropriate preposition) people.” There are about one hundred prepositions available in English, but the ones I most commonly refer to are: for, with, among, considering, by, and through. Perhaps unfortunately, but necessarily so—at least until people are happier in their work—I also include: to, around, against, despite, without, over, and under.

To focus on the most essential aspects of management in organizations, I define an organization simply as: “Two or more people working together, deliberately, to achieve an agreed upon objective.” This definition encompasses everything from a young couple engaged to be married to Wal-Mart. Every manager of every organization must make their prepositional choices for every action they are responsible for, regardless of size, level or milieu. Thus it is of fundamental importance to human flourishing that we understand how we look at managing effectively, at what values we are implicitly and explicitly bringing to the table.

How, then, do we define happiness? Much of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics is devoted to eudaimonia.

Although eudaimonia is typically translated as “happiness”, it is more accurately defined as flourishing

. Unlike the term “happiness”, which denotes an emotional state that comes and goes, flourishing denotes something deeper, more permanent. Think: awakening, enlightenment, or self-actualization.

These terms rather than “happiness’ more accurately capture the essence of eudaimonia (May, 2010) .

iv

Schumaker (2007), emphasizing the moral spiritual development of those seeking happiness, notes that Eudaimonia …is an

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

5

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 assembly of terms that quite literally means a ‘good spirit’ (or ‘good god’) who works on behalf of a person.

v

I find compelling Hope May’s developmental interpretation of Aristotle and the utility of eudaimonia . May (2010) emphasizes that “…Aristotle identifies flourishing with some sort of activity—a doing something ….The view that flourishing consists in the performance of an activity departs from some notions in which flourishing is equated with leisure and in activity” vi

She describes her view as “developmentalist”, as contrasted with “intellectualist” and

“inclusivist” interpretations of Aristotle’s writing. Her fundamental point is that “The intellectualist and inclusivist interpretations of the function argument are inadequate because both views fail to recognize that Aristotle’s view of flourishing is informed by his views about biological development. In Generation of Animals, Parts of Animals and Physics , Aristotle repeatedly discusses how nature brings about some product or process, for the sake of some subsequent stage of development.” vii

The emerging field of utilizing the biomimicry principle in design and organizing builds actively on this premise.

viii

Taking action is central to managing people and tasks in organizations. Contemplation is a vital and necessary activity. As Yogi Bhajan says “Without realizing who you are, happiness cannot come to you.” ix But it is only when integrated with directed action that human flourishing can come to fruition. We realize our selves through a dialectical process, an action and reflection praxis. This distinguishes life-long flourishing from the immediate pleasure or gratification focus has become the hallmark of our consumption obsessed, materialistic Western x

cultures— and that is being all too quickly embraced world-wide. To manage effectively we must work to enhance and promote the human flourishing form of happiness over and above a naïvely

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

6

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 consumptive and unreflective hedonic approach to happiness. Franklin (2010) focuses on this distinction when he argues that:

The fulfillment model makes pleasure only incidental to happiness. Happiness is better viewed as a way of living, not a temporary state that comes and goes. None of us will ever fully realize our potentials but it is a matter of degree; it is about going as far as possible. The more we grow into ourselves the better our lives become. It feels good to exercise or paint or write, or to follow whatever the inclination of our potentials. But the feeling is not the important part; it is only a by-product of growth . Good feelings can be used as a guidance device to direct our actions, but good feelings are secondary to the growth upon which happiness depends. It feels good when we do the right thing, when we exercise or master a tennis swing, or act kindly to someone in need. But the correlate of right action should not be the goal. Pleasure is not the cause of happiness but often the by-product of fulfillment. The good feelings produced by drugs, alcohol, or an extravagant shopping spree can trick and misdirect us. It is actualization not pleasure that is the key to a good life.

xi

The primary role of good managers today is to create strategies, systems and structures that open spaces that inspire and integrate the creative participation of all individual members in the workplace—and then to get out of their way. Opening opportunities for free play xii

in organizations and societies is key to embracing sustainable happiness, as on set of Tibetan prayer flags at a Minneapolis gift shop: “Happiness: When one’s spiritual needs are met by an untroubled inner life. Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to others.”

It may appear to some that organizational strategies necessarily take the long view if they are to truly be categorized as “strategic”. But rarely do they comport with such long-term thinking as was envisioned by Aristotle in Europe or the Asian Taoist and Samurai commentators on strategy.

xiii

There is more than sufficient wisdom, human will and resources are available to ensure a much greater level of flourishing in our species than currently is the case. Let us explore why this may be the case, some of its parameters, and what we can try our best to do about it before we render our environment completely uninhabitable, while turning

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

7

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 ourselves into, as Schumaker (2007) says, “bundles of hunger who are willing to prostitute themselves to every product and experience.” xiv

MODERNIST, MATERIALIST MILIEU

It was not until the eighteenth century that there was consistent and pervasive emphasis on happiness as being accessible mankind in this temporal life. Prior to that, centuries of religious ritual and dogma had held tightly to the notion that true happiness was not to be found until after this life, in some sort of heavenly glory. For example, Wang (2009), reminds us that

Thomas Aquinas “is convinced that human beings cannot find perfect happiness in this life….[H]e says that perfect happiness in this life is in principle an impossible idea. It would contradict our very nature to find perfect happiness.” xv

So what is our “very nature”? If it is one in which we are continuously found wanting, always and inexorably hungry to consume and deficient in our goal attainment and in our thinking, this does not bode well for temporal happiness, much less for environmental or species sustainability! How much of this deficiency view of our nature is real and how much imagined?

How much is simply a construct of particular religious traditions which became unserviceable as they intersected with science, and with the rebirth of even older wisdom traditions, in the eighteenth century? What, for example, is the true nature of “The Fall” in Judeo-Christian experience? Schumaker (2007) takes an interesting approach to this myth by suggesting that

“...[T]he Fall, which refers to humanity’s proverbial fall from grace, innocence, and happiness, can be understood as a fall into time. It was then that we became isolated from the stream of life. The concept of time is one of the great historical killers of happiness. Early in the Paleolithic era, time did not exist beyond one’s interaction with the natural world. There were no hints of the perpetual time crunch in which overstressed moderns find themselves.” xvi

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

8


Rifkin (2004) encapsulates how assumptions guiding our participation in this conference may have some unanticipated origins when he describes how “The invention of the schedule and the mechanical clock in the thirteenth century by the Benedictine monks radically altered human beings’ conception of time, providing still another critical development on the road to a market economy and nation-state governance.” xvii

Further clarifying his arguments he states that “The calendar is past oriented….In calendar cultures, the future takes its meaning from the past….The schedule looks to the future, not to the past, for its legitimacy. In scheduling cultures, the future is severed from the past and made a separate and independent temporal domain. Scheduling cultures do not commemorate, they plan. They are not interested in resurrecting the past but in manipulating the future.” xviii

I work in the Management Department of Catholic Benedictine sponsored liberal arts colleges. Thus I find it quite ironic that these medieval innovations by members of the

Benedictine order, mechanical clocks and time schedules, are the sine qua non of modern management and thus of all modern industrial development—indeed, of modernism itself as an ideological construct segregating the present and future from the past. According to Zeruvabel

(1981), the Benedictines “helped to give the human enterprise the regular collective beat and rhythms of the machine.” xix Rifkin (2004) quotes Lewis Mumford as arguing that it is “the clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the Modern Age” xx

and that “By its essential nature [the clock] dissociated time from human events.” Thus Rifkin (2004) argues that the consequences of these innovations were such that “It is also true, as historian David Landes of

Harvard University suggests, that the clock dissociated ‘human events from Nature.’” xxi

The impacts of this have been immeasurable and are felt throughout the natural, physical world, and on our ability to embrace nature, spiritual development and overall human flourishing.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

9


As we pursue ways to create systems to promote happiness, let us keep in mind this example of unintended consequences. Much that we plan, intend, embark upon as managers and leaders, and assume will be the logical outcomes of our choices and actions, is often as chimeric as the smile on the Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat xxii

. Woodcock (1994) reminds us that “It is a frequent circumstance of history that a culture or civilization develops the device that will later be used for its destruction.” xxiii

In summing up and contextualizing his causality arguments,

Rifkin (2004) concludes that “The schedule, more than any other single force, is responsible for undermining the idea of spiritual or sacred time and introducing the notion of secular time.

Needless to say, the Benedictine monks never for a moment intended the invention of the schedule to be used for any purpose other than to better arrange one’s time on Earth in preparation for eternal deliverance. Little did they suspect that it would become the primary tool of modern commerce.” xxiv

The Enlightenment era brought with it a radical re-conception of the possibilities for temporal happiness. McMahon (2009) describes how in a letter to a friend in 1726 Voltaire observed that happiness had already become “the great and only concern.” xxv

Thomas Jefferson enshrined rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence and they were presumed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution. Of course as Franklin (2010) notes the always pragmatic Benjamin Franklin was quick to points out that “The Declaration only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” And it can prove to be a wily target, indeed.

Unwittingly, again, these seemingly enlightened, secular reinterpretations of happiness laid the foundations for the deep existential malaise that typifies contemporary industrial and

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

10

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 post-industrial societies. Historian of happiness, McMahon (2009), describes one of the paradoxes of happiness in developed economies when he says that

The Enlightenment belief in happiness—the Enlightenment faith in happiness— has totally triumphed in the developed world in the second half of the twentieth century, commensurate with—it is surely not irrelevant to note—the greatest cumulative economic expansion in human history. If, as we know from our sociologist colleagues’ work on reported subjective well-being, men and women in the USA and Europe have not, it seems, gotten appreciably happier since the 1950’s, despite the massive gains in cumulative GNP. It is the case, I would argue, that men and women’s sense that they should be happy has in fact increased a great deal. Paradoxically this increase in expectations may actually decrease happiness by increasing disappointment. What I call the unhappiness of not being happy is a phenomenon one can detect in Western culture since the eighteenth century, but it has probably never been as acute as it is today.

xxvi

As background to the above assessment, McDonald (2005) provides an extraordinarily succinct and cogent critique of the complex, ironic and far-reaching sequence of transformations and the forces underlying them that occurred between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, particularly in European and Anglo-American societies.

The permissive idealism inherent in Enlightenment individualism has then moved

Western society away from a trajectory of rational self-improvement towards a deeply irrational culture of oblivious self-indulgence.

The aetiology of this shift is highly complex involving numerous strands of influence, but in broad outline the source of the change is easy to identify. Simply put, the moral optimism of the 18th century was undermined by the ascent of an economistic philosophy propagated by the narrow interests of a rising commercial class primarily interested in furthering its own material improvement. This elite managed to effectively transform the pro-social potential of Enlightenment doctrine into a compromised vision in which the cultivation of moral maturity was deemed unnecessary.

This movement gained much strength from a partial reading of the key

Enlightenment texts and in particular of the writings of Adam Smith. Thus, from the late

Eighteenth century on, the key moral arguments of the great philosophers like Hutcheson,

Smith and Bentham were selectively ignored and their theorising reshaped in order to provide justification for a much more exploitative and self-seeking agenda. Key to this shift was the Wealth of Nations and its proposal that an Invisible Hand would faultlessly redirect self-seeking in such a way as to provide the greatest collective happiness possible. That this argument was never truly made by Smith was, and still is, unimportant to a business class intent on seeking ideological justification for its own immaturity.

Thus, the contention that enacting a rational competitiveness in which no consideration of others’ well being is necessary provided the perfect cover for

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

11

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 exploitation and self-indulgence. In a selective reading of Smiths philosophy, there is no need for intentional considerateness, generosity, respect or self-control as their opposites, inconsiderateness, meanness, disrespect and untrammeled self-indulgence will unerringly move society towards universal wellbeing via the magical mechanism of an ‘Invisible

Hand’. In fact, as this deeply irrational doctrine has become embedded, the claim has transformed into an even more extreme form in which the cultivation of any intentional morality is seen as being deeply disruptive to market functioning and injurious to the cause of widespread happiness.

Building upon McMahon’s and McDonald’s conclusions, Schumaker (2007) describes even more bluntly the malaise infecting consumerist, materialist cultures today. Yet even he retains hope that the allure of happiness in a redefined, more sustainable fashion is attainable as a goal that can still motivate people to appropriate, humane, personally and socially fulfilling behaviors.

It is an unfortunate reality that we live in a world that predisposes people to be depressed, stressed, hurried, materialistic, discontented, greedy, needlessly complicated, narcissistic, bored and indifferent, fearful, lonely, alienated, rageful, spiritually starved, uncharitable, under-touched, play deprived, dance deprived, sleep deprived, intellectually dull, divorced from curiosity and creativity, removed from nature, desperate for intimacy, adrift from family and friends, existentially confused, physically unfit, and enslaved to debt. Almost every aspect of the modern way of life diminishes our chances of meaningful happiness.

In the throes of this social, cultural, spiritual, and environmental holocaust, people cannot avoid the unconscious fear that they will never be happy. It is only to be expected that they would compensate by surrounding themselves with happy faces and a thousand other proofs that they are in fact happy. But in reality I believe that a heart-felt happiness is beyond the reach of most people who regard consumer culture to be their psychological home. The search for happiness has become the search for a new psychological and cultural home. Happiness may be an endangered state of mind, but at least it is a renewable resource that can state a comeback if, as a society, we rediscover what it means to live like human beings.

xxvii

In case this point is not yet fully appreciated by the reader, Schumaker (2007) hammers it home by highlighting the tension between earlier understandings of virtue and innocence as central to human flourishing and the damage done to the human spirit that ensues from our overemphasizing material and experiential consumption as the pathway to happiness.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

12


Modern consumer culture cannot bear innocence. It seeks to destroy it and to convert people into unimpressionable bundles of hunger who are willing to prostitute themselves to every product and experience. Ten-year olds can already be seen wearing the persona of an old sea dog, with weary worldliness advertising that they have seen it all, and that nothing is any longer surprising, exciting, or noteworthy. What makes this so tragic is that the death of innocence is also the death of happiness, passion, and a sense of the sublime.

xxviii

WORLD VIEWS

From Athens to China to?

Key to our overall thesis is that societies, organizations and individuals are responsible to create and nurture frameworks and systems that foster and inspire human flourishing. This is the job of managerial leaders, whether local or national, whether in public, private or not-for-profit organizations. May (2010) concludes her insightful work of deconstructing and applying

Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics with precisely this conclusion, thoughtfully applying

Aristotle’s arguments as completely appropriate for today’s liberal democratic societies.

As I have shown, by harnessing the view of human flourishing that is found within self-determination theory, a modern virtue theory that embraces the fundamental tenets of Aristotle’s ethics can be constructed. On this view, the proper role of the polity is not to abstain from the lives of the citizens. On the contrary, the state, through education, policy and legal interventions, has duty to provide both a sphere of liberty that enables the individual to choose the specific constellation of self-concordant goals in which her conception of the good consists, and to cultivate the virtues—the preconditions—necessary for self-concordance. Indeed, it is because flourishing consists in autonomy qua self-concordance, that the political community thereby has a duty to secure the conditions, both external and internal, necessary for its realization. xxix

There are no geographic boundaries to this point of view. In earlier work xxx I compared the Golden Mean of Aristotle to the Taoist and Confucian models of behavior in China. The long history of the responsibility of Chinese officials to work for the common good within the purview of the Confucian governance guidelines is well-known.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

13


Huang Liu-hung, twice a district magistrate in China in the 1670’s, put down his experience and thoughts after his retirement in a book entitled Fu-hui ch’uan-shu (A complete book concerning happiness and benevolence). Believing that only good local administration could bring happiness and benevolence to the people, he wanted to provide guidelines for other magistrates whose task it was to provide the people with this quality of life. The stability of the society hinged on the proficiency of the magistrate.

xxxi

Without such responsibility, what would be the societal utility of management and leadership? There would only be the kind of selfish, self-aggrandizing behaviors described above by McDonald. Providing for the common good, whether organizational or governmental, requires creating systems that open space for individual citizens and workers to pursue their own happiness and fulfillment. In globally interconnected, resource limited, technologically transformed societies the two are nearly equivalent. Boundaries between work, family and community role are at best blurred and often inseparable. Information accessibility allows more and more people to work from anywhere, anytime. Hall (1983) has shown how our assumptions about bounded time much too narrowly define and obsessively measure, especially in Anglo-

American cultures.

xxxii

He emphasizes that time is more and more fluid, more subject to cultural nuance metabolic flow, especially when working across zonal differences.

Hall’s research returns us to a point that I emphasized in my introduction. What we choose to emphasize determines what we measure and therefore directs what emerge as outcomes upon which we base future action. We get what we inspect, not what we expect. Or as

Deming (1982) said, “You can expect what you inspect.” A popular axiom in my youth, quite literally true, was “What you see is what you get.”

Upon realizing that he was paying attention to the things that were easily quantifiable but not crucial to his hospitality firm, Joie de Vivre, success, Conley (2010) used this basic principle to guide his restructuring. He concludes his speech to TED xxxiii by emphasizing that “In the 21 st

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

14

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 century, we need to actually look at—and what I’m actually going to encourage you to consider today—is to go back to our school days when we learned how to count. But I actually think it’s time for us to think about what we count. Because what we actually count truly counts.”

Himalayan Haven?

So what in the world does count when pursuing happiness? Bhutan is beginning to be looked at as a template for re-conceptualizing the way in which we calculate and compare levels of human development in society from one based upon Gross National Product calculations— which were created initially to determine war materials production capabilities—to a Gross

National Happiness index. Essentially it is redefining for Bhutan what has become, since WWII, how we have defined the wealth of a nation using the old consumption and production heuristics that are generally traced to Adam Smith in the 18 th

century.

xxxiv

In early 1970’s His Majesty

Jigme Singye Wangchuck began a process of conceptualizing the Gross National Happiness system for Bhutan. It has only been fully structurally instituted into the Bhutanese society in the past two years by son, His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck.

In this current king’s own words and actions he takes his responsibility for the inspiration and oversight of his people’s happiness as the primary focus of his leadership role. As he said in his coronation address in 2008, “As the king of a Buddhist nation, my duty is not only to ensure your happiness today but to create the fertile ground from which you may gain the fruits of spiritual pursuit and attain good Karma. This is how I shall serve you as king.”

Conley (2010) shows how Buddhism underpins the Bhutanese real structural choices and the strategic interplay between freedom and happiness.

xxxv

He describes the basic underlying principle for the development and implementation of the GNH as he learned of it through a conversation he had while in India with Bhutan’s prime minister:

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

15


So as I spent time with leaders in the GNH movement, I got to actually really understand what they're doing. And I got to spend some time with the prime minister.

Over dinner, I asked him an impertinent question. I asked him, "How can you create and measure something which evaporates, in other words, happiness?" And he's a very wise man, and he said, "Listen, Bhutan's goal is not to create happiness. We create the conditions for happiness to occur. In other words, we create a habitat of happiness."

Wow. That's interesting. And he said that they have a science behind that art. And they've actually created four essential pillars, nine key indicators and 72 different metrics that actually help to actually measure their GNH. xxxvi

One of the consistent challenges posed by GNP loyalists is the purported difficulty of measuring quality of life indicators. That this challenge exists is in itself an interesting hallmark of the deeper structure issues at play. Leadership and management regularly fall into the trap of being deluded by and making ineffective decisions because of our simplistic bias towards quantifying things. Such traps are far worse than those posed by discerning, as the Bhutanese have done, principles, indicators and methodologies for better assessing most humane values and criteria for human flourishing and living well. To illustrate, in his 1966 essay, “Effectiveness

Must Be Learned”, Drucker (2001) emphasizes that one must be very clear on the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness. Simply stated, efficiency is doing things right and effectiveness is doing the right thing. As regards the critical nature of this distinction, a little reflection will show that if one is doing the right thing but not doing it efficiently one can always improve. However if one is not doing the right thing, the better one does it the worse the overall situation becomes.

McDonald (2005) bridges our more general discussion of happiness’ social evolution by laying out just how the existing system functions.

In reality, the expansion of modern globalising culture is premised upon a highly systematic socialisation through which the values of negligent individualism are propagated. Central to this is the unstinting drive to inculcate values of material accumulation and social comparison. Commercial television, magazines, radio and above all, advertising, all constitute tremendously powerful forces intent on encouraging

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

16

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 disconnection from the environmental and social impacts of excessive personal consumption. It should be clear to any observer of the current order that an institutional shaping of values is very much a part of globalisation and its agenda. To deny this is simply naïve. The choice for Bhutan then is not between institutional imposition and freedom, but rather between conflicting types of institutional socialisation – one intent on forging an irresponsible sense of moral disconnection, the other intent on forging a sense of responsible moral connectedness.

More and more countries around the world appreciate this dilemma. Political and economic leaders are re-evaluating what are and are not appropriate, useful and sustainable measures of quality of life. In a recent essay in the Financial Times, Rachman (2010) describes how both France and the United Kingdom are rethinking their development heuristics. The basic recommendations they are considering are listed in the Stiglitz note below.

Last week, I found myself moderating a grandly-titled seminar on the “Future of

Capitalism” at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.

The star turn on the panel was Robert Skidelsky, the biographer of John Maynard

Keynes, who has been much in demand over the past two years, as Keynes has come back into fashion.

Lord Skidelsky has started work on a book to be called How Much is Enough:

The Economics of the Good Life. He argues that, over the past 30 years, the western world has become unhealthily pre-occupied with the pursuit of wealth. Lord Skidelsky says that “in almost all religions and moral philosophies, wealth is a means to an end – to live decently and agreeably. After a while the quest for more and more wealth becomes irrational, but our societies are all organised around the pursuit of wealth beyond limit.”

Paris is a good place to try out this sort of argument. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has sponsored a commission, featuring two Nobel prize-winning economists, to re-examine ideas of human well-being. The Stiglitz report xxxvii

, published last

September, questioned the idea that gross domestic product is an adequate measure of human well-being. It insisted that other aspects of life, such as health, education, family life and the environment, must also be given due weight.

A similar school of thought is gaining strength in Britain. Lord Layard, another titled British economist, has long pushed the idea that public policy should concentrate on the promotion of happiness, rather than the creation of wealth.

xxxviii

Conley (2010) pursues this same point in noting that incoming British Conservative prime minister David Cameron—at forty-three the youngest to so serve in nearly two hundred

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

17

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 years—even before being elected directly addressed this tension by quoting a speech given by

Robert F. Kennedy to an audience at the University of Kansas in 1968. Over forty years ago,

Kennedy (1968) laid out precisely the same global challenges that we are compelled to face today in parsing and addressing both the physical and spiritual wealth needs of humanity that

Bhutan has made the clearest, most viable effort to date to address:

[E]ven if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United

States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.

It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

If this is true here at home, so it is true elsewhere in world.

xxxix

As we look over this shift towards a re-conceptualization of wealth and happiness in various countries around the world, the realities of how such shifts may or may not occur and the ramifications of these world-view changes pose numerous intriguing questions and dilemmas.

Rachman (2010) conjectures an irony that concerns many conservatives in Western countries when he points out that “It would be a curious irony if the spiritual east embraced the ruthless pursuit of wealth just as the western nations that invented modern capitalism went for a Zen-like repudiation of materialism. If the pursuit of rapid economic growth became a largely Asian

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

18

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 pastime, the global balance of power would also change in ways that might make life in the west considerably less comfortable.”

Yet by utilizing a Zen attitude, what seems ironic, seems a concern to many can also be seen as an extraordinary opportunity to lead a dramatic shift in how we look at, promote and evaluate human flourishing at the national and global level. Taoists point out that it is simple to discern where one’s greatest weakness is—it is the flip side of one’s greatest strength. And viceversa. Conley (2010) asks us to induce from a simple and intriguing geophysical fact:

Bhutan's actually bordered on its north and south by 38 percent of the world's population. Could this little country, like a startup in a mature industry, be the spark plug that actually influences a 21st century of middle-class in China and India? Bhutan's actually created the ultimate export, a new global currency of well-being. And there are

40 countries around the world today that are actually studying their own GNH. You may have heard, this last fall, Nicolas Sarkozy in France, announcing the results of an 18month study by two Nobel economists, focusing on happiness and wellness in France.

Sarkozy suggested that world leaders should stop myopically focusing on GDP and consider a new index, what some French are calling a "joie de vivre index”….

And just three days ago, three days ago here at TED…David

Cameron…suggested that we're myopically focused on the wrong thing and that GDP is a misplaced metric. So it suggests that the momentum is shifting.

Two-hundred and thirty-four years after the first publication of Adam Smith’s “An

Inquiry into the Nature and Sources of the Wealth of Nations”, the debate over how to measure the wealth of nations is becoming more heated than ever. There is growing tension between quantifying what is tangible, immediately observable and financially calculable versus measuring long-term development and the seemingly intangible factors that provide us with real quality of life and secure personal space. How does one make decisions using a seventh generation xl

projection of consequences of our actions? What must we be doing in our current circumstances to assure the security and happiness not only of ourselves but of generations to

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

19

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 come after us? If what we are doing is not sustainable, how can we expect to be truly happy with our circumstances?

Attending to some sort of a national happiness indicator becomes imperative as we look at expanding populations, environmental sustainability, and other challenges to human flourishing. Developing sustainable policies requires great scrutiny, great mindfulness of attention. In their concluding remarks to their essay “Should national happiness be maximized?”

Frey and Stutzer (2009) argue cogently that we must be mindful our natural processes when directly intervening to achieve happiness maximizing goals. “We rather see the role of happiness research in seeking to improve the nature of the processes. People should become better able to advance their idea of the good life, individually and collectively….Happiness research should remain open to constructing a number of different indicators, reflecting wellbeing according to different aspects of life.”

Their conclusions comport well with how Bhutan goes about researching, surveying and developing policies through analyzing the indicators it utilizes in calculating Gross National

Happiness. Frey and Stutzer (2009) conclude that “[A] National Happiness Indicator…has an important role to fulfill as an important macro-economic input in the political discourse. It helps us in overcoming the currently dominant orientation towards GNP centered on material concerns. Politicians get incentives to justify their actions in terms of a broader and better indicator of individual welfare….’National’ Happiness Indicators should therefore be disaggregated to regional, county and communal levels.” xli

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

20

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics

Happy Danes?!

ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2

So what would a society in transition to a GNH system, a society that valued human concerns, quality of life, community and cultural values look like? Perhaps that of Denmark?

According to an annual survey of national attitudes around the world—resulting in its 2006

“World Map of Happiness”—Leicester University researchers determined that over thirty years of surveying Danes were consistently the happiest people in the world.

xlii

The United States was twenty-third, and the UK was forty-first. World-wide attention was given to this survey. Clearly there is growing interest in determining what constitutes national health, wealth and well-being.

In a special on the survey, the American CBS News program “60 Minutes” interviewed a variety of people in Denmark.

xliii A Danish student’s responses help explain the survey results.

All education is free in Denmark, right on through university. And students can take as long as they like to complete their studies.

"And we get paid to go to school actually. Instead of in the U.S. you pay to go to school, we get paid to go to school if we pass our exams," a student explains.

"Americans watching this particularly people your age would be bowled over by the very idea that the government pays you to go to school," Safer remarks.

"Yeah," the student acknowledges.

"I'm being paid right now for not going to school. I'm being paid for parenting," another male student tells Safer. "It's 100 percent paid for by the government for half a year."

Denmark also provides free health care, subsidized child care and elder care, a social safety net spread the length and breadth of the country.

"I mean, we're pretty much free to do whatever we want. We're secure from the day we're born. For a Dane who lives in Denmark," a male tells Safer.

This last comment encapsulates how a spirit of human flourishing can be supported by public policy measures. Denmark and its Scandinavian neighbors have identified a middle way between liberal market and centrally planned systems.

xliv

They provide a social welfare security structure that effectively supports everyone in the society at a level that enables people to pursue their happiness, to move towards self-actualization, without being continuously worried about

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

21

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 their daily health and well-being.

xlv

The challenge that Anglo-American societies play off as making a shift to such a model of structural support for human flourishing unpalatable is its cost in terms of government expenditure and the taxes necessary to support it. The program raises this point, quoting two researchers interviewed: “But in getting all of these wonderful gifts from the government, the Danes do pay a price. Christensen says a middle income person would pay about 50 percent—half—in taxes. And that is one trade-off most Americans are not willing to make. Americans, according to Harvard Psychology lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar, want it all.”

I find such arguments to be painfully amusing. They reflect how ideological and cultural blinders block out real cost factor comparisons. When I add up my federal income, state and local taxes, my social security tax, and my property and sales taxes, in the United States I pay well over 50% of my income in taxes. And, prior to retiring, this includes neither medical nor education coverage nor high quality public transportation. What really is the challenge here is that we are not using common pictures of what we are measuring when we in the United States react in a knee-jerk conservative ideological fashion to the mere mention of the word “taxes”. In basic market transaction terms, Scandinavians, as most other Europeans, understand that the question is not what do we pay but what do we get for what we pay. Overall, we are paying a lot more for infrastructure and access to basic services in the US and getting a lot less—which is neither effective nor efficient market nor governmental policy.

60 Minutes asked a man who had lived both in the U.S. and Denmark to comment on the day-to-day differences in living in each country. How does living in the land of the hapless

Hamlet compare with living the American Dream?

"You've lived in the states. You visited the states," Safer asked a man. "Would you live there?"

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

22


"It's got a grandness to it that you can never imagine here in Denmark. Because it's on a much larger scale. And the differences are much, much bigger. But I wouldn't want my children to grow up there," the man replied.

"Just describe for me the qualities that a successful person would have in this country," Safer asked.

"Well, in order to see myself as a success I would want to be happy and have a lot of time with my family. I think that's very important to me. And the money is not that important," he replied.

"It is more about the softer values, such as not being stressed, and feeling passionate about what I'm doing. 'Maybe this job is not gonna pay me a lot of money. But

I'm gonna love getting up and doing it every day,'" another said.

Asked if one can equate money with happiness, a man told Safer, "No."

"If you have a sufficient amount of money, then I don't think it will make you a lot happier to get really rich. And we're already at a good level here in Denmark. So I don't think we'll be happier if we increase our wealth," another remarked.

But these un-melancholy Danes, as laid back as they are, do not lack ambition. "I think that we have very high hopes. Just like any other people who, we just don't get so disappointed when we don't see them through," a man explained.

An American interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation’s “The Magazine” program in April 2007 xlvi

, was more specific as to why he felt more supported, secure and pleased with his work-life situation in Denmark:

Kevin McGwin, from Maine in the US, works on the Copenhagen Post newspaper, and is well-used to surveys suggesting the Danish love of life. It could all be down to a pleasant quality of life, he suggests.

"Denmark is very consumer-oriented and very family-oriented. People are sure to leave work at 4.30pm. They work their eight hours and go home. Pressure to work overtime doesn't exist."

Denmark has a 37-hour week. Parents get 52 weeks of maternity/paternity leave to be shared between them - 24 weeks is usually at full pay, with the rest often at as much as 90% pay. Much of it can be spread over the first nine years of the child's life.

Childcare is subsidised with no parent being asked to pay more than 25% of the cost.

Such assumed as normal benefits, supporting a balanced and engaged work-life, are completely incomprehensible to most American workers. Thus, as we consider how to apply these policies in other milieu, we must be mindful of the contexts within which they have arisen and function. Always and ever there are major differences of opinion regarding how translatable are policies and practices from one culture to another. Yet over the span of human history, our

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

23

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 myriad migrations and trade relationships, our species variations and diversity, and how we constantly learn from each other have always been the hallmark of dynamic cities and nations of all sizes. There is no such thing as any “pure” culture anywhere. This doesn’t mean that we dismiss cultural norms and frameworks. On the contrary. We must note them, engage them and learn from them how to ever more effectively and efficiently develop the kinds of systems necessary to foster human flourishing in our complex and multi-point intersecting world.

However multifaceted it may be, culture still embeds the values and habits that we take for granted in our daily lives, i.e., as I define it, “what we’re doing when we don’t think we’re doing anything.”

Language is one of the most important cultural constructs that embed our usually unreflected upon assumptions about how the world works. Alexander Kjerulf, xlvii

a Danish consultant who promotes himself as one of the world’s leading experts in happiness at work and who’s even adopted the title “Chief Happiness Officer” in his own organization, has done a lot of work in the UK. He points out some very specific linguistically embedded assumptions xlviii

that provide a contrasting view of how Danes and Brits view work:

While the English and Danish languages have strong common roots there are of course many words that exist only in one language and not in the other….But here’s a word that exists only in Danish and not in English: arbejdsglæde ….Arbejde means work and glæde means happiness, so arbejdsglæde is happiness at work. This word also exists in the other Nordic languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic) but not in any other language on the planet. I’ve checked!

And this is no coincidence; there is a word for it in Danish because Danish workplaces have a long-standing tradition of wanting to make their employees happy. To most Danes, a job isn’t just a way to get paid – we fully expect to enjoy ourselves at work. Few people in Britain seem to expect to be happy at work. Their focus seems to be on putting in the hours and getting paid. To most Britons, a job is just a job – and work is not compatible with any notions of enjoyment or happiness.

The results of these two different attitudes is clear: While the Danes have the highest levels of happiness at work, Brits are… not happy. Recent studies have shown that up to a third of all Brits actively dislike work, while still more neither like it nor

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

24

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 loathe it.

Interestingly, you might think that since Danes like their jobs so much, they’d be working more hours. You’d be wrong. Britons are the workaholics of Europe putting in more hours per worker than even those industrious Germans.

And seeing as Brits work so hard, you’d think they’d get more work done than those annoyingly cheerful Danes. You’d be wrong again. Worker productivity is in fact higher in Denmark and Denmark has the world’s best business climate according to the

Economist.

Conley (2010) sums up this discussion rather well. In his regular blog musings xlix

he focuses in specifically on our emerging tension between cultural assumptions, attitudes towards work-life balance and work taking over and draining deeper meaning and value from people’s lives. He reaches for support from one of the most candid, blunt and unflinching of twentiethcentury philosophers:

“ Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychologist, who was imprisoned in a Nazi death camp and wrote one of the ultimate tomes on existence (”Man’s Search for Meaning”) once lamented, “People have enough to live by but nothing to live for: they have the means but no meaning.” This is the predicament of modern man. Once we’ve addressed our basic needs in life, what do we strive for? And, of course, modern man is a worker bee. Business means busy-ness. We toil away to keep up with the financial cost of living, sometimes not recognizing the spiritual cost of living in a world that often is more focused on our means than our meaning.

Business does indeed mean “busy-ness” l

. The etymological obviousness of this point, and its equally obvious implications for detaching work from deeper meaning and values, are lost on most English speakers. I draw the reader’s attention to another Scandinavian language example with which I am quite familiar. The word in Swedish for business is “näringsliv”, which literally translates into “nourishing life.” The Swedish governmental agency responsible for business development is called the Näringsdepartementet and Svensknäringsliv is the name of the Swedish National Confederation of Enterprise—similar to the American Chambers of

Commerce. This Swedish example illustrates how there is an inherent bias in some cultures towards integrating work and market transactions within the broader spectrum of activities that

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

25

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 constitute human flourishing. Consistent with these cultural assumptions, it is not surprising that these same societies have the world’s most sophisticated social welfare systems. The question then becomes how we can identify and overcome existing cultural assumptions about work in other countries, including our own, that inhibit human flourishing. What foundations exist within our cultures to support us as we work to develop, adopt and adapt policies and practices that encourage sustainable happiness?

Graham (2009) attempts to address these and related questions in compiling her review of happiness research work around the world. She returns us to definitional questions in order to gain clarity in resolving tensions between research and applied policy making, providing a useful theoretical framework for our Bhutanese and Danish examples:

.

The definition of happiness is fundamental to resolving these questions. At the same time, it is precisely the open-ended and undefined nature of the happiness question that makes it such a useful survey instrument and allows for comparisons across countries and cultures. The definition is not imposed on the respondent. Instead he or she is simply asked to assess his or her own happiness or life satisfaction in general terms.

Thus, for survey purposes, the concept must remain undefined. In contrast, for policy purposes, some clarity on the definition seems necessary….Philosophers have provided a range of definitions over centuries. A more recent attempt to define happiness, by

Charles and Anthony Kenny, seems particularly well suited to policy. Kenny and Kenny define happiness as having three separate components: contentment, welfare, and dignity. Happiness defined simply as contentment seems an inappropriate objective for public policy. Yet, when it is defined as a combination of these three factors, it seems more relevant, particularly for many countries in which the major policy challenge is not extreme poverty but relative poverty, vulnerability, and inequality of income and opportunity.

li

FOSTERING CREATIVE PARTICIPATION

Regardless of the milieu, organizations and individuals must take responsibility for managing themselves, their work and their resources in ways not previously conceived of—not only in pre-modern times, but until the past few decades of the evolution of technology. At

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

26

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 almost every level of work in organizations, people are being continuously relied upon to make decisions while interacting with other constituencies inside and out of the organization. These decisions necessarily require self-reliant thinking, empathic understanding and engaged hearts and minds. Certainly this is true of service organizations, in which I would include governmental and the administrative functions in manufacturing industries, a category that includes the vast majority of people in developed countries and a rapidly growing proportion all over the world.

We can neither teach nor motivate nor lead people who don’t want to learn, to act or to be led. Management must be ever more mindful of how to create strategies and develop systems and structures that open creative spaces for people if people are to take responsibility for themselves, to contribute their unique gifts and capabilities, to build on their strengths while not being exploited through their weaknesses. Although having paid little attention to organizational theory earlier in their work, when developing their Sustainable Happiness Model, Sheldon and

Lyubomirsky (2009) come to exactly this conclusion:

I]t is…important to consider the managerial perspective. Should employers and economists care that the key to happiness enhancement is optimizing experience, not optimizing economic commodities such as income and consumption? We suggest that they should care, because happy people tend to be more productive, creative, flexible, persistent and group-centered than their less happy peers. Because creating more satisfied workers may help businesses to enhance the bottom line, this goal may be a winwin proposition for employees and managers alike. Our research suggests that meeting the goal may be as simple as providing workers with opportunities to find, engage in, and succeed at satisfying and varied new activities and tasks.

lii

Simple, indeed. And well and often articulated by thoughtful observers of and participants in the evolution of management theory and practice. I am going to focus on four whose work is particularly relevant to advancing our agenda of managing to be happy. Peter

Drucker, considered by many to be the godfather of the discipline of management, long

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

27

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 advocated a long-term perspective. He was unflinching in his emphasis on human development and service to all constituencies as the central responsibility for managers in any type of organization. W. Edwards Deming, world renowned leader in the development of statistical quality control as applied to manufacturing, was a passionate advocate for looking at whole systems, not just quantifying what could be quantified without appreciation for the systems effects it produced. Abraham Maslow, considered the founder of humanistic psychology and best known for developing his hierarchy of needs model of human motivation, was to the end of his life deeply interested in developing systems to enhance people’s ability to achieve selfactualization in their lives. Finally, the one of these four still alive and active, David

Cooperrider. He developed the process of “appreciative inquiry (AI)”. Building on positive psychology and social constructionist approaches to human interaction, AI emphasizes avoiding the deficit mentality standard to most managerial practices—the theological underpinnings of which we discussed earlier—by identifying questions that draw out positive, strengths-based experiences upon which to build healthier systems and inspire healthier and happier people.

Drucker (2001) strongly emphasized that meaningfulness of work and joy on the job were to be seen by managers as necessary components of sustainably successful organizational strategies, structures and practices. Drucker’s work has consistently been at the forefront of interpreting what is emerging in our society and how the discipline and practice of management plays a central role in this process. He asserts that, “Management explains why, for the first time in human history, we can employ large numbers of knowledgeable, skilled people in productive work. No earlier society could do this. Indeed, no earlier society could support more than a handful of such people. Until quite recently, no one knew how to put people with different skills

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

28

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 and knowledge together to achieve common goals.” liii

In his 1988 essay “Management as a

Social Function and Liberal Art” Drucker (2001) further elaborates on this point:

There is no point in asking which came first, the educational explosion of the last one hundred years or the management that put that knowledge to productive use. Modern management and modern enterprise could not exist without the knowledge base that developed societies have built. But equally, it is management, and management alone, that makes effective all this knowledge and these knowledgeable people. The emergence of management has converted knowledge from social ornament and luxury into the true capital of any economy.” liv

But what happened? If management is so significant and so effective at marshalling resources and human effort, why do we have the malaise, the consumerist obsession, the spiritual vacuums within which so many people exist? In the essay just cited, Drucker addresses this challenge to the management profession. Ironically, given their importance to society, he says,

“Management—and not only in the business enterprise—has to be accountable for performance….They have not yet faced up to the fact that they represent power—and power has to be accountable, to be legitimate. They have not yet faced up to the fact that they matter.”

Thus management faces intriguing challenges. We must have effective management of our enterprises, our public, private and not-for-profit institutions. Within the purview of overall organization systems and strategies, management must ever more effectively create spaces that engage and inspire people to pursue and to realize their individual gifts. To do so, managers must learn to step back and be mindful of giving themselves their own creative space.

As we move through modernist, post-modernist, post-post-modernist, etc., phases of cultural and social evolution, we know that much of what we construct is simply that, a construct. However institutional constructs of some sort are quite necessary for the many people on this planet to be able to live, much less to thrive. Regardless of the constructed and in many ways imaginary status of our institutions lv

they are the main tools through which we generate and

29

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 distribute the resources necessary for our survival. As they exist and people continue to believe in them, they are the physical and perceptual contexts within which most people must meet much of their personal fulfillment needs.

So what has been the role of management as a discipline in also contributing to the current malaise? What can be its role in moving us towards the humane society that Schumaker

(2007) dreams of, as referred to above, when he says that “Happiness may be an endangered state of mind, but at least it is a renewable resource that can state a comeback if, as a society, we rediscover what it means to live like human beings.” What has gone wrong? What is the challenge before us? One challenge is, as always, to simplify what seem intransigent and unending problems. As poet John Dryden said over three hundred years ago: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction” lvi

One such genius was W. Edwards Deming. Deming (1982) provided a clear set of guidelines by which people with managerial and leadership responsibilities can build the kinds of systems that are amenable to promoting human flourishing whilst fulfilling organizational missions and goals.

lvii

Deming was trained in mathematical physics and statistics. It is from his knowledge of variances in production and groups that he induced his guidlines on management and leadership. They draw on the human relations movement principles as articulated and strongly advocated by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, beginning in the 1950’s. This was the same time as Deming was doing his work in facilitating the post-WWII industrial renaissance of

Japan. Interesting how his principles of humane leading, organizing and managing were emerging at the same time as did the contemporary consumerist disorientation of society that is so rife today it isn’t even fully consciously realized by most people.

lviii

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

30


Deming (1994) takes no prisoners in his indictment of standard management practices.

In the last interview he gave before his passing in 1993, he clearly and unambiguously made his point, notably consistent with, if more blunt than, Drucker’s, when he says that “Management today does not know what its job is. In other words, [managers] don’t understand their responsibilities. They don’t know the potential of their positions. And if they did, they don’t have the required knowledge or abilities. There’s no substitute for knowledge.”

To address these dire circumstances, Deming (1982) developed a system he called “Profound

Knowledge”. He firmly believed in synchronous systems rather than linear cause-and-effect processes. Such systems fit perfectly with emerging global environmental awareness, particularly with the cultures of East Asian countries, particularly China and Japan—where he made his earliest contributions to effective management. Profound knowledge consists of four considerations, each related to, interacting with and inseparable from the other.

The first, appreciation for a system, is best exemplified by his absolute opposition to individual performance appraisals. Deming (1994) felt that “Appraisal of people is ruinous.

You cause humiliation, crush out joy of learning, innovation, joy on the job. Most of what anybody does is governed by the system that he works in. You are not evaluating him , you are evaluating the interaction with him and the system, the rules and constraints he works in.”

The second consideration is knowledge about variation. Deming (1994) insists that “It is extremely important to understand that there are two kinds of variation. The variation that comes from common causes and the variation from something special.” This links intimately with the first consideration in that when trying to distinguish the two, one needs to be very mindful of the origins of the standards and their process assumptions:

What happens within the control limits belongs to the system, a common cause.

A point outside the control limits would indicate a special cause. The usual procedure is

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

31

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 that when anything happens [we] suppose that somebody did it. Who did it? Pin a necklace on him. He’s our culprit. He’s the one who did it. That’s wrong, entirely wrong. Chances are good, almost overwhelming, that what happened, happened as a consequence of the system that he works in, not from his own efforts. In other words, performance cannot be measured. You only measure the combined effect of the system and his efforts. You cannot untangle the two. It is very important, I believe, that performance cannot be measured….Attributing non-uniformity to a special cause, when it actually came from a common cause, and vice versa [is a basic mistake that American industry is making]. It can’t be done. Our goal must be to minimize the economic loss from both mistakes.

The third consideration is to have a theory of knowledge. In describing this consideration, Deming (1994) emphasizes the incomplete nature of all knowledge, especially in the context of making decisions, and thus the need to be mindful of not just knowing and calculating things but of understanding the nature of appropriate knowledge in ambiguous circumstances—which, he argues, all circumstances are. He points out that

Any decision that management makes, that anybody makes for himself or for other people, is prediction. The simplest plan is prediction, with a chance to be wrong.

How may I get home tonight?....I make plans. Those plans are predictions. Management is prediction; our lives are prediction. We predict what will happen. We try to choose a course of action that will react in favor of us. That’s our aim. We predict the consequence of actions.

The fourth consideration is simply psychology. He links this directly to the other considerations by noting, for example,

How could anyone learn about psychology of people, of individuals, without knowledge of variation? What do the variations mean between people, between groups?

How can we capitalize on those differences? How can we assist people, because they have those differences? A good manager of people capitalizes n the family background, abilities, capabilities, and hopes of his people. He tries to give everybody a chance to take pride in his work, joy in his work.”

And, there it is, “joy”, the fundamental concern of management, according to Deming, and a fundamental premise of this paper. In order to be most effective, to be most productive, management and organizations must exercise humane leadership. They must be mindful of the extraordinary variations in human capabilities that are present in their organization. They must take the time to appreciate how they can develop systems that can foster growth and flourishing

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

32

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 for all, themselves included, and they must understand the complexities of the people and tasks that they are responsible to orchestrate.

Deming (1982) developed a series of fourteen points for management to use as decision making guidelines. As can be seen from the list in Appendix 1, they truly are guidelines, yet they are quite unequivocal in their commitment to management accountability. He knew the importance of management and organizations in societies and to individual lives. He was passionate about crafting and promoting not just a few cookbook guidelines, however. He felt that a wholly reconceived philosophy of management was necessary to do orchestrate the work of organizations in our ever more ambiguous and complex global environment.

Particularly relevant to our focus on creating creative space to promote employee happiness are the following points, which are more fully elaborated on in Appendix 1:

2— Adopt the new philosophy. 8—Drive out fear.

9—Break down barriers between departments. 10—Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Substitute leadership. 11—Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship.

12—Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. 13—Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14—Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. The individual, once transformed, will: 1—Set an example, 2—Be a good listener, but will not compromise, 3—Continually teach other people, and 4—Help people to pull away from their current practice and beliefs and move into the new philosophy without a feeling of guilt about the past lix

In other words, someone so engaged, supported, respected and responsibly led will be inspired towards accomplishing the goals and having the experiences that they hold personally important in their work. Without being formulaic or controlling, Deming provides us with a useful framework upon which to work to develop the kinds of management practices that are likely to result in increasing numbers of people, including ourselves, to be happy. His system

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

33

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 embodies the principles and practices that have been promoted in more normative fashion throughout this paper. Franklin (2010) characterizes personal engagement and freedom in our work—the kind of spaces that Deming’s emphasis on leadership, support and openness would create—as being crucial to our experiencing eudaimonic living through acting on the basis of rich and sustainable intrinsic motivations.

We need to feel as if we choose what we do. As [Richard DeCharms] put is, we need to be the “ locus of causality

” for our actions. When we decide what to do we are empowered, feel competent, and experience growth in self-esteem and confidence. On the other hand, when we are forced to do something, we experience weakness and feel like pawns driven by forces beyond our control. The same action with the same outcome may have very different effects….We need to experience ourselves as causal and as selfdetermining. Extrinsic reward can take the control away from us….

In fact, Deci and colleagues (Ryan, R.M., Huta, V., & Deci, E. L., “Living well:

A self-determination theory perspective of eudaimonia”, Journal of Happiness Studies , 9,

139 – 170) define eudaimonia in terms of intrinsic motivation. They suggest that eudaimonic living is present when: (1) we are in pursuit of intrinsic goals and values like growth, friendship, community, and the like, rather than extrinsic goals like fame and fortune; (2) our actions are under our control rather than driven by outside forces; (3) we are acting with awareness and mindfulness rather than blind habit and automaticity; and

(4) we are acting to fulfill basic human needs, like the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When we participate in eudaimonic living , we are living well and are happy.

Although Deming’s education was highly technical, he was fully mindful of the human relations concerns that are the sine qua non for organizational effectiveness and human flourishing. The Deming Institute points out that he was well aware of the work of Abraham

Maslow. As Franklin (2010) emphasizes above, one of the central tenets of human relations psychology and management is that it is those things that are intrinsic to us, to our work, to our being that are most central to our flourishing, not the extrinsic rewards and coercions that all too often distract us from our self-actualizing potentials. Maslow (1996) was ever more intent on applying the principles reflected in his hierarchy of needs structure lx

as tools to push for ever more humane organizational and societal policies and practices. He strongly felt that people

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

34

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 could only really flourish as they moved through the physical and psychological needs into the realms of creativity and full self-actualization. His views are entirely consonant with those of

Drucker and Deming, in particular the premise and promise of self-actualization. Maslow (1996) identifies several assumptions underlying self-actualization theory as it’s embedded in the broader field of humanistic psychology. Two assumptions, his third and his twelfth, are particularly relevant to our discussion as they embrace the pluralism and variation so vital to

Deming’s Profound Knowledge process provide a deeper human social and spiritual context for it as well—emphasizing the inherent synergy present in fully engaging oneself personally and with others.

lxi

A third assumption of self-actualization theory is that it very strongly requires a pluralism of individual differences. This requires that we accept hereditary, constitutional, and temperamental differences—and do so in a joyful rather than grudging way. Such true acceptance of individual differences has several key implications that should be stated briefly.

Among these notions is the ‘horticulture’ rather than the ‘sculpture’ model of personality growth. Whether in the domain of psychotherapy, counseling, education, of family life, this model should guide us. It means that we try to make a rose into a good rose, rather than seek to change roses into lilies. Implies a kind of Taoism, an acceptance of what people really are; it necessitates a pleasure in the self-actualization of a person who may be quite different from yourself. It even implies an ultimate respect and acknowledgment of the sacredness and uniqueness of each kind of person….We have to enable people to become healthy in their own style…

.[T]he model of self-actualization so far seems not only cross-cultural but even cross-historical as well. In cultures as diverse as the Japanese and Blackfoot Native American, I have found significant similarities in how the saint or sage is depicted….

Finally, it must be stated that self-actualization is not enough. Personal salvation and what is good for the person alone cannot be really understood in isolation. Social psychology is, therefore, necessary. The good of other people must be invoked, as well as the good for oneself, even though it must be demonstrated how these are—or may be—synergetic. To some extent, the individual’s interests and those of his or her team or organization, culture, or society may be at odds—even thought an overall principle of synergy may prevail. But, in any case, it is quite clear that a purely intrapsychic, individualistic psychology, without reference to other people and social conditions, is not adequate.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

35


In his work to identify the most human and humane elements of our essences, to clarify what it meant to be human, he devoted enormous time to the subject of peak experiences.

Maslow (1970) describes these experiences as the joyous and exciting moments in life, characterized by feelings of intense happiness and well-being, wonder and awe. They may well include impressions or senses of the presence of a transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth that would only be possible from a special, higher vantage point. The experiences can be triggered by a variety of experiences externally or internally such as meditation, intense love, encountering great art or music, or the beauty of nature.

lxii

What distinguishes Maslow’s viewpoint on such experiences, and what makes them particularly relevant to this discussion of happiness, is that he was adamant that such experiences were available to and experienced by everyone. They were not in the sole purview of saints and mystics, but present in or accessible by each of our lives. He felt that it was learning the capacity to sustain these experiences, what he called peak plateaus, that was the goal of our selfactualizing impulses. Maslow (1996) insisted that “Though real happiness may be transient, it is still quite vivid in memory and can be deliberately recalled, re-experienced and re-enjoyed like a ruminated cud. This involves a voluntary and intellectual process that we can all learn to accomplish. It is also a way to widen and enrich our ordinary consciousness.”

Maslow’s emphasis on people’s ability to experience and re-experience peak experiences relates closely with the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) work of David Cooperrider (2001) and his colleagues, particularly Barrett and Fry (2005), at Case Western Reserve University in

Cleveland, OH. AI is based on positive psychology, one of the principles of which is free inquiry as a necessary foundation for happiness, lxiii and social constructionism. As Cooperrider

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

36

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 describes it in Barrett and Fry (2005) “It is all about the power of AI as a way of creating a relational space for the cooperative construction of reality”. Barrett and Fry (2005) describe AI’s purpose in terms of how “AI initiates a deliberate, systematic search for those distinctive assets, best practices, metaphors, dreams, musings, and wishes that embrace a spirit of vitality and potency. It involves searching for the antecedents, catalysts, and supporting factors that embolden and promote an enduring spirit—the central strengths and competencies that contribute to the exceptional potential and vitality of the system.” lxiv

Within this basic framework we can see that AI encompasses much of what we have been searching for and describing as the necessary shift in thinking we need to push management to appreciate the importance of working more strongly to build on the strengths and capabilities of all stakeholders. AI explicitly steps away from a standard action research focus on problem solving to a generative approach to action research and organizational development. Cooperrider

& Srivastva (1987) are quite explicit about the need to emphasize the generative capacity of organizations rather than the necessarily deficit-orientation of a problem-solving approach:

“Highlighted here instead is an alternative understanding that defines social and behavioral science in terms of its ‘generative capacity,’ that is, its ‘capacity to challenge the guiding assumptions of the culture, to raise fundamental questions regarding contemporary social life, to foster reconsideration of that which is taken for granted and thereby furnish new alternatives for social actions’” (Gergen, 1978)

Cooperrider & Shrivasta (1987) lay out a clear definition of the transformative nature of

AI itself, its cognitive, social and theoretical underpinnings. They see it as a socio-rationalist alternative to standard problem-solving approach of action research that takes as its presumptive

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

37

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 basis the segregation of theory from action, of research from possibility. They argue that we can no longer “continue to talk about theory and practice in dualistic terms….We need to examine exactly what it means to merge the idea and the act, the symbolic and the socio-behavioral, into a powerful and integral unity.” The replicative nature of a logical positivist approach to diagnosing and transforming organizational circumstances simply doesn’t work in, or to foster, a synchronously networked natural, humane and technological complex environment. Their definition and description of the essential nature of AI fully addresses concerns we’ve raised regarding the current management malaise. Consonant with the work of Drucker, Deming and

Maslow discussed above, it provides both a theoretical construct and a methodological vehicle to open the way toward how we must move forward spiritually, conceptually and physically as part and parcel of our efforts to create the spaces, systems and structures in our organizations and societies that are crucial to human flourishing. Specifically:

Appreciative inquiry is presented here as a mode of action research that meets the criteria of science as spelled out in generative-theoretical terms. Going beyond questions of epistemology, appreciative inquiry has as its basis a metaphysical concern: it posits that social existence as such is a miracle that can never be fully comprehended (Quinney,

1982; Marcel, 1963). Proceeding from this level of understanding we begin to explore the uniqueness of the appreciative mode. More than a method or technique, the appreciative mode of inquiry is a way of living with, being with, and directly participating in the varieties of social organization we are compelled to study. Serious consideration and reflection on the ultimate mystery of being engenders a reverence for life that draws the researcher to inquire beyond superficial appearances to deeper levels of the life-generating essentials and potentials of social existence. That is, the actionresearcher is drawn to affirm, and thereby illuminate, the factors and forces involved in organizing that serve to nourish the human spirit.

So how does it work? A few of their structural assumptions merit emphasizing at this point. First, as Klingborg (2010) does with his “common pictures” team development process alluded to earlier, Cooperrider & Shrivasta (1987) point out that when working with any kind of team or organization “It is well established that groups are formed around common ideas that are

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

38

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 expressed in and through some kind of shared language which makes communicative interaction possible.” Contextually, they emphasize that “The position taken by the socio-rationalist philosophy of science is that the conduct of inquiry cannot be separated from the everyday negotiation of reality.” Further clarifying the distinctions between the appreciative attitude central to AI and the standard critical attitude of a status-quo supporting, deficit oriented, problem-solving approach, they quote learning theorist David Kolb (1984) and his analysis of the structure of the knowing mind (which was published before the AI process was fully developed):

Finally, appreciation is a process of affirmation. Unlike criticism, which is based on skepticism and doubt, appreciation is based on belief, trust, and conviction. And from this affirmative embrace flows a deeper fullness and richness of experience. This act of affirmation forms the foundation from which vital comprehension can develop.

Appreciative apprehension and critical comprehension are thus fundamentally different processes of knowing. Appreciation of immediate experience is an act of attention, valuing, and affirmation, whereas critical comprehension of symbols is based on objectivity (which invokes a priori controls of attention, as in double-blind controlled experiments), dispassionate analysis, and skepticism.

Or, as writer and doyenne of the writers and artists in Paris in the 1930’s “No artist deserves criticism; every artist needs honest appreciation.” It is this appreciation focus that is what AI is.

Appreciation is all about valuing, esteeming, seeing, perceiving and even increasing in value.

Thus the driving force behind AI is simply the unconditional positive question. Questions frame up our realities. What we ask determines what we will learn, what we discover. They define what we are paying attention to, what is on our minds. Barrett & Fry (2005) identify AI closely with the social constructionist view of human interaction that proposes that “we create the world that we call ‘real’ through our words—our conversations, symbols, metaphors, and stories.”

They lay out six principles, the first five developed by David Cooperrider and the sixth by them, that embody the AI process of helping people rethink human organization and change. 1—The

Constructionist Principle: As We Talk, So We Make; 2—The Poetic Principle: As We Choose

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

39


Topics of Inquiry, So We Open New Horizons of Action; 3—The Principle of Simultaneity: As

We Ask Questions, So We Become Transformed (and in turn, Transform What We Ask About);

4—The Anticipatory Principle: As We Anticipate, So We Create; 5—The Positive Principle: As

We Discover Moments of Hope, Joy, and Caring, So We Enjoy Generative Experiences; and,

6—The Narrative Principle: As We Weave Stories, So We Create Lasting Bonds.

These six principles are enacted through what AI practitioners call the “4-D’s: Discovery,

Dream, Design, and Destiny. As we see how Barrett & Fry (2005) elaborate on each of these steps, recall Maslow’s (1996) emphasis on the ubiquity and vitality of peak experiences:

The Discovery phase centers on the inquiry into the Best of the Past. This is where the

“inquiry” dimension of Appreciative Inquiry is paramount; where the transformational learning journey begins. Through an intentional protocol, questions are asked to solicit stories and experiences of when an organizational factor was at its very best, most effective, most prevalent, etc. Once positive topics are chosen…stories of these highpoint experiences are shared and roved for underlying meaning or lessons….When the best of “what is” has been discovered, conversation naturally turns to imagining new possibilities. Capacity building through visouning a preferred future involves “passionate thinking” about a positive image of a desired future state….

[T]he Dream stage extends what is currently possible to “imagining all that could be;” generating images of the ideal state that we really wish for….In the Dream phase, people imagine new dimensions, outcomes, and results.

The Design phase addresses the question: What kind of organizational forms, policies, and structures will enable the cooperative capacity necessary to make these imaginative outcomes and highest wishes become a reality?...Designing involves creating the foundations upon which guiding structures are built….In this kind of designing (and in the Destiny phase that follows), participants are actually bringing a new organizational world into being—now—as opposed to planning for it in the abstract, or discussing how others will do it later on. Increased cooperative capacity is being enacted for all to witness….

The aim of the Destiny phase is to ensure that the shared dreams can be realized through the “blueprint” of desired actions/outcomes. To do this, participants in AI do specific action planning, scenario building, and role allocation for the necessary next steps. They also consider how they will expand the involvement in their change initiatives to others who may not be present but who are nonetheless vested in, or have expertise related to, the topic or change to be undertaken….

The AI4-D process of Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny provides a choreography of multi-stakeholder inquiry and dialogue that results in expanded abilities,

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

40

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 desires, and commitments to cooperate for a common good. This 4-D process begins with co-inquiry into the best of the past in order to discover the positive core of the human system. This renewed connection to the system’s greatest strengths enables members to dream boldly and confidently about a preferred future. With shared ideals in mind and the system’s strengths at hand, members can then design initiatives, changes, and structures to move toward their shared vision of a preferred future. This coconstruction of new cooperative ventures launches a new journey of learning, improvising, and appreciation that can re-generate itself. The building and expansion of cooperative capacity is limitless.

HOW CAN “WE” MANAGE TO BE HAPPY?

“We” is not an abstract term. We are us. You and me. This paper is not meant only as a contemplative, theoretical debate. In the Aristotelian tradition human flourishing requires both contemplation and action, a praxis, a dialectic, as May (2010) explains. Together we have explored assumptions about the nature of happiness, cultures and effective organizational management. A consistent theme, from Aristotle’s eudaimonia to the Buddhist practices of

Bhutan to the tools of appreciative inquiry is that we must be deeply mindful both of our own predispositions and of the context within which we are engaging others. Ethicists would say, the applied, normative and meta-ethical discourses within which we are embedded.

“Without realizing who you are, happiness cannot come to you.”—Yogi Bhajan lxv

Our obsessively scheduled, detached from nature—whether the world’s or our own— spiritually devoid lives, quite naturally turn to compulsive consumption. We are empty, hungry, and thus must consume something. But we are missing the point, which is, etymologically, our sin.

lxvi

This is fundamental to every spiritual tradition. As McDonald (2005) explains

Bhutan’s development philosophy accords with long established ideals in Western secularism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Confucianism along with the vast majority of the world’s indigenous ‘faiths’ from Africa to the Americas and from the Pacific to

Asia. To seek national happiness then is nothing new but rather a long standing tradition that only appears novel to modern secular societies as a function of the obscuring impacts

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

41

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 of a modernist paradigm that confuses the means to happiness with the end itself….[T]he achievement of widespread happiness is only possible via the prior cultivation of moral maturity.

My intent is to raise the bar, to enable us, you and me, to appreciate how we can and must think and take action in our work and lives. I hope I have presented a few useful templates to help us as we advance our understanding of our own drives, goals and values, so as to experience human flourishing, inner happiness. There are many more available. The possibilities, as my AI colleagues emphasize, are limitless.

I include in the appendix a list of benefits for organizations attentive to employee happiness. These “Top Ten Findings that Really Matter” (Pryce-Jones, 2010) were the outcome conclusions from a set of studies on the utility of having happy employees that was performed over several years by London-based iOpener , a “human asset management” group, founded in

2003 by Jessica Pryce-Jones (2010). Given our earlier reference to the general lack of happiness in British organizations (Kjerulf, 2010), this study suggests managerial attention to creating space and systems that promote happiness in their organizations has a rapid and significant payback in terms of productivity and employee engagement.

As a resident of the state of Minnesota, one specific and long established example of how well our recommended approach to flourishing works is very well-known to me, that of 3M— originally known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. William McKnight, the man who led 3M during its early formative years and, as with most entrepreneurs, from whose personal values is derived the soul of 3M’s corporate culture, was committed to the kind of “open space” philosophy that we are advocating. Their continuing commitment to this philosophy has resulted

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

42

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 in 3M being consistently looked at as one of America’s most innovative and admired companies.

According to the company website lxvii

William L. McKnight Management Principles Created 3M's Corporate Culture

William L. McKnight, who served as 3M chairman of the board from 1949 to

1966, encouraged 3M management to "delegate responsibility and encourage men and women to exercise their initiative." His management theories are the guiding principles for 3M. Our heritage dates back more than 100 years, and McKnight's principles continue to accompany us in the 21st century. William L. McKnight joined Minnesota Mining and

Manufacturing Co. in 1907 as an assistant bookkeeper. He quickly rose through the company, becoming president in 1929 and chairman of the board in 1949. Many believe

McKnight's greatest contribution was as a business philosopher, since he created a corporate culture that encourages employee initiative and innovation.

His basic rule of management was laid out in 1948:

"As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.

"Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs.

"Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative.

And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow."

Maslow (1996) at the end of his short essay “Can Monks Be Self-Actualizing?” sums up rather well our overarching themes. I thus conclude this experiment with his words—plus a couple of quotes that can inspire us to remember who we are. “Buddha once said to the world, ‘You are not the victims of an external law but of an internal cause.’ This ancient principle certainly appears valid today. A hostile person living in utopia is still a hostile person and will even destroy it—unless it can change him or her first. The big challenge, therefore, is for us to integrate the Western and Eastern conceptions of self-actualization and inner peace. The good world helps to permit the good person to be good. It also helps to create good children who are more likely to become good adults.”

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

43


“For when the winds of change come, we can be among the trees that snap. Or we can be among the growth that sprouts beneath the sun. We cannot stop the wind. But we can choose whether we will grow, or whether we will wither.” lxviii

“Find me a society of people who dance every day and I will show you a happy society.”

(Schumaker, 2007)

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. –

Friedrich Nietzsche

REFERENCES

Barrett, Frank J. and Fry, Ronald E. Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Building

Cooperative Capacity. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications

Brandenburg, Jim. (2001) Chased by the Light, 2 nd

ed.. Mankato, MN: Creative Publishing

International.

Childs, Marquis. (1966) Sweden: The Middle Way. New Haven: Yale University Press

Conley, Chip. (2010) Measuring what Makes Life Worthwhile. Accessed August 5, 2010.

[Available at: http://dotsub.com/view/011a2459-55f0-4309-9d69-

366115e6e561/viewTranscript/eng and http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chip_conley_measuring_what_makes_life_worthwhile.html

and http://chipconley.com/musings/?m=201007 ]

Cooperrider, David & Srivastva, Suresh. (1987) Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life.

Research on Organizational Change and Development, 1, 129-169.

Curtis, Adam (2002) The Century of the Self. British Broadcasting Corporation. Accessed

October 2008. [available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self.shtml

]

Deming, W. Edwards. (1982) Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Drucker, Peter. (2001) The Essential Drucker. New York: HarperCollins.

Franklin, S.S. (2010) The Psychology of Happiness: a good human life. New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Frey, Bruno S. and Stutzer, Alois. (2009) Should national happiness be maximized? In Dutt, A.

K. and Radcliff, Benjamin (Eds.), Happiness, Economics and Politics: Towards a Multi-

Disciplinary Approach. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Gardner, Martin. (2000) The Annotated Alice: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. New York: W.W. Norton

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

44


Gergen, K. Toward Generative Theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1344-

1360

Hall, Edward T. (1983) The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time. New York: Anchor

Book

Hasselberg, John. (2009) The Tao of Lagom: A Middle Way for the Middle Kingdom.

Unpublished paper. [Video presentation available at https://connect.case.edu/p39315287/ ]

Huang Liu-Hung. (1984) A complete book concerning happiness and benevolence : a manual for local magistrates in seventeenth century China. Chu, Djang, trans. & ed.. Tucson, AZ.:

University of Arizona Press.

Inglehart, Ronald, et.al (2008) Development, Freedom, and Rising Happiness: A Global

Perspective (1981–2007). Accessed August 16, 2020. [available at ttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_106 ]

Johansson, Frans. (2006) The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us about Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Kennedy , Robert F. (1968) University of Kansas speech. Accessed August 10, 2010. [available at http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/RFK/RFKS peech68Mar18UKansas.htm

]

His Majesty King Khesar. (2008) Gross National Happiness. The Centre for Bhutan Studies.

Accessed August 1, 2010. [available at http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com

]

Kjerulf, Alexander. (2008) Of Brits and Danes and Happiness at Work. Accessed August 1,

2010. [available at http://positivesharing.com/2008/05/of-brits-and-danes-and-happiness-atwork/ ]

Kolb, David A. (1984) Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Maslow, Abraham. (1970) Religion, values and peak experiences. New York: Viking.

Maslow, Abraham. (1996) Future Visions: The unpublished papers of Abraham Maslow.

Hoffman, Edward (ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications

May, Hope. (2010) Aristotle's Ethics : moral development and human nature. London ; New

York : Continuum.

McMahon, Darrin. (2009) The history of happiness and contemporary happiness studies. Dutt,

A.K., and Radcliff, Benjamin, eds. Happiness, Economics and Politics: Towards a Multi-

Disciplinary Approach. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

45


Nachmanovich, Stephen. (1990) Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. New York: Jeremy

P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Price-Jones, Jessica. (2010) Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for

Success. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell

Rachman, Gideon. (2010) The west re-examines the rat race. Financial Times. London. May

31, 2010. Accessed July 25, 2010. [available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/804b928e-6cde-

11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html

]

Rifkin, Jeremy. (2004) The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly

Eclipsing the American Dream. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin

Safer, Morley. (2008) Happy Danes. 60 Minutes CBS News program. Accessed July 20, 2010.

[available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/60minutes/main3833797.shtml

]

Schein, Edgar. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership. 3 rd

Ed. San Francisco: Jossey-

Bass

Seligman, Martin. (2002) Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize

Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press.

Sheldon, K.M., & Lyubomirsky, Sonja. (2009) Change your actions, not your circumstances: an experimental test of the Sustainable Happiness Model. Dutt, A.K. & Radcliff, Benjamin, eds..

Happiness, Economics and Politics: Towards a Multi-Disciplinary Approach. Northampton,

MA: Edward Elgar.

Schumaker, John F. (2007) In search of happiness: Understanding an endangered state of mind.

Westport, CT: Praeger.

Stiglitz, Joseph, et. al. (2009) Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic

Performance and Social Progress. Accessed August 15, 2010. [available at http://www.stiglitzsen-fitoussi.fr

]

Teacher, Sarah. (2010) One Generation Plants the Trees, Another Gets the Shade: China’s

Social Sector in 2010. Accessed August 8, 2010. [Available at: http://www.instituteforphilanthropy.org/cms/pages/documents/China_Report_Philanthropy_2010

.pdf

]

Wang, Stephen. (2009) Aquinas & Sartre: On freedom, personal identity, and the possibility of happiness. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.

Woodcock, George. The Tyranny of the Clock. Politics. Vol. 1, 1994.

Zeruvabel, Eviatar. (1981) Hidden Rythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

46


APPENDIX

Condensation of the 14 Points for Management

The following is excerpted from Chapter 2 of Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming: The 14 points for management in industry, education and government follow naturally as application of this outside knowledge, for transformation from the present Western style of management to one of optimization.

Origin of the 14 points. The 14 points are the basis for transformation of American industry. It will not suffice merely to solve problems, big or little. Adoption and action on the 14 points are a signal that the management intend to stay in business and aim to protect investors and jobs. Such a system formed the basis for lessons for top management in Japan in 1950 and in subsequent years. The 14 points apply anywhere, to small organizations as well as to large ones, to the service industry as well as to manufacturing. They apply to a division within a company.

The 14 points.

1—Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2—Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3—Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4—End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5—Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6—Institute training on the job.

7—Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8). The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.

8—Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company (see Ch. 3).

9—Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10—Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

47

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

11—Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.

12—Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective (see Ch. 3).

13—Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14—Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Ten Top Findings That Really Matter

Here are our ten most important findings:

1.

People who are happiest at work are 47 percent more productive than their least happy colleagues. In concrete yet conservative terms they are contributing a day and a quarter more than their least happy colleagues. Per week.

2.

Those who are happiest at work take only 1.5 days off sick ad year. In the UK and the

USA the average employee takes 6 days off but in the public sector that ranges from 11 up to a staggering 20 days. We know that happiness is the cause of this because of the way we constructed our questionnaire—and because other researchers’ findings corroborate this, too. However you look at it, the happiness multiplier effect across any organization is enormous.

3.

Employees in the top happiness group have 180 percent more energy than those who are most unhappy at work. Everyone wants to be around people with energy because it’s so enthusing and motivating—as well as being a really good indicator of happiness at work.

4.

When you are in the highest happiness group, you’ll have 155 percent more happiness at work when compared to people in the lowest happiness group. And your overall happiness with life score will be 180 percent more, too.

5.

Engagement is something that many organizations measure and manage: the happiest employees report that they are 108 percent more engaged than their least happy colleagues. And they have 82 percent more job satisfaction, too.

6.

Without motivation nothing gets done: employees who are most happy at work are 50 percent more motivated than people who are least happy at work.

7.

People in the top happiness category feel that they achieve their potential 40 percent more than unhappy employees. That’s probably because they embrace goals 30 percent more and they’re up for 27 percent more in terms of challenges, too.

8.

Happier employees report that they experience 28 percent more respect from their colleagues and 31 percent more from their bosses than their least happy colleagues.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

48


9.

People who are happier are 25 percent more effective and efficient than those who are least happy. And they have 25 percent more self-belief, too.

10.

Your working environment doesn’t contribute to how happy you feel in your job. Shiny new offices, beautiful carpets, and high-tech offices, just like pay rises, cause a temporary

11.

hike in happiness, after which people will return to their usual level.

ENDNOTES i http://www.instituteforphilanthropy.org/cms/pages/documents/China_Report_Philanthropy_2010.pdf

ii Schumaker, John F. (2007) In search of happiness: Understanding an endangered state of mind. Westport, CT:

Praeger. p. 282 iii Johansson, Frans. (2006) The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us about Innovation.

Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. P. 17 iv May, Hope. (2010) Aristotle's Ethics: moral development and human nature. London; New York: Continuum.p. 1 v

Schumaker, supra, at 107 vi May, supra vii Ibid, at 17 viii At the world-leading innovation group, the Biomimicry Guild, they describe this biomimicry as “ an emerging discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems”. http://www.biomimicry.net/ ix Yogi Bhajan is the creator of Yogi Tea, Golden Temple of Oregon, Inc., Eugene, OR www.yogitea.com

x For simplicity sake, I here bow to the convention of accepting the anachronistic segregation of our world into

“Western” and “Eastern” cultures. Clearly this is an arbitrary and capricious distinction on a spherical planet, even though nearly universally accepted in popular discourse. The fact that most people still unreflectively respond to this distinction2500 years after the Athenians constructed this duality of self-justification following their little spat with the Persians is testimony to the power and persuasiveness of language, culture and ideology. xi Franklin, S.S. (2010) The Psychology of Happiness: a good human life. New York: Cambridge University Press.

P.19 xii Stephen Nachmanovich is a widely respected (This work is highly recommended by such writers and performers as Robert Pirsig, Norman Cousins, Keith Jarret and Yehudi Menuhin) expert on improvisation as it relates to all aspects of life and art—which he feels cannot be disaggregated as we are all artists in the broadest and most human flourishing sense. My wife, Alissa Rath, has been inspired, partly by his work, to shift from a career in banking and finance to one in art, music, spirituality and healing—and is far healthier and happier as a result. Her succinct view is simply that Life = Art and Art = Life. Nachmanovich, Stephen. (1990) Free Play: Improvisation in

Life and Art. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. xiii Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, written in 6 th century BCE China and Musashi Miyamoto’s “The Book of Five Rings”, written in 17 th century Japan during the Tokugawa Shogunate, are the most well-known examples. xiv

Schumaker, supra, at 233 xv Wang, Stephen. (2009) Aquinas & Sartre: On freedom, personal identity, and the possibility of happiness.

Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. p. 263 xvi Schumaker, supra, at 75 xvii Rifkin, Jeremy. (2004) The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the

American Dream. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin. p. 105 xviii Ibid

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

49

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 xix Zeruvabel, Eviatar. (1981) Hidden Rythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press. p. 33 xx Rifkin, supra, at 108 xxi Ibid xxii Carroll, Lewis (1865) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Interestingly, given our earlier discussion of modernist schisms with nature, in his annotated version of the book, Martin Gardner states that the statement "a grin without a cat" is a reference, I would assume satirical by Carroll, to mathematics dissociating itself completely from the natural world. Gardner, Martin. (2000) The Annotated Alice: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the

Looking Glass. New York: W.W. Norton xxiii Woodcock, George. The Tyranny of the Clock. Politics. Vol. 1, 1994. pp. 265-266 xxiv Rifkin, supra, at 106 xxv McMahon, Darrin. (2009) The history of happiness and contemporary happiness studies. Dutt, A.K., and Radcliff,

Benjamin, eds. Happiness, Economics and Politics: Towards a Multi-Disciplinary Approach. Northhampton, MA:

Edward Elgar. pp. 25-32 xxvi Ibid xxvii Schumaker, supra, at 286 xxviii Ibid, at 233 xxix May, Supra, at 161 xxx Hasselberg, John. (2009) The Tao of Lagom: A Middle Way for the Middle Kingdom. Unpublished paper. Video

Presentation: https://connect.case.edu/p39315287/ . Cleveland, OH: Global Forum 2009: Business as an Agent of

World Benefit—Manage by Designing in an Era of Massive Innovation. xxxi Huang Liu-Hung. (1984) A complete book concerning happiness and benevolence : a manual for local magistrates in seventeenth century China. Chu, Djang, trans. & ed.. Tucson, AZ.: University of Arizona Press. p. 1. xxxii Hall, Edward T. (1983) The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time. New York: Anchor Books.

Hall explodes simplistic, linear assumptions about time as an easily quantified commodity. He lays out four categories of time, each of which he further divides two sub-categories: Explicit Technical Existential Time:

Biological and Physical, Philosophical and Conscious Time: Metaphysical and Sacred, High Context Time: Profane and Micro, and Unconscious Emergent Time: Synch and Personal. The implications for embracing a much more diverse, respectful, ambiguously rich and obliquely inspiring set of world views are profound, as he well explicates. xxxiii http://www.ted.com/talks TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It is an organization, founded in 1984, that conducts conferences, hosts lectures and develops and posts videos dedicated to Ideas

Worth Spreading. xxxiv “An Inquiry into the Nature and Sources of the Wealth of Nations” was the more recognized of Adam Smith’s work, published in 1776 and updated by him a total of seven times. It is attributed by many as the founding document justifying liberal market economics. He also published, in 1759, the equally, if not more important— keeping in mind that he was a moral philosopher—“A Theory of Moral Sentiments” without which I argue Wealth of Nations cannot be understood and with which any attempt to justify laissez-faire economics is implausible. xxxv Conley, Chip. (2010) http://dotsub.com/view/011a2459-55f0-4309-9d69-366115e6e561/viewTranscript/eng http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chip_conley_measuring_what_makes_life_worthwhile.html

http://chipconley.com/musings/?m=201007 xxxvi http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com

This official Bhutanese government site provides a concise and complete overview of the structure and systems developed to create and sustain the information and practices necessary to fulfill Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness strategies and principles. It includes a description of the origins of the concept, needs for it, and indicators to be assessed when monitoring GNH (There are nine indicator areas, each with several subcategories for assessment: Psychological Well-being, Time Use, Community Vitality,

Culture, Health, Education, Environmental Diversity, Living Standard, and Governance.) It also includes recent

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

50

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 speeches describing and celebrating the evolution of and the philosophical and cultural underpinnings, framework and goals for GNH. xxxvii Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress

Professor Joseph E. STIGLITZ, Chair, Columbia University, Professor Amartya SEN, Chair Adviser, Harvard University,

Professor Jean-Paul FITOUSSI, Coordinator of the Commission, IEP http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr

The Stiglitz Report, as its generally referenced, after identifying goals, issues, and challenges, provided twelve recommendations for future action: Recommendation 1: When evaluating material well-being, look at income and

consumption rather than production, Recommendation 2: Emphasise the household perspective, Recommendation

3: Consider income and consumption jointly with wealth, Recommendation 4: Give more prominence to the

distribution of income, consumption and wealth, Recommendation 5: Broaden income measures to non-market

activities, Recommendation 6: Quality of life depends on people’s objective conditions and capabilities. Steps

should be taken to improve measures of people’s health, education, personal activities and environmental

conditions. In particular, substantial effort should be devoted to developing and implementing robust, reliable

measures of social connections, political voice, and insecurity that can be shown to predict life satisfaction,

Recommendation 7: Quality-of-life indicators in all the dimensions covered should assess inequalities in a comprehensive way, Recommendation 8: Surveys should be designed to assess the links between various qualityof-

life domains for each person, and this information should be used when designing policies in various fields,

Recommendation 9: Statistical offices should provide the information needed to aggregate across quality-of-life dimensions, allowing the construction of different indexes, Recommendation 10: Measures of both objective and

subjective well-being provide key information about people’s quality of life. Statistical offices should incorporate

questions to capture people’s life evaluations, hedonic experiences and priorities in their own survey,

Recommendation 11: Sustainability assessment requires a well-identified dashboard of indicators. The distinctive

feature of the components of this dashboard should be that they are interpretable as variations of some underlying

“stocks”. A monetary index of sustainability has its place in such a dashboard but, under the current state of the

art, it should remain essentially focused on economic aspects of sustainability, and Recommendation 12: The

environmental aspects of sustainability deserve a separate follow-up based on a well-chosen set of physical

indicators. In particular there is a need for a clear indicator of our proximity to dangerous levels of environmental

damage (such as associated with climate change or the depletion of fishing stocks.) xxxviii Rachman, Gideon. (2010) The west re-examines the rat race. Financial Times. London. May 31, 2010. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/804b928e-6cde-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html

xxxix

Kennedy, Robert F. University of Kansas. March 18, 1968. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/RFK/RFKSpeech68Mar18UKa nsas.htm

xl http://www.guardiansofthefuture.org/bemidji The Bemidji Statement on Seventh Generation Guardianship:

"The first mandate...is to ensure that our decision-making is guided by consideration of the welfare and well being of the seventh generation to come." xli Frey, Bruno S. and Stutzer, Alois. (2009) Should national happiness be maximized? In Dutt, A. K. and Radcliff,

Benjamin (Eds.), Happiness, Economics and Politics: Towards a Multi-Disciplinary Approach. Northhampton, MA:

Edward Elgar. 301 – 323 xlii Access the public press release statement about the survey, including methodology and rationales, at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/uol-uol072706.php

or at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061113093726.htm

Access an expandable image of the “world map of happiness” at: http://www.thingsaregood.com/2006/07/31/world-map-of-happiness/ An expanded discussion of the forty-year history of happiness related research that is the foundation for this research can be accessed a t http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ , the most specifically relevant articles being Ingelhart, Welzel and

Foa. Happiness trends in 24 countries, 1946-2006 http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_106 , and Ronald Inglehart,1

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

51


Roberto Foa,2 Christopher Peterson,3 and Christian Welzel4. Development, Freedom, and Rising Happiness: A

Global Perspective (1981–2007). (1Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, 2Department of

Government, Harvard University, 3Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 4School of Humanities and

Social Sciences, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany) accessed at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_122/files/RisingHappinessPPS.pdf

xliii Happy Danes/60 Minutes http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/60minutes/main3833797.shtml

xliv “The Middle Way” social welfare policy description came into the fore during the 1930’s when there was a great deal of concern about the collapse of capitalism during the Great Depression as it was accompanied by the rise in state socialism. The extremely popular book, “Sweden: The Middle Way”, by Marquis Childs, published in 1936 was the catalyst. It’s important to note in our present context that “The Middle Way” is also a central tenet of

Buddhist practice, avoiding extremes in all aspects of life as necessary to achieving sustained happiness. xlv The following official sites describe and link to further details regarding the quality of life circumstances of each of the Nordic countries. http://www.denmark.dk/en http://www.iceland.org/ http://finland.fi/Public/default.aspx

http://www.norway.no/ http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/ xlvi http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6563639.stm?lsm

The article is a regular question & answer feature. In this edition the question titling the story is What can the Danes teach us about happiness? Danes are the happiest people in

Europe, a survey suggests. But what is the secret of their contentedness? The Magazine answers...To be well off, have a better work-life balance and good public services, and, possibly, to lower our expectations xlvii Kjerulf, Alexander. (2008) Of Brits and Danes and Happiness at Work. http://positivesharing.com/2008/05/ofbrits-and-danes-and-happiness-at-work/ xlviii I have found MIT professor Ed Schein’s simple construct a useful tool to remind me, and to inform and illustrate for my students, the relationship between artifacts and underlying values and generally un-reflected upon assumptions. A simple description of his system can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Schein

Schein’s work is focused on organizational culture, the concept of which he is considered the originator. It fits equally well with national cultures. As we move forward into the next section, it is also worth noting that Schein is a protégé of Douglas McGregor at MIT. McGregor was himself strongly influenced by Abraham Maslow whose work will be one of the foci of how we look at developing systems, strategies and structures conducive to human flourishing. The structure of Schein’s schema appears as:

My own parallel take on this phenomenon is to emphasize for students a four-part sequence wherein Assumptions underlie Perceptions which are catalysts to Feelings which manifest themselves in Behaviors. The point of this note is to emphasize that language is one of the more prominent embodiments of un-reflected upon assumptions.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

52

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 xlix http://chipconley.com/musings/?m=201007 l http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=business http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business

The etymological obviousness of this point, and its equally obvious implications for detaching work from deeper meaning and values, seem all too often lost on English language users. As the Swedish example illustrates, there is an inherent bias in a culture towards integrating work with the broader spectrum of activities that constitute human flourishing when the term for business literally means “nourishing life”. li Graham, Carol. (2009) Happiness around the world: the paradox of happy peasants and miserable millionaires.

New York: Oxford. 223. lii

Sheldon, K.M., & Lyubomirsky, Sonja. (2009) Change your actions, not your circumstances: an experimental test of the Sustainable Happiness Model. Dutt, A.K. & Radcliff, Benjamin, eds.. Happiness, Economics and Politics:

Towards a Multi-Disciplinary Approach. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. p. 339 liii Drucker, Peter. (2001) The Essential Drucker. New York: HarperCollins. p. 4 liv This is the 1988 essay that Drucker chose to use as the opening chapter of the compendium of his best works,

“The Essential Drucker”, compiled and published in 2001 when he was in his nineties. It lays a clear foundation for understanding his point of view as perhaps the most prolific and insightful commentator on and critic of the theory and practice of management during the twentieth century. His vision is certainly multidimensional. The dozens of books, beginning in 1946 with the first management book of its kind, “The Concept of the Corporation” certainly attest to his sweeping insights. I would recommend for those particularly interested in appreciating the breadth of his perspective his humbly titled 1979 memoir “Adventures of a Bystander”. lv Cornelius Castoriadis, Greek/French political philosopher of the twentieth century, often referred to as the

Godfather of the Paris ’68 Movement, strongly emphasized in his critiques of industrial and post-industrial capitalist and centrally planned societies the imagined nature of all institutions. Clearly institutions exist because we believe they exist, regardless of their physical presence, as we can see with greater clarity when they disappear, when no one believes in them any longer. See for reference his Figures of the Unthinkable, accessible at http://www.notbored.org/FTPK.pdf

lvi Dryden, John. Epistle X—To Congreve (l. 60) lvii Deming, W. Edwards. (1982) Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

See Appendix 1 for his 14 Points for Management. Deming, with degrees in electrical engineering and mathematical physics, was on the statistics faculty of New York University and on the Department of Agriculture staff when he was brought to Japan by MacArthur’s staff. He was invited to speak to the Japan Union of Scientists and Engineers in the late 1940’s where he taught them statistical quality control, the consequences of which they established the Deming Prize in 1950—still the top award for quality manufacturing in Japan. He is considered to be the most important non-Japanese contributor to Japanese manufacturing and business success. Most unfortunately for American competitiveness, it was not until the 1980’s that he was discovered and listened to actively by American business. He was also on the Columbia University faculty and, once discovered, a highly in demand consultant—active until days before he passed at the age of 93 in 1993. He established The Deming

Institute ( http://deming.org/ ) which today represents his work worldwide. lviii In April 2002, the BBC produced a documentary series, by Adam Curtis, entitled “The Century of the Self” http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self.shtml

It compellingly, chillingly and in painfully exquisite detail documents this lack of self, media and ideological awareness, in particular as it is present in the American and British societies. According to BBC publicity: “To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people.

Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States . How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?” "This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy ." - Adam Curtis' introduction to the first episode.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

53

10th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2 lix This listing is derived from the official website of The Deming Institute. See note li. lx Here are two versions of the hierarchy of needs structure developed in and from his work. The first fleshes out the characteristics of each level and the second notes, as he emphasized, the need deficit nature of the lower elements of the pyramid and the full being status of the top of it. lxi Maslow, Abraham. (1996) Future Visions: The unpublished papers of Abraham Maslow. Hoffman, Edward (ed).

Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Maslow was the first to popularize the term “synergy” as well. He learned of it from anthropologist Ruth Benedict. The full span of his work and life can be explored at the official site for accessing his materials: http://www.maslow.com/ lxii Maslow, Abraham. (1970) Religion, values and peak experiences. New York: Viking. lxiii Seligman, Martin. (2002) Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for

Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press. p. xi The originator of the positive psychology movement, Martin

Seligman, identifies three pillars of the field: “First is the study of positive emotion. Second is the study of the positive traits, foremost among them the strengths and virtues, but also the ‘abilities’ such as intelligence and athleticism. Third is the study of the positive institutions, such as democracy, strong families, and free inquiry, that support the virtues , which in turn support the positive emotions.” lxiv Barrett, Frank J. and Fry, Ronald E. Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Building Cooperative Capacity.

Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications Barrett and Fry have taken the principles they developed in cooperation with David Cooperrider and provided a manual for application based on real case examples that they have used. It is a central principle, wonderfully consistent with their AI philosophy, that the AI process remain open both in terms of source development and usage. This in itself reflects what Deming calls the new philosophy of management as open to possibility, breaking down artificial barriers, and working for the good of all stakeholders. lxv Yogi Bhajan is the creator of Yogi Tea, Golden Temple of Oregon, Inc., Eugene, OR www.yogitea.com

lxvi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamartia#cite_note-1 The Greek word “hamartia” was generally translated as

“sin” into English, however it really does not have the moralistic qualities Christianity attributes to sin but was more of a “missing the mark” or “character or personality flaw”. Buddhist ethics, which underpins the Bhutanese

Gross National Happiness system, is not based upon duty towards any deities. It is founded upon compassion for all sentient beings and upon the duty to cause their happiness and to prevent their suffering. The well-being of all sentient beings is seen as an end-in-itself and not a means towards any transcendent end. Buddhist ethics therefore closely corresponds to secular ethics and there is no Buddhist equivalent of the Abrahamic concept of sin. Buddhism recognizes a natural principle of Karma whereby widespread suffering is the inevitable consequence of greed, hatred and delusion. Buddhism therefore seeks to end suffering by replacing greed with selflessness, hatred with compassion and delusion with wisdom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin lxvii http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_WW/History/3M/Company/McKnight-principles/ lxviii Brandenburg, Jim. (2001) Chased by the Light, 2 nd ed.. Mankato, MN: Creative Publishing International.

October 15-16, 2010

Rome, Italy

54

How Can We Manage To Be Happy?

Related documents

Products

Support

How Can We Manage To Be Happy?

Related documents

Add this document to collection(s)

Add this document to saved

Suggest us how to improve StudyLib