Happiness as a By-Product of Meaningful Work

PERFORMANCE AND HAPPINESS

Senge connects organizational learning with making work more meaningful and rewarding. Vivienne Cox looked back on getting people to talk with one another in order to rethink a complex organizational structure: “That work was also the most fun I had ever had in business.” Although their ways of expressing it differ, I can think of few skillful practitioners of organizational learning who do not harbor similar aims. “I think the quality of relationships has improved a lot around here,” says Hamachi-Berry.

“People feel more creativity and the satisfaction of accomplishment in situations where they previously felt there was no way to change the systems,” says Ford’s Adams.

“It’s all about ‘productivity,’ personal and organizational productivity,” says HP’s Allen. “By that, I do not mean people having to work twelve hours a day instead of eight. I mean that people’s jobs increase in meaning, and it becomes dramatically easier to impact business results.”

Allen’s comment brings to mind a powerful story from the early days of the SoL network. In the early-1990s, Dave Marsing was responsible for the ramp-up of Fab 9, a factory that was the lead facility for Intel’s “486” microprocessor. It was an enormously challenging and stressful undertaking, and midway through he had a heart attack. He was fortunate that he was rushed to the emergency room and there was no long-term damage to his heart. But when he returned to his job several weeks later, he had a clear message to deliver to his colleagues. “I wanted them to know that I would no longer be working the insanely long hours that I had previously, and that I would be leaving in time for dinners with my family. They would know how to reach me on the weekends in case they needed me, but only for emergencies. I told them we would be taking more time to talk and reflect as we worked to meet our deadlines. I don’t think any of them thought I was serious, but gradually they realized I was.

“The culture we created with this shift was core to the formation of the values and principles that were at the heart of the design and development of the new Fab 11 factory, which we started a few years later. In the end we broke all records at Intel for the ramp-up of Fab 11, achieving full-scale operation nine to twelve months faster than the most aggressive estimate. This saved the company several billion dollars in cost, not to mention the market benefits of having the new chips we were making available that much sooner and designed into more new products for customers. The facility is still the world’s largest and highest performing factory in the world.

“What had become very clear to me was that we had been substituting working harder for working smarter. I mean, we had people being taken away in ambulances periodically, and it was just regarded as normal. When I made the commitment to stop working so intensely, it created space for others to choose likewise, and the result was we started working together differently, achieving what we never could have through just long hours and superhuman effort.”

Obviously, the happiness that people like Marsing seek does not imply a life without challenge or difficulties. In fact, when people become more engaged in and committed to their work, they are usually willing to confront more difficult issues. They are willing to risk doing things beyond their comfort zone. They are even willing to fail in pursuit of goals that really matter to them, rather than being trapped in avoiding shortfalls like “those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat,” as Theodore Roosevelt put it.

Bill O’Brien used to define happiness as “the general sense that your life is headed in the right direction and that you have the opportunity to make a difference.” I have always thought of it as one of those odd qualities we value but cannot achieve by direct effort. Have you ever known anyone working to be happy? In my experience such people have one thing in common: they are not very happy. On the other hand, if we live our lives in pursuit of what matters most to us, and we do our work with people whose friendship we value, we will have all the happiness we need. In this sense, happiness is simply a by-product of a life well lived. This is what motivates practitioners of organizational learning.

STRATEGIES

There is no formula for building a learning organization. The practitioner interviews offer ways to examine working relationships, goals, and habits of reflection, then judge what helps in a particular setting.