Be Happy. It Pays. And It Could Save Your Life.

I was leafing through a folder of interesting articles I clip to give me ideas for my writing, and came across a Men’s Health clip from a few years ago.

The story doesn’t provide numbers, but it quotes ‘studies’ that show some of the benefits of being a happy person.

1. You make more money.
2. You are more creative.
3. You live longer.

How Does Lean Affect Your Happiness?

Unfortunately, the article says that 50% of your disposition for happiness comes from your genes. Looking at it from a positive perspective, though, it means that you can control half of the factors that affect your happiness.

The article continues to say that 10% of your happiness is due to health and wealth. Both of these are controllable by you, but also take a lot of effort to change. Interestingly, health and money are both causes and effects of happiness.

That leaves 40% of your happiness up to you.

So, what’s this got to do with Lean? Well, for about half of the people in your company, it’s got little to do with them. My completely unscientific observation is that Lean follows a bell curve. Half of the people who are in Lean companies like it, to some degree, with a few loving it a lot. The other half of the people dislike it—some strongly.

So, starting right now, if Lean is making you unhappy, do something about it. Find something that you do like about it, and focus on it. Or work on eliminating the negatives. It can be as simple as staying away from people who are constantly complaining about it. (I talk about a lot more strategies for this in my Book, Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean?)

I’d love to hear any other strategies you’ve used to help people become happier with Lean. If you really think about it (according to number 3 above), if you share your ideas, you are saving lives…

(Note: The Happy Face Ball image courtesy of user ‘Jersyko’ on Wikimedia Commons.)