Measuring Happiness

"I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs" Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974)

Dr. John Helliwell, a world-class economist (and fellow Canadian) was recently interviewed for the Gallup Management Journal about the relationship between trust in the work place and life satisfaction.

"Dr. Helliwell has discovered a number of factors that affect life satisfaction. Work is chief among them, says Dr. Helliwell, and trust in coworkers and management has an enormous effect. That's because trust is essential to both workplace engagement and life satisfaction in general."

Not surprisingly, life satisfaction is related to engagement in the workplace, which in turn is related to trust. Which begs the question, can trust be measured and manipulated? Can it be systematically built with the sole purpose of improving a co-workers happiness?

According to Dr. Helliwell, "economists have talked about utility; they haven't known how to measure happiness, so they've ended up using income as a substitute." Instead, employee engagement and measures of trust are a more direct and reliable method to measure happiness.

Applying those measures, Dr. Helliwell was able to find correlations between paperwork, negativity and unionization and low trust environments. He also believes when people do things together for other people (such as pro bono work) it builds satisfaction.

I'll take it a step further. I think Jack Welch knew what he was talking about when he stressed the importance of candor by management. A great leader will identify a noble goal then be open and honest with people about whether that goal is being achieved.

In terms of clinic wait times, that means focusing on the patient rather than the provider. Health care providers will go to extraordinary lengths for those in need. On the other hand, nothing will demoralize them more than selfishness or egotistical behavior on the part of their co-workers. Every clinic should take a hard look at themselves and ask exactly what is your purpose? Altruistic work is not hard to find in health care and according to Dr. Helliwell, it may be the key to employee happiness.

Destiny in the Clinic

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Every day a single provider can see dozens of patients pass through the door of a clinic. There are two opposing forces. The wait time get an appointment and the wait at the appointment.

As the schedule becomes tighter and more patients are seen, there is less wait for patients to get an appointment but they are more likely to be kept waiting once they arrive. On the other hand, the more slack in the day the smother the schedule but the longer the wait to get in.

Are we bullshitting ourselves about the true motivation? Is it concern for the patient, concern for ourselves or concern for our wallets? If control of the schedule is held by an administrator do they build it to please the patient or keep the provider from complaining?

While there is no single answer to the question there is a single solution. It lies in good leadership. A good leader will develop noble priorities, provide employees the knowledge and skills to achieve those goals and offer enough autonomy to find solutions. The priorities, therefore, must be developed for the service of patients, otherwise, personal and patient motivations can conflict.

As a leader in an office we should concern ourselves less with motivations and more with the desired outcomes. Creating a list of desired outcomes, from the patients’ perspective, then building a team to fulfill those goals is essential to align conflicted motivations. Working to high quality and service from the patients’ point of view changes the focus from the providers’ happiness to the patients. Too often the opposite is true in clinics. I believe this switch in thought process can be a powerful stimulus for change in efficiency.