"Having an answer to the happiness question"

I’ve been thinking more about that boardroom story I shared last week, the one where happiness was dismissed until performance improved.

Maybe the problem wasn’t cynicism. Maybe it was that none of us in that room had a good answer to the happiness question.

What is happiness at work?
Is it loving your job? Feeling recognised? Being at peace with the chaos?

I’m not sure many of us could describe it clearly, even now.
Most of us know what dissatisfaction feels like, frustration, burnout, a creeping sense of “what’s the point?” But happiness? That’s harder to describe.

I think as leaders, we should have an answer to the happiness question.
Not a policy, not a perk — a lived answer.
We should know what it feels like to rediscover meaning when work gets heavy. To find a small spark of joy in the middle of pressure. To notice what brings us back when we drift away.

Because when we’ve experienced that for ourselves, happiness stops being an abstract goal and starts becoming something we can help others find too.

That’s where I want to go next, how we might transform dissatisfaction into something steadier.

Until next time,
Dermot
​The Messy Middle.

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