Maybe they do, maybe they don't.<p>But I'll tell you one thing unhappy people do: they leave, taking all your institutional knowledge with them. And now you're on the hook for some serious employee acquisition costs, not to mention the downed productivity and training.<p>I recently left my job for another one, and it looks like my former colleagues are leaving one by one also. This is one of the major household-name software companies, one with a particularly infamous attrition rate. Every single person who's leaving started down that path because they were unhappy, not because someone made them an offer they couldn't refuse.<p>In this market, if your employees are not happy they <i>will</i> get poached.
Another report on the same study, from Jan. 2001 in the <i>Harvard Business Review</i>: <a href="http://hbr.org/2010/01/the-hbr-list-breakthrough-ideas-for-2010/ar/1" rel="nofollow">http://hbr.org/2010/01/the-hbr-list-breakthrough-ideas-for-2...</a><p>Here, the authors identify "making progress" as the single best predictor (of a number that they looked for) for job satisfaction, beginning a circle that is closed with the NYT article.
My job requires solving problems. The happier I am, the easier it is, because being worried about anything is quite a distraction. I'm not sure if I work harder when I'm happy, but it's certainly easier to get things done.
In my experience, there are some personality traits that cause some to people to strive far harder than others.<p>I think a strong desire to rectify deep rooted feelings of discontent and dissatisfaction can lead some people to work far harder than others - but in these cases actually achieving, eventually leads to a feeling of happiness.<p>EDIT: Down-voted for this? Seriously?
Is this a new realization? Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory explains that 'hygiene' factors keep a person from being unhappy, but aren't themselves motivators. So having a good salary keeps someone from becoming unhappy, but isn't itself a motivator (except possibly a very short time).<p>And as Gladwell writes in Outliers: "Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying."
Interesting stuff, thanks for posting. Ordered the book and looking forward to reading it.<p>As a software developer this talk about the importance of making small steps of <i>progress</i>, makes me associate this with Test-Driven Development, where I, or even better me and my pair-programming partner, continually get a sense of progress.
> <i>Fully 95 percent of these managers failed to recognize that progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses.</i><p>I find this especially striking, considering how taking part in producing excellent products employees can be proud of and take ownership in is one of the key aspects in the quality management philosophy coming from Japan / W.E. Deming - and these philosophies should be sufficiently popular and known in the western world by now since they are very typical management training material.
No. Happier people work smarter. ^_^<p>Already down voted by cool hackers, so perhaps I need to put some first-grader-level explanations. ^_^<p>The classical saying declares that 'the only hell on Earth is ignorance'. The description of stupidity is, in general,
'restricted, repetitive behavior'. Several studies says that what we call a luck is a matter of attention and awareness (Catch the moment! - you know). Stress reduces awareness, make people too narrow, too repetitive (defense mechanism). Now, try to recall an illustration from famous (among hackers) Alan Kay's lectures, where people digging for a treasure and they're doubling the effort instead of shifting to other place. And at last, but not least, especially related to silent down-voting - one can't see what one don't know - recognizing has this 're' in front of it. ^_^<p>So, happier people, which means less restricted, less repetitive, less self-limited, more open, more aware, more awake, with broader vision and greater attention, calmer and balanced yes, in consequence, work smarter rather than harder.