Team happiness
Featured in the Developing an Emotionally Intelligent Team training manual
By Mike Bagshaw
Category: Emotional Intelligence
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
In the new positive psychology movement, our strengths, talents and happiness are the main focus. Happiness comes, not from having things, but from doing things that we find pleasurable. The most effective activities for giving pleasure are those that we find a bit hard. Simple stuff, that we can do with no effort at all, quickly becomes boring. Impossibly hard stuff makes us feel like failures. Trying something, finding it stretching, and then succeeding, is the stuff of happiness. This means that people are happiest when they can pursue what they are good at, whatever that might be. If their work covers what they want to do, they enjoy working, regarding it as not much different from play. It also gives them the chance for great personal growth, which brings self-confidence. This helps in their relationships, at home and in work. They are not constantly seeking plaudits, as their own sense of self-worth tells the how they are doing. They do not expect an unreasonable input from others, as they are largely self-fulfilled. Negative factors, like not having much money or being inclined to illness, have little effect unless they are extreme. Happy people can tolerate ailments or making do, as long as they spend their time in fruitful pursuits. A fruitful pursuit might be anything, from reorganising a filing cabinet to restructuring a multinational company. It’s being pleased with yourself for what you’re doing that counts. If this kind of positive feeling can be engendered in the work of the team, performance levels can soar.
You start the training activity with some light humour on an OHT. Participants are asked to look at what happiness is, and what makes them happy, using the Force Field Analysis method. Then you explore individual differences in a short exercise, before a facilitated discussion and presentation focuses on how to create a team climate to enhance fun and happiness. The participants then conduct a brainstorm on how to get more fun into their workplace. They also explore some ‘rules’ on fun at work. The training activity is rounded off with a syndicate group action-planning exercise.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to show participants a range of methods to increase the level of fun and happiness in the team.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 02:30:00 |
| No of Pages: | 23 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers with groups of people who need to improve the way they function as a team, increase their creativity, and reduce the stress in their work. It is designed for teams which have already developed a sound basis of trust, identity and efficacy.
Download the training activity, Team happiness as featured in the Fenman training manual; Developing an Emotionally Intelligent Team