The current issue of YES! Magazine features an article, "This is Your Brain on Bliss," by Matthieu Ricard: http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=3046 Ricard is a former cellular geneticist, current Buddhist monk who works with the Dalai Llama. It reminded me of the research being conducted at UW by Prof. Richard Davidson and others, and sure enough, Ricard is among the monks that Davidson has researched here in Madison: http://tezpur.keck.waisman.wisc.edu/press/NCCAMOct08.pdf
Does happiness contribute positively to our capacity to be innovative? Does it catalyze us to do great things? I tend to think it does, as an affirming set of relationships and a capacity to find joy helps us manage anger, distraction, and fear. If we are happy, we are more able to live our lives from a place of generosity, thus opening ourselves to discovering new pathways to solutions that might otherwise trap us.
On the other hand, I also know that many great work teams have been successful in quite agitated, tense environments. Warren Bennis, in his book Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (1997), profiles a number of these groups. Their capacity to succeed often involved working under pressure and scrounging for resources, often led by obsessed, harsh leaders within larger organizations that required continuous negotiation in order to solve the challenges at hand. What Bennis described hardly seems to fit with the monk's context for meditative happiness, yet we still come upon a 'high' thrill that successful innovators achieved in those experiences of unbounded, creative synergy.
Different pathway, but still a pathway to happiness.
There is much to be learned from the journey towards sustained happiness. In a practical sense, we must cultivate organizational climates that satisfy people, get them fully engaged, and sustain their creative energies. If they stay engaged and sustain the 'high' that emerges from successfully producing responses to increasingly complex challenges, those experiences will facilitate new capacities to respond to emergent challenges. They may also experience improved health and well-being, improved sense of relationships (with it, improved communication and capacities to resolve conflicts), and perhaps lower costs often associated with illness.
Think about it... is happiness a good investment in these challenging financial times?
-Harry
This post was highlighted in the January 5th edition of Gratitude Watch.
ReplyDeleteThank you for promoting the value of gratitude.