No matter where we are in our careers, or which industry we call our own, we’re all united by one simple goal: to find joy in the work we do. But there is no one definition for happiness at work. We all see it just a little bit differently.
Today, we look at what happiness at work really means. We’re joined by world renowned speaker, trainer, and Happitude at Work founder Aurelie Litynski to discuss how we can define happiness for ourselves, and some tangible strategies for improving workplace culture and building happier, more productive teams.
Key Points
- Why is it so hard to make one formula for happiness?
- Three steps to building your own definition of happiness at work
- What can leaders do to build a more happier workforce
Learn more about Aurelie Litynski and connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurelielitynski/
Learn more about Happitude at Work: https://happitudeatwork.com/
Find Aurelie on Instgram here: https://www.instagram.com/happitudeatwork/
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Transcript
*Please note that the transcript has been automatically generated and proofread for mistakes. But remains in spoken English, and some syntax and grammar mistakes might remain.
Elisa Tuijnder: [00:00:00] No matter where we are in our careers or which industry we call our own, we’re all united by one simple goal. To find joy in the work we do. But there is no one definition for happiness at work. We all see it just a little bit differently. Today we take a look at what happiness at work really means. How we can define it for ourselves, and how we can use those definitions to influence workplace culture and build happier, more productive teams.
I also have one of my favorite colleagues here today, who spends most of her time working within the Management 3.0 community, helping others to figure out exactly how to build happier and more productive teams.
Hi Sara!
Sara Ramos: Hello Elisa. Your introduction made me feel very lucky. Not only because I’m [00:01:00] one of your favorite colleagues, but also because you share that I’m surrounded by like minded people all the time, like people who are genuinely interested not only in their own professional growth, but in helping others be happier.
Elisa Tuijnder: That’s amazing. I bet many of our listeners are nodding their heads right now. And that they’re jealous that you get to spend so so much time with people whio really care about this issue. And that’s probably what they care about as well.
Otherwise, I don’t think they’d be listening to this podcast.
Sara Ramos: Yeah, for sure. And that’s why I’m sure they will love to hear what I’m here to tell you about. We’re about to open doors to the Management 3.0 membership community.
Elisa Tuijnder: Oh, that’s so cool. That sounds really cool. Do you want to tell us what that’s all about?
Sara Ramos: Of course, you know how hard it is to find peers with similar interests, mindset and who really want to make happiness at work a priority, right?
Elisa Tuijnder: I spend my days looking for people so that I can disseminate that knowledge.
Yes, exactly. So you know how hard it is.
Sara Ramos: And also [00:02:00] probably doing this work and sharing this journey with the 10 times easier if we could share with others, don’t you think? Absolutely. Yeah, and so in this community, our listeners will find the accountability, support and tools to help them become the leader they want to be.
And they can do it together with an inspirational, generous and encouraging group of people.
Oh my god,
Elisa Tuijnder: and they’re from all over the world. That sounds really cool and really unmissable. So tell us the deeds. How did they get in?
Sara Ramos: Alright this should apply right now, because doors to this community will stay open only until October 2nd.
After that, we’ll close doors and only reopen in January. Between now and January, there’s a long time and you will not be able to join this space. Do it now. Go to management30.com slash community. And if you mention the happiness at work podcast in your application, you’ll get a 10 percent discount [00:03:00] on your first yearly membership.
Amazing. So listeners, are you ready to take on this challenge to immerse
Elisa Tuijnder: yourself, embrace diversity and be brave? Let’s go.
To become the leader you want to be.
Sara Ramos: I hope so. That’s the only answer. Yes. It’s the only answer. So I look forward to receiving your applications and reviewing them and then seeing you in the Management 3.0 membership community.
Elisa Tuijnder: Thanks, Sarah, for telling us all about this. Amazing. Thank you.
Before we dive in, you are listening to the Happiness at Work podcast by Management 3.0, where we are getting serious about happiness.
I’m your host, Elisa Tuijnder, Happiness Enthusiast and Management 3.0 team member. In this podcast, we share insights from industry experts, influencers, [00:04:00] and thought leaders about what it takes to be happy, motivated, and productive at work, so that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception. We will be publishing every fortnight on Friday, so be sure to tune in and subscribe. wherever you get your podcasts.
Our guest today is Aurelie Litinsky, a renowned speaker, trainer, certified Chief Happiness Officer and certified Chief Wellbeing Officer. As a founder of Happitude at work and a consultant, she develops webinars, workshops, and keynote speeches for companies with a focus on employee happiness, positive leadership, emotional intelligence, and human centric culture.
Hey, thank you so much for joining us today, Aurelie.
Aurelie Litynski: Hi, thank you for inviting me. It’s my pleasure. I’m
Elisa Tuijnder: so looking forward to this podcast today because we’re doing a tiny little bit different almost. So [00:05:00] what we’re going to do is we’ll discuss the importance of knowing our personal definition of happiness at work and how it can have a positive impact on both our personal and professional life.
And you will share some tips on how to define it and apply it at work. But as always, we want to start with the same question, and that is, what does happiness mean
Aurelie Litynski: to you? I feel that I cannot really answer this question, to be honest, with a simple answer. It’s really a tough question to answer without going into details.
Because happiness evolves. What makes us happy today might be completely different tomorrow. So it depends if we speak about happiness in general, happiness in private life, or happiness at work. We all have a different definition depending on our life domains. But if you want me to answer the question and if we want to stay super general, I would say that I feel happy in my life when I have the feeling that I am in the [00:06:00] flow, that in most domains of my life, it’s quite going well.
And when I have more positive emotions than negative emotions, that would be my definition of happiness in general.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. And it’s funny because this flow concept does come back come back regularly because as we ask this question with every podcast and we have so many already. And at one point I’m going to do something really cool with this, but time.
But, what we don’t have and what we never hear is somebody saying, something simple or tangible money or a big house or, the next step in my career when we’re talking about happiness in the workplace. It’s always more personal and it’s always more complex. So do you see the same because you’re working in happiness
Aurelie Litynski: all the time?
Definitely. Definitely. Because we all have a different definition and there is a big difference between what we think make us happy and the reality, I love the quote from Tim Wilson and Dan [00:07:00] Gilbert. They are saying most of the things we think make us happy, don’t make us as happy as we think.
It’s a complicated sentence. Let me repeat it for the audience. Yeah. Most of the things we think make us happy, don’t make us as happy as we think. Think about it. It’s so important and it’s so true. Many studies are around the topic of happiness. If we look at the difference between happy people and not happy people, the difference is not related to money, having a good job, being married, having a big house and kids and so on a great job title.
Of course, all of that might create a boost of happiness. But more in the short term, not really in the long term. And the main difference is much deeper. It’s about being kind. It’s about being socially connected, doing things, doing something that we care about. Being in the flow again, this being in the flow, [00:08:00] losing track and enjoying what we do.
It’s not about money or having a great job title, but we need to have a good foundation. A certain amount of money, a job we deserve, a good condition is important. But once we have a good basis, having more of that will not make us happier in the long term because happiness, it’s not really rational.
It’s more emotional. It’s what you feel about your job. It’s not what you think about your job. Yeah. And there’s
Elisa Tuijnder: something in positive psychology called the hedonistic adaptation, right? Once you’ve done it, when the first time you do it, it’s amazing. The first time you go on holiday to something very exotic, it’s amazing.
But when you’ve done it 15 times, you’re like, okay it doesn’t give the boost anymore, as we did. Why is it that happiness, specifically happiness at work, but also, in general, like, why is it that it seems so hard for us to pin down? Why can’t we just say, if we follow these two steps or three steps, everybody will be happy.[00:09:00]
As long as we have this, little basis fulfilled.
Aurelie Litynski: There is no magic formula because again, it’s emotional. It’s not rational. So it’s all, it’s very different from one person to another. I think when we speak about happiness at work, especially at work, there is a lack of awareness about happiness in the workplace.
And we have a lot of misconceptions about it. We have a tendency to think that Happiness is not business, it’s not a serious topic to address in companies. It’s not even easy to tackle within the team. Many leaders I speak with would prefer to speak about the employee’s engagement and not the employee’s happiness because, engagement sounds more serious than happiness in a way.
It’s a work term. Yeah. Yeah. But let’s be careful here, please, to all the leaders and to everyone who are listening. We can be engaged and not happy. And I know many employees in this situation, they are super [00:10:00] engaged. They are involved in what they do, but they are deeply frustrated. And that’s really not good for the long term.
It can, at the end, it can turn into a burnout. There is a study conducted by the University of Zurich, Yale and Leipzig. And this study showed that nearly 50 percent of all the engaged or highly engaged employees have strong signs of burnout and a high chance of leaving their organization. So we have to pay attention when we speak about the employee’s engagement.
Of course it’s important, but let’s not forget the employee’s happiness. And that’s why we need to create more awareness.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, there’s absolutely a distinction. And I, that’s why we do those things. Every single conversation I’ve had, happiness in the workplace. It’s always it’s not just about altruism.
It’s also about the bottom line and it’s good for business. And just trying to create that awareness everywhere is important. Hey, do you think that it can, the fact that it’s not that simple? Can that cause problems? Can it be [00:11:00] harder for us to pursue a career path or pursue satisfaction at work if we aren’t able to pin down what happiness really means?
First of all, to us, and maybe that companies also don’t know what happiness really means and how to do that. And when it’s so individualistic that it’s a different path for certain people.
Aurelie Litynski: Yes, for sure. I think we might focus on the wrong things. I think most of us know exactly what we want or what we need to be happy in our private life.
We are putting a lot of effort behind, behind that for our private life. We know what’s important for us, what we want to achieve in our life, what we want to feel. So we take a lot of energy to feel good in our private life, but we seem not to do the same for a professional life. And if we don’t know what we need to feel good at work, we, if we don’t know what’s important for us to feel good, and we have no vision we might end into a situation when we feel frustrated or when we suffer.[00:12:00]
And that’s why we need to know about our own definition of happiness at work. That’s the first step, basically. That’s really the start.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, we talk so much about happiness at work, but we’ve never really come to, to help our listeners define what happiness is. Before we, launch into that, I wanted to ask you just picking up on the last thing.
Is this an individual responsibility or is this an organizational responsibility or is it a
Aurelie Litynski: combination of both? Yes, it’s an individual responsibility and of course the company has as well some responsibility to make sure that they are creating a positive work environment, that they are creating some safety for the employees to feel good.
But I’m coming to that, especially when I want to explain the first steps on how to define your definition of happiness at work, basically, that you need to realize that. Your happiness is your responsibility.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Hey, so yeah, that’s, let’s do this. So you’ve spoken about this quite a bit [00:13:00] recently and you did an amazing TEDx talk and congratulations on that,
Aurelie Litynski: by the way.
And it’s not easy during COVID,
Elisa Tuijnder: yeah, everybody I talk to is on a TEDx talk. Everybody says, don’t do it lightly. It’s really hard. And so you’ve come up with an approach or, a structure that can help people define happiness for themselves. So please walk us through it. Please let give, enlighten us and our
Aurelie Litynski: listeners.
Yes, definitely. So the step, I have three steps. Basically step one, it’s a question of mindset. So again, you need to realize that your happiness is your own responsibility. You cannot really expect from someone else, from the company, from your manager, from your leader, to make you happy. Your happiness is your responsibility at the end.
You are the driver of your own happiness at work. I used the steering wheel. Maybe I can show you. I have this here. I thought I will show it to you for the listen for the listeners. [00:14:00] Basically, I am holding a steering wheel in my hands to explain that you know what? You are the driver of your own happiness at work.
You are ha you are behind the wheels. , which destination you want to take? And that was during my TEDx, that was a nice things to have on stage for the people, for the audience to visualize that, yes, they can decide in which direction they want to take, because my happiness is my own responsibility.
So of course, again, the companies need to create a safe environment. They need to create a positive work culture, but at the end, we need to decide when we need to know what makes us happy in the workplace. So step one is to realize your happiness is your responsibility because happiness is a skill.
Happiness is a mindset. Happiness is an attitude. You can work on it. Step two, you need to ask yourself. What do you need to be maybe just a bit happier? [00:15:00] What’s important for you? What really motivates you at work? Ask yourself these questions. What makes you feel good at work? Maybe you can try to think about a specific moment when you felt so good.
What did you have? Yeah. So all of these questions can basically help you to know your own definition of happiness at work. And then you can try to answer these questions with keywords. And these keywords will be part of your definition. So that’s a step two, because most of the time, when I ask these questions in webinars, the audience they have keywords such as.
Recognition, a lot of time, for a lot of people, recognition is very important. Recognition is really important, yeah. Recognition, meaningful relationships, trust, autonomy, challenges, meaningful job. For most of the people, these keywords are part of their definition of happiness at work. But you [00:16:00] need to think about your own definition, the words that would define your own happiness at work.
And I think Elisa, we can even ask the audience to maybe, put posts. Think about it for a few minutes, even write it down. Depending on where you are listening, you can just add a comment, write it down, your own definition of happiness at work. I think that would be a nice exercise for the audience to do.
Elisa Tuijnder: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, we really encourage everybody to have a moment, sit stop. If you’re cooking or if you’re like, if you’re in the car, please keep checking traffic for sure. But have a second, have a pause and think about those keywords and. I’m thinking about mine at the moment, so
Aurelie Litynski: should we pause?
Do you
Elisa Tuijnder: think there’s change as well, depending on the environment you’re in
Aurelie Litynski: constantly? Yeah, of course. That’s something you should try to do at least once or twice a year, because depending on your situation, depending on what’s going on in your [00:17:00] life, your definition might evolve, might change completely.
So that’s something you should do on a regular basis at least once a year for sure.
Elisa Tuijnder: No, we’re definitely we’re going to make a post about this so that we need, we can hear from some people as well, what their keywords are and have some interaction with the people listening. I really encourage everybody to have a think about this and then, yeah, maybe put in a.
In your Google calendar or your iCall or whatever you’re using, do put in a reminder in six months and just think, have they changed? Have they, are they the same? Did I work on this? Am I happier at work? Is that important? Exactly. Is that one thing that I was missing? Is that now there?
Hey, so once then people have framed and defined these keywords and this happiness. How can we, use that definition to improve your career and how do we get forward? Oh, I’m missing, really missing this. So how do we get
Aurelie Litynski: to that? So that’s basically the last step. Step number [00:18:00] three is to build the bridge between what you have and what you need.
So once you know your own definition, you need to reflect as well on your current situation. Then you need to think about what you have, so that’s your current situation, and what you need, that’s your definition. And reflect on what can you do, what can you improve, what can you change. to basically close the gap between the two, between what you have and what you need, and to be closer to your own definition.
So you need to find your own way to build the bridge between where you are and where you want to be. And it might be something small, something simple to improve, to change, or to communicate at your own level, or within your team, with your leader. For example, for a lot of people, recognition is very important.
So if it’s for you as well, part of your definition, but you are feeling that you are lacking recognition at the moment within your team, that is not with your culture, where [00:19:00] people give recognition and positive feedback, what you can do to get closer to your definition is maybe to start showing the example, start to give more recognition, maybe take the initiatives to start your next meeting by a quick, by doing a quick recognition rounds.
Or one of my clients gave me this idea and I want to share it with you because I think it’s wonderful. He’s having on his laptop, he’s having a happy folder. Basically, every feedback he’s getting from his clients, from his team, like all the nice notes, nice recognition feedback he’s getting, he’s putting in one folder.
And he’s keeping the folder and then on such a bad day on a stressful day, or when he needs to have a bit more recognition, he’s looking at this folder. This can be a nice, a nice tool and nice tips to have if you are missing recognition. But basically whatever you are missing, if you try to slowly take initiatives, try to change, try to improve [00:20:00] a few things.
Show the example. If it’s something about team spirit, a lot of people, for them, it’s very important to have meaningful relationship a nice team spirit. Then again, if you are missing that, you can do a few things, yeah, to improve relationship. You can start to organize social events. You can start maybe your next meeting by doing an icebreaker exercise.
Or by doing a bit more one on one catch up, right? All of these things you can do if you know what’s important for you. So it’s why you really need to know your definition of happiness at work because you need to find a way to build the bridge. between where you are in the moment and where you want to be or what you want to feel.
Yeah. And maybe there might be a big difference between, where you are and where you want to be. You might even feel powerless, right? You cannot change much. A lot of us are in this situation, but keep in mind that If you know your definition, [00:21:00] you can adapt your actions along the way when it’s time.
But at least you have a vision. You know where you want to go. Yeah. And if
Elisa Tuijnder: your definition is so different from where you’re at, then also that informs you or that tells you something as well. Then it tells you, it might be
Aurelie Litynski: time for a change. It might be time for a change, but I know the discussions I have with a lot of leaders, they are always telling me, Aurelie it’s easy to say it’s time for change, but it’s not easy to do.
Sometimes you cannot change the situation. So it’s why having this vision can help you to take the right decision when it’s time. Basically.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. When is it time to throw the towel in?
Aurelie Litynski: And, I would like to add one more thing. I think, I’d love to encourage I’d love everyone basically to share their definitions of happiness at work within their teams, within the people they are working with on a daily basis, on a regular basis, because once you know the definition of your colleagues, [00:22:00] you might understand them much better and you might work with them.
Much better. Yeah. Leaders need to ask as well. Leaders need to ask these kinds of questions to their employees. What’s important for you? What makes you feel good at work? That’s not a level of discussion. And I think it can be powerful.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. I was thinking exactly the same. Like one, you’re the driver of your of your happiness.
And this happiness definition really informs yourself, but it would be, it’s incredibly powerful if your leader, your manager, your coworkers, your peers, if they also know. What you need to be happy at work, because then you can be so informed. So yeah, we talked about individuals a lot. So maybe let’s take it to that organizational level now.
So how can businesses and leaders better understand what happiness means and use it to improve their culture in the sense that, what do they do with all these definitions?
Aurelie Litynski: So we know thanks to positive psychology, the impact of employees happiness. You talked about it, [00:23:00] Elisa, many times on this podcast, so I’m not going to repeat.
But long story short, we know that happy employees are more creative, motivated, engaged. They stay longer in the company. We know the correlation between our emotions and performance. It’s proven. Happy employees, happy customers, happy company. And that’s a look. If it’s a happy company, it’s happy employees as well.
I’m not going to develop here. In order to foster a positive work culture, the way I do it when I work with companies, you need to tackle the topic of positive psychology with a business approach. So when I work with teams, I often apply a four step strategy to work on the culture. Very important to me.
First, you need to bring more awareness. That’s the first step. If you want to foster a positive work culture, if you want to make a change and speak a bit more about positivity and boost positive emotions and create a positive work culture, you need to create awareness. People need to understand why it’s important.[00:24:00]
What are the impacts? Because, we have a lot of misconceptions about this topic of positivity, right? We think it’s not business. So it’s why we need to bring more awareness to get everyone on board, or at least to get most people on board, especially leaders. Second step, you need to analyze the situation.
To analyze the situation, there are two kinds of analysis. First, it’s an individual analysis, right? Because it’s your responsibility to be happy. to work on your happiness. So by working on your definition of happiness at work, it can help you to analyze your situation and do something about it. And the second is you need to analyze the team situation.
Is your team on the positive side or on the negative side? So once you analyze the situation, once you bring more awareness about it, then you can start to take action. And that’s step number three, take action. Reflect on what can you do, what can you implement to improve, to foster this positive work [00:25:00] culture.
Many things we can do. We know that working on the relationships can be very powerful to create a positive work culture. We know that people need to have this feeling of achievement, to feel good at work with all the positivity, with positive feedback, recognition, and so on, knowing the vision, the mission of the company.
So you need to take action. And then the last step, very important for sustainability, to follow up. You need to follow up for sustainability, because otherwise everything you will do will not maintain if you do not have a follow up. So basically that’s the way I do it. If you really want to work on your culture, you need to bring awareness, you need to analyze the situation, you need to take action and you need to follow up.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. You need to continue to nurture it. Sometimes I love sometimes in really big corporations, they’ll do this like kickoff It’ll be intense. And then all of a sudden it dies down and falls into nothingness again. And that is so important. [00:26:00] Exactly. Have you seen any, obviously you work with a multitude of clients in different ways and in different countries.
And so you’re in a unique position to tell us some of the results of this work either with individuals or organizations, what are the specific changes or improvements that you see when people are just being more intentional about workplace
Aurelie Litynski: happiness? So after a session, basically on happiness at work or positive work culture, depending on the topic we tackle, but basically, I speak a lot about positive work culture.
I’ve seen leaders leading with more positivity, developing their emotional intelligence. Because we can definitely train our brains. That’s called neuroplasticity. So after such a session, I think it’s a huge aha moment for leaders and employees, of course, but I’ve seen really the change within the leaders.
Because they know they understood and they know how to lead with more positivity. And, our human skills can [00:27:00] develop. We can train ourselves to be happier, to boost our positive emotion, but we just need to know how. And I’ve seen teams and employees implementing different initiatives to bring more positivity in meetings, to improve their feedback culture using positive psychology, because again, once you learn about positive psychology, you can apply it everywhere in everything you do. And many teams included as well, the definition of happiness at work in their yearly review or in their one on one catch ups. That’s something I’ve seen a lot after my sessions. I think a lot of employees love to reflect and to take the time to think about what makes me happy.
In fact, at work, I know what makes me happy in life, but or in my private life, but what really makes me happy at work. So that’s a huge things I’ve seen. And of course, many teams are creating, different initiatives and they created booklets and they are more active on internal social media about positivity, sharing [00:28:00] their successes and so on.
Whatever they are doing, I think, you need to keep in mind that there is no magic formula. No. You have to give it a try. You have to adapt along the way. Just don’t give up. Give it a try. Try new things. Something that might work for a team will not work for another team. For
Elisa Tuijnder: another culture, for another organization.
Aurelie Litynski: Because again, it’s emotional. It’s not
Elisa Tuijnder: rational. Absolutely. I sometimes think I really suffer a little bit from confirmation bias because I talk about this a lot and I’m in this world a lot. So I’m always thinking, everybody’s doing this right now by now, right? Everybody knows about this. I actually feel like there’s probably still so much groundwork to cover.
So many people need to know just, the basics, the leaders need to know the basic principles. So we definitely need to continue that, that work
Aurelie Litynski: on it. Definitely. And that’s why awareness is important. Follow up is important. All of these steps are [00:29:00] extremely crucial to doing companies. Yeah,
Elisa Tuijnder: absolutely.
Hey, so as you might know we are really big fans of tangible practices on the podcast and also with Management 3.0 in general. That’s our thing. So what kind of smaller, simpler things can individuals? do better to understand their happenings and how they can pursue it. So we’ve talked about the keywords and making your own definition.
Are there any more cool tips that you can leave our listeners with? And let’s start with individuals and then we’ll pop to leaders and organizations afterwards.
Aurelie Litynski: How many can I give? I would like to give three because for me, that sounds like a good one. Yeah. Okay, my tip number one, and that’s my favorite tip, I do it every day to boost my happiness.
And I really encourage teams to do that every day as well to boost your positive emotions. It’s basically to reflect every day at the end of your day on your highlight of the day. So what went well today? [00:30:00] Reflect on what created positive emotions. You can write it down. You can say it out loud. You can do some journaling.
This will help you to reduce your negativity bias. You spoke about it already in this podcast. Basically, negativity bias is that we have a tendency to remember more the negative emotions than the positive one. So that’s why it’s very important to boost your positive emotion every day. Reflect on your highlight of the day.
You can even do it with the team on the highlight of the week. Ask your team, what was their highlight of the week. Tip number two, start a meeting with positivity. When you start a meeting with positivity, your meeting will be much more productive. People will be more creative and more productive.
So starting a meeting with positivity can look like, you start with a recognition round. You can start with your highlights of the week. You can start with a fun icebreaker. You can start by sharing a client feedback. And you don’t need to take half an hour for it. You can use interactive tools if you have a lot of people in the room or on the call.
Many ways to start a [00:31:00] meeting with positivity. Find your own way. Tip number three, and that’s, I love this one as well. And people usually love it as well. So it’s why I wanted to share it here on your platform, Elisa. We all have a to do list. So I really encourage you to add your to be in your to do.
Basically, whatever your to do list is, you know what you have to do today. But before you start your to do list, think about how do I, how do you want to be today? Let’s reflect on how do you want to feel? It can be that basically today you have a lot of meetings and you need to be focused. So sometimes on the top of my to do list, I have be focused.
Elisa Tuijnder: Wow. Yeah, that’s great. Oh,
Aurelie Litynski: When I have an important meeting with one of my clients and we are going to brainstorm on the next workshop, then, I have be creative. Be creative. Or when I know that I have a day full of, Like all [00:32:00] of us, we are sometimes super stressed. and full of meetings, then I have, be calm or go for a walk or do your yoga at lunchtime.
So it’s reminding me how I want to be today before going into the doing. Yeah. It’s reflecting on the being. So that’s the thing I do and I love as well. Add your to be in your to do.
Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, that’s a great one. I, that’s the first time I’ve actually heard this one, so I’m excited. This is a wonderful, I’m definitely, I’m going to try and do that as well.
I think it’s because, like we all, the journaling works, the negative, the negativity bias, but also enticing a self a little bit of to be a certain way or, just to be. Energetic today, or
Aurelie Litynski: if you’re exactly, or maybe, you want to show empathy because you are going to do your one on one session today with your team members, and it’s going to be quite intense.
So you really want to show understanding and empathy. It’s just about having the right mindset at the beginning of [00:33:00] the day about how you want to feel, how you want to be today. Yeah. Yeah.
Elisa Tuijnder: That’s very powerful. Great. Yeah. I think one of the other things that I always love with the to do list is I don’t know, Sarah, Sarah Metcalf as well, right?
Yes, I know her. She’s lovely. She’s great. Yeah. And she once, she told me that whenever she finishes her to do list, she makes it a ta da list. And
Aurelie Litynski: I love that. That’s wonderful. So you start with your to be, you do your to do, and then your ta
Elisa Tuijnder: da. And then it’s ta da. Exactly. And I love that. So it’s such a simple thing, right?
So she’s okay, exactly. This is my ta da list now. And yeah, she’s awesome. Hey, so what about leaders and managers? How can they help? How can they, build happier and more productive teams?
Aurelie Litynski: For that, I would need another hour.
Elisa Tuijnder: Exactly. Let’s let’s keep it short. A tiny
Aurelie Litynski: bit. So basically, I really think, especially leaders need to learn how to lead with more positivity, with more authenticity and develop [00:34:00] their emotional intelligence.
You spoke about emotional intelligence in one of your previous podcasts. Emotional intelligence is basically a set of skills that can be learned and developed over time. It’s basically how you manage yourself and your relationship with others. And I believe that IQ is not enough anymore. EQ will make the difference.
Your emotional intelligence will make the difference, especially with the future of work. We need to have human skills. By the way, we don’t say hard and soft skills anymore. We speak about human skills, social skills or power skills. That’s my favorite. But basically, studies show that leaders with a high levels of emotional intelligence are better leaders.
They have better mental health, they get better results. So we need to train our leaders to develop these skills, and it will have an impact on themselves, on their team, and on the business. So they can start by asking themselves, how do they feel? Yeah. To put words on their [00:35:00] emotions, ask the teams as well.
How do you feel at the moment? How’s your energy level? Yeah. Developing this kind of skills, knowing how to listen. Oh, I have a tip on how to listen. May I just share it quickly? I always use the technique, the acronym LISTEN, L I S T E N. Basically, it reminds me on really when I want to listen to my client, to a team member, how do I want to act and how do I want to listen.
So the L is for leave the distraction. Make sure you are in the now. You are not distracted with your emails, with your phone. The I is for intention. What’s your intention by listening? We are not listening the same way classical music to a YouTube tutorial. So when you listen to your employees, to your colleagues, what’s your intention?
Are you listening to help them grow? Are you listening to give solutions? Are you listening for them to bend? What’s your intention? The S is for silence. Let them talk. And then [00:36:00] once, they talk, the T is for tell me more, try to deep dive a bit. The E is for empathy, don’t showing empathy, understanding.
And the last one, the N is for the non verbal communication. Pay attention on how you behave, your arms, your face, so that’s theLISTEN. Leave the distractions, intention, silence. Tell me more, empathy and non verbal communication. That’s a great way to remind yourself how to listen in a discussion.
That’s something we should all learn to do.
Elisa Tuijnder: Hey, just quick follow up on the leadership and the EQ. How important, and I don’t know what you’re going to say, but how important is authentic leadership in here? How important is it that leaders stay true to themselves?
Aurelie Litynski: There is a correlation between emotional intelligence and authentic leadership.
And first, you need to ask yourself as well, what does it mean to be [00:37:00] an authentic leadership? How authentic can I be in my workplace? Do I have to be an open book? Do I have to show all of our, of my strongest emotion? Definitely not. You need to find a good balance in authenticity. You need to ask yourself, how do you want people to remember you basically?
Yeah. So authentic leadership is as well, a big topic, huge correlation with emotional intelligence and leaders definitely need to develop this kind of skills. Definitely. They need to find a good balance as well in authentic leadership. Fantastic.
Elisa Tuijnder: Aurelie, thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been wonderful.
I’m walking away with some new practical tips. Wonderful. Yeah. So that’s fantastic. So I’d really hope that our listeners do the same. And yeah, let’s all start thinking about these keywords and about these happiness definitions so that we can have bridge the gaps and get to a point where we are at least a tiny little bit happier in all[00:38:00]
these tips also work in a more personal
Aurelie Litynski: context. Definitely in all the domains of your life.
Elisa Tuijnder: All right. Thank you again, Aurelie. And yeah, let’s hopefully see you again in some form of a capacity or back on the
Aurelie Litynski: podcast at some point. Thank you. You have been the highlight of my day, for sure. Thank you, Elisa.
Thank you.
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Elisa Tuijnder: work podcast by Management 3.0, where we are getting serious about happiness.
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