We all think we know the things in life that will make us happy. More money, a bigger house, and greater power and prestige at work typically make the list. But happiness expert Arthur Brooks, a Harvard Business School professor who teaches the popular “Leadership and Happiness” course, said we’re getting it all wrong.
Speaking at a virtual CNBC Workforce Executive Council Town Hall last week, Brooks told chief human resources officers and other talent leaders that going after idols such as money, power, pleasure and fame will not deliver lasting happiness. “These pursuits are not inherently bad, but they become toxic when they’re treated as ultimate goals,” he said.
Rather than searching for these idols, or happiness overall, Brooks said people should be cultivating “happierness” — the ongoing process of becoming incrementally happier over time. He added that perfect, constant happiness is neither scientifically possible nor desirable.
“Mother Nature doesn’t care if we’re happy, yet we seem to believe that’s our destiny,” said Brooks, whose new book, “The Happiness Files,” is a compilation of some of his columns from The Atlantic. “Mother Nature has only two goals for us, which are to pass on our genes and to survive another day. Happiness is our business.”
He added that negative emotions like fear, anger, disgust and sadness, the ones humans so desperately try to avoid or eliminate, are our “alarm systems for threats. If you didn’t have those, you’d be dead in a week.”
Therefore, the path to “happierness,” Brooks said, is steady progress through improved habits, better self-understanding, and sharing happiness-building practices with others.
The ‘macronutrients’ of happiness
As for what constitutes the building blocks of happiness — or what Brooks called the “macronutrients” — he listed enjoyment (not just pleasure but shared, elevated experiences); satisfaction (the reward for striving and achieving); and meaning (understanding one’s purpose).
The mistake that organizations make when trying to make employees happy is actually ignoring unhappiness. Brooks explained that happiness and unhappiness are processed in different hemispheres in the brain and are not the opposite of each other.
“Many workplaces don’t suffer from insufficient happiness but from an excess of unhappiness,” he said. And as most CHROs can attest, the things that spike employee unhappiness are often caused by uncertainty, fear, and lack of control.
To dial down the temperature on unhappiness, Brooks said organizations can use two critical levers: autonomy and listening. Based on the research he has advised, including large-scale surveys of major U.S. companies, Brooks said workplaces where employees feel heard, respected, and involved in decisions consistently outperform others. Superficial perks like ping-pong tables or fancy snacks do little to make workers happy over time.
“What people truly want is a sense of influence over their working lives,” Brooks said.
Honest communication is part of that equation. Brooks urged leaders to share information as transparently as possible, admit when they themselves are unsure or fearful, and show vulnerability. And contrary to what many executives assume, vulnerability signals strength not weakness. It also helps to reduce anxiety among workers and helps to build trust.
Brooks also cautions people not to confuse empathy with compassion. “Empathy is feeling somebody else’s pain, and being kind of paralyzed by it,” he said. “Compassion means feeling somebody else’s pain, understanding what needs to be done and having the courage to do it, even if they don’t like it.”
Near the end of the conversation, Brooks responded to a question about whether younger people today are generally more unhappy than generations before them. He said yes, citing decades of data showing declines in faith, family, friendship, and community are leading to greater unhappiness. The disruptive effects of phones, social media, and the fallout from the pandemic have only added to young people’s malaise.
And Brooks believes that their preference for remote work isn’t doing them any favors, either. “There are all kinds of things that people think they want that actually are not the best for them,” he says, adding that remote work is among them. “Yes, working from home gives you a lot of flexibility, but it has long-term deleterious consequences for the company, for teams, and yes, for individuals. We, as humans, are wired to be social.”
To join the CNBC Workforce Executive Council, apply at cnbccouncils.com/wec.