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EconmomicTimes.com: We spend most of our lives learning to be unhappy, even as we strive for happiness

By Arati Menon Carroll,ET Bureau
May 28, 2010
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/corporate-dossier/We-spend-most-of-our-lives-learning-to-be-unhappy-even-as-we-strive-for-happiness/articleshow/5983530.cms

What is a class on ethics, values and happiness doing in an MBA curriculum? Isn't an MBA more about hard-nosed management and less about touchy-feely themes like purpose and values? Not if Srikumar Rao can help it. For some years now, this visiting professor at top business schools including Columbia , London Business School and Kellogg has been teaching a course called 'Creativity and Personal Mastery' . The only business school course that has its own alumni association, it aims to show students how to discover their unique purpose through group work and philosophical debate.

Rao, previously an executive at Warner Communications and McGraw-Hill , is also an adviser to senior business executives on issues of professional and personal effectiveness. According to Rao, the author of Are you Ready to Succeed?, even the most successful people will experience times when they will feel like "a big-wave surfer caught by an unexpected tsunami and tumbled repeatedly" .

Life, he says, will always throw curveballs at you when you least expect it, whether career woes or relationship traumas, and frequently it becomes overwhelming. His latest book Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful-No Matter What aims to be the guide to riding those waves, by finding joy in the big, and little things, and being able to do so anytime and anywhere . Ultimately, he says, while he can give you the roadmap, it's you who has to make the journey. Excerpts:

You teach a class on how people can experience more fulfilling lives—both personally and professionally . What are the effects of being unhappy at work on being unhappy with life as a whole?

They are very connected. I run into people all the time who compartmentalise their lives and say that they are doing great at work but their home life is a mess or vice-versa . This is a false dichotomy . You have one life - not a "home life" and a "work life" and a "something else life." And if any one aspect of your life is out of whack, your life is not working and the ramifications are felt everywhere.

Tell us a little bit about the various techniques that you teach that can help us radically change the way we experience life.

I use a variety of methods and, in some fashion, they all involve a conscious decision to choose the prism through which we view life. For example, a participant in one of my programs was a senior executive who would go ballistic when her visiting widowed mother called her regularly to ask when she was coming for dinner and chide her for being late. By degrees she stopped viewing this as "interfering" with her life and saw it as a sign of a lonely, bereaved woman reaching out for companionship. This generated genuine compassion in her and greatly improved her relations with her mother.

There are self-help books, leadership courses and motivational speakers all trying to fix our problems. How is what you teach different?

Indeed there is no shortage of practitioners in this field and some are very good and some are charlatans. Most tend to use techniques to "fix" problems. For example, if an executive's problem is anger outbursts he might be advised to breathe deeply before speaking or to count to ten slowly.

I don't play in this arena. I help executives identify the mental models they use that precipitate the unsuitable behavior and make changes in these models. This approach frequently solves a whole raft of "problems " simultaneously. Thus many who have taken my program report that they feel less stress, have better relations with bosses, peers and subordinates and get more done in less time.

At a time when people are generally more disengaged than they have ever been, is it really possible to be positive about everything?

Good question. I do not encourage people to "be positive ." In fact, I think that "positive thinking" is highly overrated and can sometimes be harmful. The problem lies in the name itself. "Positive" thinking implies that something has happened and you think this is "bad" so you now have to "think positive" to salvage some good from this unfortunate situation. This can be very draining and frequently does not work. I go much deeper and help participants in my programs refrain from labeling any event as "bad" . Imagine you are a civil engineer constructing a road. Then a swamp is not a "bad" thing. It is simply what it is and you use your energy to figure out a way to go through it or over it or under it and not on lamenting your situation or berating it. You can extend this analogy to many areas of your life and when you do, little will ever faze you.

There is suddenly a lot of talk about why MBA schools need to explicitly teach ethics along with leadership. Do you teach your students to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad?

You have just put your finger on the problem with many top MBA programs and why their graduates contribute so heavily to the mess in our business world and particularly in the financial sector. I hold that an exclusive emphasis on financial metrics is inherently demotivating and will eventually hurt the company. When a company's mission is to bring a greater good to a greater society and this is a genuine thrust as opposed to a platitude on the boardroom wall, then employees at all levels become engaged and energised. The innovation that results will propel the numbers as well.

You can't teach MBAs to "distinguish" a bad thing from a good thing by giving them a set of analytical tools. What you can do is inspire them to use mental models whereby they evaluate the actions they take in terms of impact on broader society and consciously try to work for the betterment of all and particularly the underprivileged.

There are people like you who believe that the function of business is to serve society; that profits are a by-product . Do you think all this talk of principled performance will last or is it a passing fancy?

Time will answer this question but I believe - and hope - that this is no passing fad. The sheer number of initiatives ranging from corporate social responsibility drives to Conscious Capitalism conferences would indicate that a fundamental rethinking of business values is taking place. The days of rapacious corporations are not yet over but they are certainly in twilight.

You speak a lot of what constitutes a great place to work. What is the company of the future ?

The company of the future will be one that is dedicated to making sure that all who come into contact with it reach more of their potential than before. This includes employees and also customers, vendors and the society at large. The new generation entering the workplace is more educated, more aware of choices they have and less amenable to being ordered about. They also demand meaning from work in addition to challenge. If outdated management structures don't change to accommodate these demands, they will simply crumble and disappear. Remember that slavery was an institution that flourished for centuries.

Tell us a simple secret for being happy at work.

This is a set-up , right? That's easy. Get a copy of my book Happiness at Work and don't just read it, actually do the exercises in it conscientiously.

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