Over the past few years, I’ve traveled to 50 countries researching happiness. During this time I have worked with nearly half of the Fortune 100 companies, did a two hour interview with Oprah in her backyard, and been invited by…
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Author: Shawn Achor
The Right Kind of Stress Can Bond Your Team Together
Shawn Achor
Posted in Employee Engagement, Human Resources, Shawn Achor, Stress Management/Life Balance, Teamwork
Last fall, I did a documentary with HBO, directed by Peter Berg and produced by Michael Strahan, called State of Play: Happiness. In the film, we explored how to create a positive culture in organizations where the culture or conditions make it difficult to…
Why Working More Is Making You Less Productive
Your downtime is more precious than you think. You could be much more efficient, productive and happy if you changed the way you view the hours in your day. Many of the business leaders and Harvard students I work with…
The Benefits of Peer-to-Peer Praise at Work
Shawn Achor
Posted in Communication, Employee Engagement, Human Resources, Shawn Achor, Uncategorized
In The Happiness Advantage, I describe an experience with a leader at a Fortune 100 company who told me, “We don’t need a happiness program; we pay people to be engaged.” This is a surprisingly common refrain from unenlightened leaders, an assumption based…
Tagged with: employee engagement, employee retention, Globoforce, peer-to-peer recognition, Shawn Achor
Reach your goal faster with this science-based brain trick
There are few better ways to witness the sheer power of human potential than to watch a runner cross the finish line of a marathon. It’s incredible to see months and years of training, determination and self-discipline culminating in one…
Does Your Office Have a Positive Vibe?
Shawn Achor
Posted in Communication, Employee Engagement, Leadership/Management, Positivity, Shawn Achor, Uncategorized
Help people fall in love with your company. In any line of work, there’s a good chance you do your fair of selling. You’re selling your ideas, your products, even yourself. Maybe you’re not in sales—but don’t forget to sell…
Why You Need to Stop Worrying About Failing
Shawn Achor
Posted in Attitude, Health & Wellness, Peak Performance, Positivity, Shawn Achor, Uncategorized
Don’t let the fear of making a mistake distort your decision-making and lead to an even worse mistake. Do you know what “icing the kicker” means? In football, when a kicker is preparing to make a potential game-winning field goal,…
Tagged with: business, entrepreneurs, fear of failure, managing stress, positive thinking, Shawn Achor, Success
Is happiness the secret of success?
Scientifically, can happiness be an advantage? Some people think if you are happy, you are blind to reality. But when we research it, happiness actually raises every single business and educational outcome for the brain. How did we miss this?…
Are the People Who Take Vacations the Ones Who Get Promoted?
Shawn Achor
Posted in Employee Engagement, Health & Wellness, Peak Performance, Shawn Achor, Stress Management/Life Balance
Too many people limit their happiness and success by assuming that taking time off from work will send a negative message to their manager and slow their career advancement. But new research, says that the exact opposite is true. Taking a…
How to Replace Your Bad Habits with Good Ones
We often think that if we had more choices, it would be easier to change our lives. In fact, we do have plenty of choices, but we don’t change. What we really need in our lives to make a positive…
Is the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full?
Plot twist—it doesn’t matter! Find out how you can build your positive outlook. If you saw me on Super Soul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey, you’ll know that Oprah and I discussed the age-old question: Is the glass half-empty or half-full?…
Change Your Job–by Changing Your Mindset
The brilliant Amy Wrzesniewski from Yale University researches how people perceive their jobs. She found that the way a person sees his or her occupation—as a “calling,” as opposed to a “job”—doesn’t depend on the job title or position, but…
Tagged with: employee engagement, job satisfaction, meaningful occupation, meaningful work, Shawn Achor
You Have the Power… To Lead with Positivity
Use this approach to set the right tone. Imagine how happy you would be if all your interactions with others were positive and pleasant. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s actually quite easy to establish. In 2009,…
When a Vacation Reduces Stress–And When it Doesn’t
I thought it was simple: Vacations are fun, Americans are stressed, and happiness raises productivity and sales. Therefore, people should take more vacations, right? But research doesn’t hold that line of thinking up. Not every vacation is equal. According to a 2013…
6 Ways to Press Mute on Brain Noise
In today’s world of smartphones and 24-hour news channels, we’ve become addicted to information. I found myself filling all my micro-moments each day with stuff that blocked me from forward progress. Brain “noise” is any information that is irrelevant, useless,…
Flying the Surly Skies: Stay Positive
I give about 100 lectures a year, which translates to about 300 flights. I try to stay positive about everything, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering I’m a researcher, author and educator in the field of positive psychology. I do have…
Shawn Achor: The Key to Great Teams – The “glue guys or gals”
Who is the most important person on a team? If you follow sports, you know commentators will often talk about the “glue guys” or “glue gals” who hold their teams together in the midst of challenge and are largely responsible…
Raise Your Spirits and Boost Your Success
Until I began researching happiness at Harvard, I thought that if you just worked harder, you’d be more successful, which of course would make you happier. But my research showed that formula doesn’t work. Every time our brain records…
3 Ways Positive Intelligence Leads to Success
In July 2010 Burt’s Bees, a personal-care products company, was undergoing enormous change as it began a global expansion into 19 new countries. In this kind of high-pressure situation, many leaders pester their deputies with frequent meetings or flood their…
Achieving Happiness Despite Everyday Challenges
Learning that you or a loved one has a chronic illness is news you never want to hear. The knowledge of such information is often accompanied by feelings of fear, anger, and depression, which can cause debilitating, unnecessary stress. By…
Tagged with: Gratitude, positive psychology, positivity, Shawn Achor, shawn achor ted talk, the happiness advantage