When my first niece was born (more years ago than I care to remember), one of my first gifts to her was “Where The Wild Things” Are by Maurice Sendak. “Where The Wild Things Are” was the start of her love affair with his books, and she eventually accumulated every one of his works as a part of her budding library.

So like millions around the world, my niece and I were both saddened to hear that, at the age of 83, Maurice Sendak had died.

He left behind him an impressive legacy of books that were hugely popular with both children and adults. And while a lot of children’s literature tends to follow safe, well-scrubbed formulas, the world Sendak’s children inhabited was a world of adventure, uncertainty, and fear of the unknown.

The drawings that illustrated his books were the same. The monsters were darkly scary, with lots of spines, and scales, and very, very big pointy teeth. They threatened to eat, and tear, and destroy little children in a number of horrific ways – and you believed every one.

His stories, too, drew on the dark and scary things that inhabit children’s imaginations. In Sendak’s books, the world didn’t always make sense, and what you believed didn’t always turn out to be real. And the children in Sendak’s books were complex creatures, with rich emotional lives and a capacity for both good and bad.

What made Sendak’s work so groundbreaking was its refusal to pander to children, and its brutal honesty. He believed that children, even very young children, should not be denied truth in the assumption that they wouldn’t be able to fully understand or fully comprehend, or that doing so was protecting them. He believed that children were able to face the dark corners, where the wild things are, and make empowering decisions about what course of action to take.

And it occurred to me that, so often, the executive suite treats rank-and-file employees as though they were children who need to be “protected” from harsh realities, or who are incapable of understanding the elements making a difficult decision.

Interestingly, office gossip being what it is, employees usually know when there’s a looming problem; they know when there’s a monster lurking close by. And not having any input, instead of making them feel “protected”, tends to make employees feel helpless and powerless.

So, taking a page out of one of Sendak’s books, one company decided to pull the monsters out of the dark corner, and let their employees help them figure out what to do.

Like so many companies, data storage giant EMC had to decide where to make cost-cutting measures. Most companies would have left top management to decide where to make the cuts, but EMC tried something different. Using their social media platform called EMCIOne, they asked their employees to tell management where cuts could be made.

Thousands of employees logged on and pointed out existing inefficiencies that, it turned out, their bosses were unaware of. In the end, the cuts that were made were less painful because employees felt they had some input, and the decisions were better for the company’s overall future.

Chances are you work in an organization that typically makes top-down decisions. How different would the process look if everyone participated in critical, life-changing decisions?

In “Where The Wild Things Are”, probably Sendak’s most famous book, young Max goes on an adventure where “the walls became the world all around”. What would happen if managers, like Sendak, decided to trust their employees and let the walls become the world all around?

When I took office as CEO of NRI, the idea that there could be a business advantage to having happy employees was pretty much scoffed at by business pundits. The prevailing assumption was that, if you paid people enough money, they would be happy enough to deliver maximum productivity.

But it seemed to me that, if you do “business as usual”, all you’ll get is the usual business. I always thought there was a greater link between employee morale and the bottom line, but it was more of a gut feeling, rather than anything formal. Nevertheless, I set about incorporating my ideas into the culture of NRI anyway, on the premise that “It may not help, but it certainly can’t hurt” to have happy employees.

Interestingly, our results at NRI fall right in line with those revealed in an interesting presentation on TED given by Bloomington psychologist Shaw Achor.

 Achor is the CEO of Good Think Inc., where he researches and teaches about positive psychology, particularly as it relates to the workplace. In his TED talk, Achor suggests that old ideas about workplace happiness (that when work makes us happy we will be more productive) should be the other way round.

 Instead, he suggests that if we come to work already happy, we will be more productive, we will be happier and more productive at work.

 The secret, Achor says, is to cultivate a positive mindset outside of work – and productivity and profit will follow.

 The concept isn’t entirely new. There’s been about a decade of research now that shows that when people work with a positive mind-set, performance on nearly every level—productivity, creativity, engagement—improves.

 In turn, those results have led workplace psychologists to assume that success makes people happy, and that companies that focus on their energies on rewarding success will have happier (and therefore more productive) employees.

 By itself, this assumption isn’t surprising: research has consistently revealed that those things we value having in our society (marriage, a comfortable income, health, friends, meaningful work) are correlated with levels of reported happiness.

 But Achor suggests that happiness may be the most misunderstood driver of performance. For one, he points out, most people believe success precedes happiness. “I’ll be happy once I get that promotion”, or “A 15% raise would really make me happy”, or “If I make my sales target, I’ll be happy”.

 In fact, Achor says, we’ve been looking at happiness as the result of success when, instead, success is the result of happiness.

 In one case study with KPMG in New York and New Jersey, in 2008, Achor worked with tax managers to see if he could help them become happier. Achor first evaluated two groups of managers, a study group and a control group, on their general sense of well-being. How engaged were they? Were they depressed? Did they feel satisfied with their work?

 The study group was then asked to choose one of these five activities that correlate with positive change:

•  Jot down three things they were grateful for.
• Write a positive message to someone in their social support network.
• Meditate at their desk for two minutes.
• Exercise for 10 minutes.
• Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.

 The study participants performed their activity every day for three weeks. After the study was over, both groups were re-evaluated, using the same criteria as before. On every measurement on the life satisfaction scale (generally accepted to be a good predictor of productivity) the study group scored 5 or more points higher than the control group.

 Just doing one thing differently changed the way these managers felt about work, and how they did their business. But to achieve these positive results, they had to “do it differently”.

 So often, companies get stuck in a rut of always looking at things for the same direction, doing things the same way, using the same resources which they’ve always used – even though times, and the company’s needs have changed.

 On sales calls, I’ve certainly seen and heard this reluctance to “create happiness” by choosing to look for the features in a relocation program or relocation service provider that will make happiness an effortless “habit” for both the company and their transferees.

 Instead, sometimes companies choose to keep doing “business as usual” simply because they’ve always done it that way. With partners who – while they are predictable – no longer serve their needs. And no longer bring them happiness.

 And when you think about it, you can’t really get much more conservative in your approach to business than a firm of accountants. So, if KPMG found that going with a fresh, innovative approach positively affected their bottom line, what do you think doing the same could do for your company?

It’s no secret that a happy workplace is a more inviting environment than a tension-filled office. Or that happy employees are more motivated to work a little harder and a little longer than employees who are not as motivated.

That’s pretty elementary stuff. But do employees really need to be happy, in order to perform well? Is a happy workplace a business necessity, or an employee perk?

Do businesses gain any hard, quantifiable advantages if they pay attention to employee happiness?

These are questions that are being explored more and more by workplace psychologists. And the information they’re uncovering may make Friday afternoon company pizzas obsolete.

Even if you believe that the only point of a business is to make money, you must still look after the happiness of your people, simply because studies show that happy employees will make you more money!

A 2010 report by Hewitt Associates found that companies with high levels of “happiness” or engagement (65% or greater) in their employees, outperformed the total stock market index. On average, these companies posted shareholder returns 19% higher than the average in 2009.

On the other hand, companies with “unhappy” or disengaged employees (40% or less engagement), had an average total shareholder return of 44% less than the rest of their market.

Similar results were reported by Alex Edmans, a Wharton professor. In his 2008 paper, Does the Stock Market Fully Value Intangibles? Employee Satisfaction and Equity Prices.  He used a value-weighted portfolio of Fortune magazine’s list of the best companies to work for in America in 1998. By the end of 2005, this portfolio had earned over twice the market return while also outperforming industry benchmarks.

So, according to the research, it seems that having happy employees gives a company a distinct competitive advantage in the marketplace. This information supports what we at NRI have believed all along – a great workplace is the foundation of a successful business. 

True, there was a time when employee happiness did not necessarily translate to the bottom line. When our economy was based more heavily on manufacturing, workers on an assembly line had fairly simple and limited tasks to complete. This meant that they were easy to train, and easy to replace.

Today’s workers, even those in manufacturing, have had the complexity of their work tasks increase. Computers and software are used at all levels of employment, and require training that ranges from very simple, to very complex.

It is no longer as easy to replace one worker with another. Today it is quite costly to recruit, train, and onboard a new hire. Keeping employees happy and engaged, particularly with respect to top talent, has become a key component in outpacing the competition. A happy workplace is not a business luxury, but a distinct contribution to the bottom line.

That conclusion won’t surprise anyone whose primary work tasks them to deal with people, especially with people under stress. In corporate relocation, we’re used to dealing with people stressed by many aspects of the relocation process: both the logistics and the emotional aspects of leaving the familiar for the unknown.

We’re also familiar with how much performance and focus improve when most, if not all, of that stress is relieved and reallocated to relocation professionals.

If it doesn’t surprise us, it’s because our experience has shown us that when people work with a positive mind-set, performance on nearly every level – productivity, creativity, and engagement – improves significantly.

What we’ve found at NRI, is that at heart, people want to do good work, and they want to be engaged in their work. And if happy employees will make you more money… then it’s just good business!