Happiness @ work - Part 1

Introduction:

As Paul Hawken had put it into perspective recently, “You can print money to bail out a bank, but you can’t print life to bail out a planet, At present, we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. Whenever we exploit the earth, we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich”

GDP had always been a boasting factor representing the growth for great nations. The whole world is counting on what is spent by their people or what is earned by people during a given fiscal period. The data accounts to the computation of the greatness of a nation which is basically where it stands in the economic winners stand.
We as humans are not realizing anymore, the simple fact that subjects that were of utmost priority for our ancestors become our priority too unknowingly. And how often have you heard someone asking you at home or workplace "How happy are you here?" By people who matters most to limit or exhaust your happiness.

I would weigh my odds on people never asking this question. Why nobody asks this question? Why no husband asks wife? Why no dad asks his son this? Why no corporate management asks this to you?

Let's imagine someone really asked you this question. Do you think you could gauge it? Can your happiness be measured? If at all you measure, the scales you use might differ from the person who is asking you the very same question. So how can it be measured? How can someone tell me, "Hey Arun, my happiness index rating for you is 5.5"? And what on earth am I supposed to understand from this? In this write-up, I am trying to measure the level of happiness at work. I do understand the fact that great writers had always quoted, "Happiness can only be pursued." Let me pursue this broken dream of measuring how much we are pursuing to pursue happiness and were we stand in a standard scale of 1 to 10 with happiness in life.

Don't tell me it's impossible to deduce a score from your mind based on some scale which cannot be bought anywhere in the world or even visualized right now by any of us. I know that it is insane to even attempt it, but considering the fact that it could be this insanity which could trigger the series of unfortunate events to lead to complete sanity and wisdom, why shy let’s give it a shot.

Why to?

I would assume that you all understand why we need this? And who all could benefit from this. In case you don't get my point, do read this section carefully. Every human being loves and enjoys the feeling when someone is there to care for them. This love is the binding factor between every relation. Rather I would say this love is the relation that binds two persons or objects. The care, warmth & support that we get from others drive people closer and make their life better or worse.

If we as an individual have this feeling, consider a collection of individuals which is basically a group, and then think of a larger group which could be a bigger unit, now imagine a larger unit which is nothing but an Organization. What would be the feeling of an organization when she knows that we all as different units, groups and individuals care for her? It would be very difficult for the organization to be ignorant about this affection of individuals categorized as employees. If we are able to practice a method that would help our organizations gauge how much we love or hate her, she can think about taking it seriously. If a larger group or unit share the same sentiments and work on it to create more happy faces which would eventually mean more productive individuals, groups, units and more profits.

This is just one side of the story, the other side is we as an individual could get better direction in life to gauge our happiness and productivity on current role or responsibilities. This system will allow us to understand what we need to concentrate in life. This statement is not meant to have any disrespect on personal motives and objectives. This is only to shed more light on the happiness and satisfaction this could bring to a group and bigger collections. Key indicators would be used to describe the process and simplify enough for people to digest it with no added dilution to it.
Key indicators are described on dictionaries as follows:

"sometimes referred to as headline indicators, define a core set of information that have been selected from a range of possibilities. There is no “right” number of indicators; how the balance is struck between simplicity and breadth of coverage can vary widely."