"What About the Unhappy Employees?"

Sybil Stershic tweeted me that excellent question recently. She’s of my friends and sources of all things good and right with employee engagement.

She asked it in response to my tweet about Rodd Wagner’s post, The Consultant’s Crusade Against Happiness. Rodd Wagner is the author of the most-impressive widgets: The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees as If They're Human.

Sybil and I spoke and I reread Rodd’s post recently. It’s still excellent, still making me ponder and stretch my brain well after the thrill of coffee has left for the day. That’s saying something.

That being said I still haven’t answered Sybil’s question: What about the unhappy employees.

I don’t know. I do know at some point, it’s not my problem.

Wanna know why?

You can’t make people happy. You can’t.

And, I’ve tried. I like happy people. I like making people happy. I like entertaining them. But at the end of the day ... you can’t make someone happy. Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup is quoted saying: The idea of trying to make people happy at work is terrible.

I agree. You can be there when they’re ready to be happy. You can give them the means to be happy. But after that it’s up to them.

Mr. Clifton picks the low-hanging fruit of free food and espresso machines to illustrate his point. I agree. These are the adult versions of ‘every child deserves a trophy.’ Maybe it’s the ‘every employee deserves a happy meal.’ They don’t. We don’t.

I’ve worked at places where we had free food; they were miserable places to work. The company went bankrupt.

I’ve worked at places where my starting pay was just a wee bit higher than unemployment and even at the meals we bought ( those were all of them), night and day, we talked about work like we were part of one big family and every meal was not like Thanksgiving Dinner where everybody smiled and said please and thank you but it was the meal you had later, maybe at a bar, where you got real honest and groused about it, laughed about it, sure we gossip’d and rolled our eyes and teased each other - and I’ve never been happier, more engaged and more productive.

Those work conversations were lubricated not by alcohol, no seriously, but by the happiness we shared as by-product of all we’d been through together ... growing up, growing the company, growing each other, growing ourselves. It bonded us together. It created a strong engagement among us towards our common goals. (Gawd that sounds so clinical. Who talks like that? Oh, right consultants and academics.)

Back to Sybil’s question: What about the unhappy people?

Well ... in one sense, who cares? Sure, that’s harsh and we live in a harsh world. But ... it, us, we ... weren’t the right fit for each other. Didn’t mean we weren’t good people. It just meant this is where we’re finding meaning and purpose and opportunity. You’re not seeing it, finding it. There’s somewhere else that’s better suited for you. And in a world of finite resources ...

Jeff DeWolfe wrote:

“It’s important to note that the restrainers of job happiness are common across organizations. Bad bosses, rotten coworkers, anemic rewards, horrific office spaces, out-of-whack work/life balance, and lousy communication are universal issues making jobs a bummer worldwide.”

The operative words are "common," "universal" and "worldwide." What's not said is "choice"and "work" and "learning."

I’ve shuffled and stomped in some unhappy shoes. That’s not to minimize their uncomfortable fit. It’s just to acknowledge that it’s better to find fault after you’ve walked the same hallways in each other’s shoes. 

And as I did I pointed at excellent examples and data to support my unhappiness thesis. I spoke up, connected it to the results, mine and the company’s, repeatedly and some times imperfectly, until I realized that ... if everyone else is happy and I’m not  ... then I’m the odd man out.

“Being happy is possible, look around.” I told myself. “But it’s improbable I’ll join them.”

As painful as that might be to realize, especially after speaking up over and over ... it’s not fair to ask everyone to change ‘cause I see a better way or I’m different or my feelings are hurt.

At other companies I still had bad bosses, rotten coworkers, anemic pay, absurd office spaces, no work/life balance. But,  the difference was we had communication. I was able to work through it. Michael Lee Stallard talks about the three V’s of a Connection Culture. Vision-Value-Voice. At these companies we were able to share our voices, listen to each other, and see where we’d lost track of our values - of what’s important to us. We connected those three, got back on track. I was happy. The unhappy ones weren’t able to say the same. On the other hand, they found places where they could communicate, where they shared a common language and goal and philosophy. Later, we could have coffee and share stories and laugh. But not working together. Go figure, huh?

In a world of limited resources like budgets for training, incentives, equipment and time ... you have to focus on those who are happy with what you can offer.

Can you offer more? Sure. Can you listen, learn and grow and change to be more inclusive? Sure. Matter of fact you have to if you want to grow your company.

On the other hand, what about the unhappy employees? I don’t know, really. There’s a part of me that wonders Could-I, Would-I, Should-I do more to reach out. There’s another part of me that says … and I have said this

“You know what, we’ve got a great opportunity here. You’re a salaried employee. Your schedule is your own. I help, standing in for, you when you need time off. We provide the best equipment and training. I’m always available. You have authority and autonomy on nearly every decision you want to make. For others it's a shared autonomy because of its wider impact. You understand how your work contributes to our success. We pay well above average, well above average. You work a 6.5 hour schedule. If you’re not happy, you have to think that this might not be the best place for you. We can help make the transition easy.”

Sometimes it’s neither the job nor the engagement nor the benefits nor casual Fridays nor a meeting on Tuesday nor last week’s misunderstanding. And if you've taken 9 out 10 steps to create a great place to work, well, it's okay to ask that others take the a few steps towards you or towards the door. Engaged employees, happy employees, share the responsibility for being engaged and happy.