Category Archives: The Rules

Airlines and Credit Card Applications

Posted on by
1

I’ve been flying a ton lately and have had to experience quite a few airlines. I usually only fly Delta when given a chance. Honestly, I’ve flown all the others, and I find them to be superior in the things that matter to me. Delta gets me to where I’m going when they say they do. The Delta flights I’m on also seem safe and clean. The Delta employees I’ve run into actually come across as professional and friendly.

At the end of the day, most air travel has basically become akin to taking a ride on a Greyhound bus. I say this knowing most people have never ridden on a Greyhound bus. A real trip from one city to the next where you had to go to the bus station to catch the bus. It’s not glamorous. It’s slow and tedious. I once took a Greyhound bus trip from Grand Rapids, MI, to Omaha, NE, to see the girl I love. I believe that specific bus is still en route to Omaha. I started that trip over thirty years ago!

The one thing you notice when you fly a lot, which seems rather out of place, is the pitch to buy the airline credit card. What I’ve witnessed recently is the pressure on getting an airline credit card is directly correlated to the level of the airline you are own. Let me give you some examples:

  • Delta: They make a brief announcement over the intercom of some great offer of free flier miles if you go to some website and get the credit card. That’s it. One mention takes less than a minute. (For transparency’s sake: I have a Delta Skymiles credit card, but they got me via email, not flight announcement).
  • American Airlines and United: They also make the credit card announcement, but they also have their flight attendants walk up and down with actual applications for the credit card. Like, here you go, fill this out right now. It’s almost as if the flight attendants themselves are getting some sort of kickback. Or they should be!
  • Southwest: Much longer pitch, as is the Southwest way. They give way too much freedom to flight attendants and the intercom! I have to believe that standup comics actually get jobs at Southwest as flight attendants simply because it offers them a captured audience for their sh*tty jokes. You know, it’s some flight attendant up there telling a story about how their grandma got the card and came to see them for the holidays. I can’t remember if they also have the brochures/credit card applications that they hand out, but I’m guessing they do. There’s no way they don’t.
  • Spirit/Frontier: Okay, let’s be honest. I don’t fly these airlines. I would take the Greyhound bus before subjecting myself to this Carnival of the airways. But I can imagine what these pitches must be like, given all of the other cheap policies they have in place. Something like, “Yo! If we don’t get ten of you to sign up for this card, this plane isn’t leaving the gate!” They get their ten and then go, “Okay, only five more before we can take off from the tarmac!”
  • Korean Air: Nope. None of it. They just took care of me and made my flight the most pleasant experience ever.

Why do airlines shove their credit cards down our throats after we pay an exceptionally high amount for a ticket? Because it makes them a ton of money! It’s pretty simple economics. We have a captured audience. We are going to assume at least part of the audience are fans because they chose to fly with us. Of course, they want our credit card!

It’s actually somewhat surprising they aren’t pitching more things for us to buy. A new Away suitcase with a special Delta Airlines luggage tag that acts as a tracker as well! (I love my Away bag!) Some arrival limo service that’s easier than Uber and picks you up directly at your gate. Girl Scout cookies. I mean, who wouldn’t kill an entire box of Thin Mints on a flight from Detroit to Dallas? How much for the Girl Scout cookies? $20! Sold! Airport money is different than any other kind of money.

It’s all lazy marketing. We have a captured audience who paid for one thing. Why don’t we jam something else down their throats and see if we can make the flight experience even more miserable? The best is when your flight is delayed, and you hear the pitch. “Hey, why don’t you sell fewer credit cards and just get me to my destination on time!?”

I feel for the flight attendants forced to do this as part of their job. I hope they are getting kickbacks for each one they land. They should!

So, that’s my rant. Airline credit card applications in the air. Stop it. Be better.

Also, if you click here and use the code #SackettMiles you can get 90,000 Delta Skymiles!

Your first internship, in your career, should be in sales! No matter your major.

Posted on by
2

So, it’s that time of year when we begin to think about our interns for the summer. I love interns because we get to show them what they’ll never do or see again in the real world when they get their first job! I’m only half-joking. Most internships I hear about today (and I hear about a lot) aren’t coming close to teaching young adults what it’s like to really work a job in your company.

Suppose I was Chief of HR for the country like I got to make all the HR decisions and make rules and stuff (wouldn’t that be a fun job!) – Chief Justice of HR! I would force every kid who ever did an internship first to do a sales internship with whichever company they decided to do an internship with. Great, you want to be in HR, or an Accountant, or an Engineer, or a Developer, etc., first, you need to go out on the road or sit on the phone with Jerry, he works in sales for our company.

Why sales?

Too often, I see entry-level grads come into organizations with this strange sense of how the world works based on what it is they do in their chosen profession. Do you want to know how to really impact your chosen profession? Go find out how the sausage is made! The ‘sausage’ in most organizations is sales.

Want to find out how to save the organization money as an Engineer or Accountant so you better understand your customer and what and how they’re buying? Want to be a great designer or developer? Sales will teach you what your priorities should be. Want to find out how to impact employee development and career growth? Go find out how hard it is to sell $1 of the product your company sells every day.

This isn’t some plan to get everyone in the world to think sales is hard and you should pity them. Sales are hard. Great sales pros also make a ton of money. No one usually feels bad for sales. This is truly about getting the new grads coming into your organization to have a better perspective on what’s really important.

If we don’t sell our stuff, you can’t ride down the slide into the lobby on your way to hot yoga.

So, no matter what you do in the organization. You should know how to sell. Well, Tim, I’m going to be a nurse. Hospitals don’t sell. We save lives. Congratulations on becoming a nurse. It’s such a great profession. You’re a moron. Every organization sells. Hospitals compete against other hospitals for high-margin healthcare business. Nonprofits compete for donations and grant dollars. Churches compete for your soul!

Every organization is selling something, and you should know what it is you’re selling and how it’s sold.

We do a disservice to new grads when we make them think that their profession is only about the skills they’re learning for some title they’ll one day have after graduation. Your profession, every profession, is about ensuring crap gets sold.

I’m Your King for Pretty Research!!! #HireMorePrettyPeople

Posted on by
Reply

If you read this blog for a while, you know I’m absolutely fascinated, almost to an unhealthy level, with research about pretty people. First, as a society, we throw way too much praise and privilege at attractive people. Take a look at Instagram follower numbers. Take a look at TikTok follower numbers. We love to pay attention to pretty people!

So, the world of academia did not disappoint, and once again came out with another study that proves my point. Pretty people, on average, are better than ugly people! But this one has a nice little wrinkle that I think most of us will like.

First, I have to come clean with a confession.

I have a disorder. I think it would probably be considered mental, but it has to do with the physical body, so it’s in a confusing space. I have Reverse Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Stop! Before you go all crazy and try to cancel me, I’m not making fun of people that have Body Dysmorphic Disorder! As Taylor Swift poetically says, “You need to calm down.”

100% True Story. When I look in the mirror, I honestly think to myself, “You know what, kid, not bad. People could do worse. Have a great day!” I look at myself getting ready in the morning and think I look pretty damn good!

I then, later that same exact day, will see a picture of myself that someone took and go, “For the love of God! How did I turn into Shrek on stage!” That my reverse body dysmorphia. Some people look in the mirror and see Shrek when they should see a prince. I see a prince when I should probably just see some middle-aged dude who needs to work out more!

Why do I share this confession? Because this new research as it helps me make sense of my own dilemma. The University of Missouri and DePaul University researchers found that pretty people have better lives! Okay, it’s a little more involved than that, but that is my layman’s take on the research! Surprise, surprise! Pretty people’s lives are better! Who knew?!

From the research:

Three studies examined the association between physical attractiveness and meaning in life. Study 1 (N = 305 college students) showed that self-reported physical attractiveness positively correlated with meaning in life. Study 2 (N = 598 noncollege adults) replicated the association between self-reported physical attractiveness and meaning in life and extended those findings, demonstrating that outside perceptions of attractiveness are linked to outside perceptions of how meaningful a person’s life is. Study 3 (N = 331 targets, 97 raters) replicated these findings and probed the nuances of the relationships between outside ratings and self-reports of attractiveness and meaning in life. Across the studies, existential significance, or the feeling that one’s life matters, was the facet of meaning that primarily explained the link between attractiveness and meaning in life. In addition, a person’s view of their own attractiveness is more indicative of their well-being than outsider ratings. Implications for our understanding of meaning in life are discussed.

Turns out, your perception of your own attractiveness is key to your life outlook!

I think this is why our mothers tell us we are all pretty and handsome, even when we aren’t. There’s a chance we just might believe them, and in the end, that’s all that matters! The key is you truly have to believe it. You can’t just be like, “Girl, I slay!” and then ten minutes later, look in the mirror and see flaws.

I love pretty research because it’s all truly based on this concept.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You might not think you’re beautiful, but if a majority of people you surround yourself with think you’re beautiful, well, your world will be a better place. If you truly are attractive, but you surround yourself with people who make you feel ugly, well, your world is awful.

I’m not blind, but I’ve met some blind people and have had this conversation about pretty. Their definition of pretty is way different than mine, and it makes me envious. I would love to “see” the world through their non-seeing eyes for a bit to understand the power of that ability. To see someone as attractive based on non-physical attributes would definitely make our world a better place. We get a bit of this when we meet someone who we feel is of average attractiveness, but the more we get to know the person, the more they become attractive to us. Or, meeting someone who we find very attractive and they open their mouth, and immediately you view them as less attractive.

So, maybe my hypothesis about hiring more pretty people needs to change a little bit. The new hypothesis will be “hire more people who truly believe they are pretty”!

The Key Ingredient You Need to be Successful at Work! (and Life)

Posted on by
1

Ugh, I hate that I wrote that title. I. AM. NOT. A. LIFE. COACH!

I don’t write about sports as much as I used to. When my sons were in sports, and I was coaching, I bet I wrote some sort of sports analogy about once per week. The thing with this idea is it works in sports, but it really works in almost anything in life.

Okay, here it is:

“Having people around you who want you to win is key to success.”

I’m not going to take credit for this, nor will I give credit to anyone because I have heard something like this for the last twenty years, but I find almost always people forget about this one simple but powerful idea.

We discount how much of our success is tied to being surrounded by people who want us to be successful! Or we give ourselves too much credit for our own success. We think we’re smarter or better when in reality, we are all about the same, but the circumstances we find ourselves in are very different!

I tend to find myself in conversations with parents regarding their high school and college athletes who are working on going to the next level because I’ve had kids and a wife who played sports at a high level. What most parents and kids don’t understand is how important it is to play for a coach who truly wants to see you succeed. Wait!? Don’t all coaches want to see every player they have on the team succeed? Nope. Unfortunately.

In college athletics, when coaches change, they inherit a bunch of kids who they didn’t recruit, so they aren’t fully invested in these kids. While they will need some or most of these kids, in the short term, to be successful, Almost always, they will bring in their own kids and be more invested in them.

We are currently seeing massive transfers in all sports taking place in college athletics, and a large part of that is kids trying to find a coach(s) who truly wants to see them succeed!

It sounds like when leadership changes take place at work, right?!

When a new leader comes into your company or work team, we see the same type of behavior. New leaders want to bring in their own people. Why? Because you need to surround yourself, even as a leader, with people who want to see you win! Individual contributors need this. Leaders need this. Anyone who wants to win needs people around them who want to see them win!

It’s not about just making it. Keeping it going. It’s about seeing you win. That’s key. Don’t think you can exchange that for something less.

This is why it’s key for you to put yourself in a position where you feel everyone around you wants to see you win. If you’re a leader and you have people on your team that you are unsure they want to see you win, you need to get rid of those people. If you are in a job where you have a leader or peers who don’t want you to win, you need to find a new job immediately!

See, this is why I would be a shitty life coach. I never want people to leave their job. It’s not in my DNA. Keep that job. Make it work! Then I write this post and say leave your job immediately if you are not surrounded by people who want to see you win!

I have some very close friends in my life. The one trait I feel for each of them, without an ounce of jealousy, is I want to see them win! My own team at HRU, without a doubt, I want to see each person I work with be massively successful and win all the time! Surround yourself with people who want to see you win!

Timmy Sackett, World’s Worse Life Coach, Out.

Why do you fight to keep what you have vs. fight for what you need?

Posted on by
1

I had a great conversation with the co-founder and President of Greenhouse Software, Jon Stross. Jon developed a model he calls the Hiring Maturity Model. Basically, it’s a scale or curve of where your recruiting department is in terms of technology maturity.

Part of that conversation was a fascinating piece about why we keep technology that isn’t moving us forward or making us successful. Don’t say budget! It’s not budget! Let me explain that.

What are the four reasons why we would rather keep stuff we have versus get stuff we actually need? 

1. We fear the pain of change. “Moving from one ATS to another ATS is hard work and takes years, and it’s just not worth it, Tim!” You’re wrong. It was that way when we had on-premise software, but with modern-day Saas platforms, this isn’t as painful by a mile! My most recent ATS change took six weeks, and we had zero downtime because we kept the legacy system going while we got used to the new system.

2. We fear short-term lower performance over the benefit of long-term gains. Well, it might not be great, but we know what we have. What if we change and it’s worse!? It won’t be because you will do your due diligence and research, and you’ll make sure it will be exponentially better! If what you have isn’t that good, you must be willing to build something better. Your organization needs you to do this.

3. We feel stupid and don’t know the technology enough to advocate for change. This is very legitimate. I feel stupid every single day about technology. I’ve got some stupid thing with my Macbook going on, and I can’t figure it out. And it drives me crazy! Demo. Demo. Demo. I felt stupid about our TA Tech space, and I just started demoing everything I could find, and it opened up a completely new world of what is possible in talent acquisition.

4. It was your call, originally, to get what you have, so bailing on it now looks bad on you. Do you still have an iPhone 4? No!?! What!?! Why not!? When the iPhone 4 was launched, it was AWESOME! Oh, wait, the iPhone 12 is better? Turns out, technology improves. What you thought was best two or three years ago is now a dinosaur in the technology world. So, just like IT, Finance, and Operations, it’s okay to say, hey, the tech we have now isn’t what we need today to stay competitive for talent.

Did I say demo? For the love of St. Petersburg, Demo! It’s the single best thing you can do to develop yourself around getting smarter about the technology in your functional professional area of expertise.

Too many of us keep processes and systems way too long for reasons that, when you really dig into it, don’t even make sense. “Well, Tim, we have to use this ATS because payroll is tied to it, and payroll says we can’t change.” Um, what!? Does payroll drive revenue for the organization? Does payroll find and develop talent for the future of the organization? Stop it! Stop the excuses.

Oh, Budget! 

I forgot it’s the pandemic. You don’t have a budget. Actually, you do. I mean, you’re already spending it on crappy software that isn’t working for you. Stop spending that, and you have all kinds of budgets! I have never met one CEO/CIO/CFO who, when shown a better, more efficient way of doing business wasn’t all in on giving it a try if it didn’t cost them more money. Same money? Okay, let’s do it!

Check out the Greenhouse podcast with Jon and me. He’s a great dude. I love his voice and cadence. I could listen to him all day!

The 1 Thing You Have to Do to Fall In Love With Your Job!

Posted on by
Reply

Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean, real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and Facebook messages, and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some, it’s been a while, and you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But, you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love; it doesn’t last that long, and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say, “I love my job,” and I never used to pay much attention; in fact, I’ve said it myself.  The reality is that I don’t love my job. I mean, I like it a whole lot, but I love my wife, I love my kids, and I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7 am on a Monday morning. The important things in life!  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro, I’m supposed to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Want to know the difference between like and love? The next time your significant other tells you, “I love you!” just say in return, “Yeah, I like you as well!” Then get ready for an argument!

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second. Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stops caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it. I’ll just tell you!

Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  It seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love and lose their minds.  Once that calms down, the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship, you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.

You get a new job, and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter. Hell, you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your one-year anniversary, and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.

This is when falling in love with your job really begins. When you know about all the stuff, the company hid in the closet. The past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching. Not for a better job or a better company. They’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will, not without them working for it.

The best love has to be worked for. Passion is easy and fleeting. Love is hard to sustain and has to be worked on, but it can last forever.

Sackett Tips: Advice for Grads and Dropouts!

Posted on by
1

Every year around this time the content machine delivers an endless amount of “Graduation” advice to new grads. “As you leave the manicured lawns of your youth…” I’ve actually done the “wear sunscreen” posts myself from year to year. They are easy to write because it allows the writer to just wax poetically about all the mistakes we’ve made ourselves, which in turn becomes the advice for you to do or not do (thanks, Yoda!).

I realized just yesterday the problem with the grad advice columns is we’ve completely forgotten about dropouts! In today’s world, with declining higher ed enrollments (college starts are down 5 quarters in a row) it’s even more important that we talk to the dropouts as well. Of course, we see many more dropouts when unemployment is very low as it is now. With a ton of jobs open, young people can make really great money without going to college, so it’s a natural phenomenon.

The Sackett Tips for Grads and Dropouts

  • Work for the biggest brand possible right out of the gate. You most likely won’t have a great experience, but it will help your career out way more in the long run. We are all enamored with the person who worked for Amazon and Apple over JBE Automation in central Iowa. Like somehow that Apple job where you got to focus on a sliver of a project is way more valuable than actually owning an entire project. But that’s life. Go work for a giant brand.
  • Calculate the value of leaving a job and people you really like. You will hear estimates from “experts” telling you not to change jobs unless you get a 10-20% increase. And that is really a lot of money. But, what if the new job sucks and the new people suck. Is that $5,000-10,000 worth it? Each of us has to make that call. What I find is most people will tell you it’s not worth it. 
  • Maintain relationships with peers and co-workers from other jobs you left and with those who left your company. That network will pay you back in the future like nothing else you have.
  • Say, “Yes” to jobs no one else wants. Those are the jobs that get noticed by executives. We all know the stuff no one else wants to do, so when someone steps forward and “takes one for the team” you stand out above the rest. 
  • Protect your time, but have a reason. Executives totally understand the person who says, “I can’t this weekend, I’m coaching my little girl’s soccer team and I have to be there for her” vs. someone who just says “No”. 
  • Every executive is looking for people who treat the organization and the brand like their own. I get it, they make a crap ton more than you, but they always didn’t make more. At some point, they made peanuts as well but treated the company like it was their own. Protected assets, spent budget wisely, etc. 
  • Diversity isn’t about color, gender, etc. But it also is about all that. You want to hire great people who fit your culture and who are also from diverse backgrounds. Most organizations fuck this up by just hiring color or gender and forgetting about the fit. It’s not one or the other, it’s both. 
  • Don’t wait for an employer to develop you. Find ways to develop yourself. Build a business case as to why your employer should pay for you to take a class that costs money. 
  • Make yourself as pretty as possible. Every single study you can find will show that the more attractive you are the more money you make, the more likely you are to get promoted, work for a great company, etc. Turns out, everyone loves pretty people. You, like me, might not have been blessed with “pretty” DNA, but we can all make ourselves the best version of ourselves! Don’t believe people that tell you looks don’t matter. They matter greatly, they’ve just given up.
  • Put on your own oxygen mask first. I run into so many kind souls who are trying to protect and help co-workers, peers, etc., but not helping themselves. Take care of yourself, so you can properly help others.

Oh, and wear sunscreen.

So, what’s the difference in advice between the grads and dropouts? None. Turns out, once you start working no one gives a shit whether you have a degree or not, now you have to actually perform.

It’s a great time to be a hard-working, attractive, smart person in our society. Take advantage.

The Big Regret! How’s that new job treating you?

Posted on by
2

When 4-5 million people per month change jobs, mostly for more money, there are going to be some consequences! Turns out, the grass isn’t always greener when you get more green!

A Muse survey, reported in the WSJ, recently found out that nearly 75% of workers who’ve changed jobs recently have regretted it, and 50% of those would try and get their old job back! That’s a lot! But it’s not surprising.

The biggest stressors we have in life are having kids, buying a house, and changing jobs. We tend to make bad decisions when stressed, and when you have 4-5 million people per month making that decision, well, that’s a lot of bad decisions!

What will we learn from the Big Regret?!

1. Money isn’t everything, but once you get more of it, it’s hard to go back to the old money level.

2. The old job and the old boss didn’t really suck, and the stuff we thought sucked at the old job, suck at the new job as well. It’s called “work” for a reason.

3. The power of someone paying attention to us and making us feel pretty is the most powerful force on the planet. Never underestimate it.

4. You can go back to your old job, but it will be different. It’s like going back to your ex. You are both a bit smarter and a bit more cautious now. There are some scars. Same people, same company, same job, but it’s not the same. Doesn’t make it bad, but you can’t expect it to be the same.

5. You can’t really judge a job until a couple of things happen: 1. You actually know how to do the job fully; 2. Co-workers stop seeing you as the newbie. In every case, that timeline is different. Be patient and do the job before you judge it.

6. If you find that you have an asshole boss at every job you work, the asshole might be you, not the boss.

7. In the future, when we have more jobs than available workers, let’s not act surprised when people start changing jobs. It’s happened in every similar economic cycle in the modern world. It’s called oppotunity. Don’t confuse that with the world has changed.

What should you do if you hate your new Great Resignation Job?

  • Take some time to really determine what you hate. Was that different from the old job? Was it the same? Will it be that way at the next job? Too many folks don’t know what they hate and they just keep selecting the same jobs they hate time and time again, but with a new pay rate and new address.
  • Some of us immediately want to return back to our old job. That might work, it might not. A psychological thing happens to so many managers once you leave them. It’s like you broke up with them and now you want to run back to that comfort. You’ll find many have no interest, and it has nothing to do with your value and performance, and everything to do with them feeling like you’ll hurt them again.
  • Try and find something you like to do, but call it “work”. This is different than the B.S. you’re told about work doing something you love and you’ll never work another day in your life! I’m no life coach, but that crap doesn’t work. You call it “work” even if you love it, because one day you’ll show up to do what you thought you loved and find out its work, and you’ll be depressed and broken. You don’t love work. You love your family and your God and puppies. You work to put yourself in a position to be able to do what you love. If you’re super lucky, every once in a while those two things will overlap.

Could You Buy Yourself Out of a Metric You Rely On?

Posted on by
2

Here’s the thing, any metric you can buy your way out of probably isn’t a great metric to measure you or your team against.

Why?

First, if money is going to help you get better at something and you have the money, then by all means make yourself better.

But the most helpful metrics are the ones where money has little impact on the ultimate success.

Example:

If you can’t get enough candidates in the top of your funnel you can always spend more money to solve that issue. It’s a simple advertising spend issue. You can buy yourself into great top-of-funnel results.

What you can’t buy is the number of screened candidates you send on to your hiring managers. That’s an effort metric. You have to do that work. The metric is achieved will always lead to more results and more success.

Do you want to find more happiness at work? Here’s how!

Posted on by
4

In 1942 Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist, was taken to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years later, when his camp was liberated, his pregnant wife and parents had already been killed by the Nazis. He survived and in 1946 went on to write the book, “Man’s Search For Meaning“. In this great book, Frankl writes:

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”

What Frankl knew was that you can’t make happiness out of something outside yourself. Riding a Jetski doesn’t make you happy. You decide to be happy while doing that activity, but you could as easily decide to be angry or sad while doing this activity (although Daniel Tosh would disagree!). Frankl also wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

I get asked frequently by leaders about how they can make their employees or workplace happier.  I want to tell them about Frankl’s research and what he learned in the concentration camps. I want to tell them that you can’t make your employees happy. They have to decide they want to be happy, first. But, I don’t, people don’t want to hear the truth.

Coming up with ‘things’ isn’t going to make your employees happy. You might provide free lunch, which some will really like, but it also might make someone struggling with their weight, very depressed. You might give extra time off and most of your employees will love it, but those who define themselves by their work will find this a burden.

Ultimately, I think people tend to swing a certain way on the emotional scale. Some are usually happier than others. Some relish in being angry or depressed, it’s their comfort zone. They don’t know how to be any other way. Instead of working to ‘make’ people happy, spend your time selecting happy people to come work for you.

In the middle of a concentration camp, the most horrific experiences imaginable, Frankl witnessed people who made the decision to be happy. Maybe they were happy to have one more day on earth. Maybe they were happy because, like Frankl, they discovered that the Nazis could take everything from them except their mind.

Provide the best work environment that you can. Continue to try and make it better with the resources you have. Give meaning to the work and the things you do. Every organization has this, no matter what you do at your company. Don’t pursue happiness, it’s a fleeting emotion that is impossible to maintain. Pursue being the best organization you can be. It doesn’t mean you have to be someone you’re not. Just be ‘you’, and find others that like ‘you.’