What Would Make Work a Happier Place?

Like Fish in Water?

“Gill, I see so many talented, brilliant, highly pressured people in the Travel Retail world all juggling ridiculous work/life pressures. What would make Travel Retail a happier place?” Hmm I thought Travel Retail was a happy place. Glamorous junkets, top notch brands, big budgets, award ceremonies, accolades, talented, passionate people, customer centric. Fun. Happy, right?”

Happier? Hmm, that’s something more though. More than one’s current level of happiness. What’s the ‘more’ that could be missing?  Happier places? Happier people?

Happiness, The Elusive Quest

It appears happiness is too subjective to nail to a single definition. Having been philosophized over for centuries, it’s as elusive a concept as it is a feeling.  To make it even more slippery there are two forms: Hedonia, short-term, the pursuit of immediate pleasures and a nice life. Eudaimonia, longer-term, pursuing lasting contentment through meaning, purpose, self-fulfillment, and self-improvement.

As it’s so enigmatic psychologists capture the happiness phenomenon as an orientation to well-being. Now… don’t roll your eyes at the word well-being, whilst it is becoming what seems an overused term, it’s undeniably vitally important to us all. The World Health Organisation define well-being as, “A positive state experienced by individuals and societies. Like health, it is a resource for daily life and is determined by social, economic, and environmental conditions”.

It seems happiness is dependent on well-being and well-being is a measure of happiness. Ideally one would naturally find a balance of hedonia and eudaimonia. Ideally the organizations we work for, and lead would curate environments that encourage the satisfaction of both, at each life and adult development stage, for every individual who works in them. Really? That feels like a tall ask of any organisation and it appears a tall ask for us humans too.

The happiness balance in Travel Retail.

Finding personal and organizational balance might be tricky in a world that on the face of it is centered on promoting the benefits of a hedonic lifestyle to their end consumer customers: the glamour of travel, 1st class aspirations, premium lounges; high-end branded retail and F&B; luxury goods; extravagant airport terminals, all pushing immediate gratification to the customer. How much of this hedonic adaptation transfers almost osmotically to the people who work across travel retail? Does this undermine eudaimonia? Maybe it does, and we are all bombarded through popular culture and commercial consumerism outside of work too; the message is hedonism - more stuff, things and status is the way to feeling happier. Are the people who work in Travel Retail caught in a hedonic loop desperately seeking happier?

Here's the rub.  Hedonic adaptation brings with it a cheeky little hidden happiness reset button; instead of getting happier and happier, you quickly reset back to your baseline happiness. For example, you buy a luxury handbag you’ve coveted for a while. Owning this handbag has some meaning, some underlying belief that having it will make you happier or more ‘something’. Pretty soon though it becomes just another handbag, and the latest new handbag upgrade becomes the object of your desire and meaning - this one will make me happier, better, more. You quickly get used to whatever it is and your happiness level resets. This applies to promotions, career status and position, salary bands, houses, cars, hobbies (anyone into cycling?); everything. It’s known as the hedonic treadmill for a good reason, as over a certain comfort threshold you don’t build or improve your level of happiness. Your baseline according to psychologists is 60% out of your control (genetics and upbringing) and 40% variable and determinable by us, (mindset and lifestyle choice). This disposition is fantastic for targeting the end consumer in Travel Retail but can be a drain for us as humans. The drain is this: getting caught on the hedonic treadmill eventually diminishes your happiness baseline. It wears it down like pair of old trainers. Feeling fulfilled, becomes more fleeting despite continually shelling out to get it back. Mick Jagger was right; try as we might, we can’t get no satisfaction.

So, are we Travel Retail folks caught in a vortex of hedonic adaptation with diminishing happiness returns despite the hard work, promotions, accolades, and financial trimmings? It’s not too far-fetched an idea considering we’re not in as much control as we thought, many of us are ‘pushers’ of this hedonic happiness drug through our job title and we humans are attracted to immediate gratification. It’s a powerful instant sedative to stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, loneliness, pointlessness, low-mood, and other emotions we don’t love to feel.

Travel Retail is a busy, fast paced, always on, competitive space. When we are busy, stressed, stretched, pressurized, lonely and constantly on, we need to ‘feel’ we are getting ahead; stuff, things and status are often our reward and our measure of getting ahead; of doing well, but sadly not always being well. Us humans are intellectual, capable of amazing feats and accomplishments yet when it comes to making good decisions about our lives, we are pretty bad at knowing what’s good for us and bad at forecasting the pros and cons of our potential choice of actions; our affective forecasting is poor. We get caught up and swept away by cultural norms and pleasure in the moment and we stop noticing what’s going on inside us or around. You might have heard the tale of the fish in water:

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?” (David Foster Wallace, 2005)

The Road Less Travelled

Eudaimonia, however, is longer lasting, sustainable, and solid. It’s about delayed gratification, finding purpose and meaning in what we do for a living and the crucial element is finding focus away from ourselves; being involved in something greater, more important than ourselves, giving back, helping others, and leaving human legacy. Apparently, discovering eudaimonia is crucial to our overall well-being, happiness, and longevity. This is key to living the Good Life according to Robert Waldinger and Marc Schultz. Waldinger is overseeing this leg of the world’s longest study into adult development at Harvard. The rub here is it’s a slow burner, it takes effort, application, thought, belief, and small compounding gains. It’s deep, authentic, heart and soul purpose and meaning.  Is that available or accessible to us? At work?

Happy places

Interestingly, the organizations at the pinnacle of people centered well-being, happy places to work as decided by the people who work there, are described as authentic. Eudaimonic principles run through them like a stick of rock. “In these organizations people are invigorated by their workplace and find in it a sense of balance and completeness”, says Manfred Kets de Vries, the Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development & Organisational Change at INSEAD. He coins the term, ‘Authenizotic’, “Derived from the Greek words authenteekos and zoteekos. An organization that is authentic inspires employees through the integrity of its vision, mission, values, culture, and structure. Zoteekos, meaning vital to life”.

The qualities these organizations values are lived and breathed by everyone, not just written on email signatures and office artefacts. This takes guts and investment. It’s more than pizza parties, beer fonts, an occasional lunch time yoga class and app-based employee assistance programmes (EAP’s). It’s deeper and way more meaningful.  It’s everyone’s responsibility. In these organizations, ALL people directly feel, and experience others feeling: 

Compelled: Values-driven mission creates a sense of genuine purpose and responsibility.

Aligned: Values guide actions, no lip service. Those who don’t live and practice these values are asked to shape up or ship out.

Trusted: Trust across all relationships, openness, and growth mindset culture, no blame.

Collaborative: Strong alliances, support, and cooperation wins over competition.

Connected: Encouraging genuine relationships, well-being, personal growth, and social fitness.

Equal: Non-discriminatory equity in action, mentoring, coaching and allyship.

Heard: People feel heard, seen, and safe to speak up, candid leadership.

Sovereign: Open-minded leadership, autonomy, and knowing the difference between working smart and working hard.

Recognized: Emotional intelligence, praise, learning from mistakes, growth mind-set.

Encouraged: Fostering personal growth, tailored challenges.

Immersed: Leaders lead by example, everyone is included.

Involved: Prioritizing effective transparent communication throughout the organization.

Prioritized: Work-life balance, psychological safety, avoiding burnout.

Impossible. Utopia! I hear you cry.  Nope, they exist and are celebrated in Fortune’s best companies to work for 2023. At their heart lies connection and genuine relationships where sovereign beings are seen, heard, and known by each other. Where people feel connected and that they belong. These businesses recognize the value of eudaimonia in human growth, happiness, and well-being and the value of this in growing a sustainable business.

Employee engagement commentary makes it clear these authenizotic places are centrally driven and co-created through a fulfilling relationship between organisation and employee. Harmoniously, the Harvard Adult Development Study, that’s been running for 84 years places the single most important factor in determining happiness, longevity, and well-being into old age as the building of diverse, genuine, authentic connection and relationships. It shows us that in terms of well-being and becoming happier across our whole life finding a balance with eudaimonia and developing diverse and interesting relationships is the secret to the Good Life. This hugely outweighs material possessions, wealth, and career progression. It dwarfs healthy diet, sleep and exercise which are of course also vitally important. Those in the study who didn’t pursue a diverse range of relationships were in old age, way less happy and well. They lamented lost and unforged connections with deep regret. Can we assume real authentic connection is the ‘more’ that’s missing?

Pounding the treadmill

What intrigues me further is what I’m experiencing in my coaching room with people of all genders and walks of life. I experience successful, talented, accomplished people in the mid to senior career stage asking big questions of themselves. Questions around identity; who am I now? Purpose: what am I here to do and give? Values and boundaries; am I enough? Is this enough, for me?  How do I connect who I am, who I want to be and my work? One of the most common challenges that this plays out in is relationship dynamics at work, connecting with others. Relationships are hard yet it’s no wonder they thread through coaching conversations and challenges – they really matter to us. Perhaps we don’t quite know just how much. I notice the symbiotic bond of work and life; the systems people live in and how relationships can be the glue or solvent to these bonds. I experience people feeling successful and accomplished yet unhappy, disconnected from themselves and others. Seeking happier, often keeping up, surviving, and some burning out. They come to me usually when a niggle has become a pain and pounding the treadmill isn’t numbing it. Us humans are hard wired to alleviate the discomfort of incongruence as quickly as possible and sadly due to our faulty affect forecasting this can be hedonically driven at ours's or the organization's cost. The smart organizations have an awareness of our life stage change processes; this isn’t about age, it’s about where we are in our lives; what’s becoming more and less important to us. The smartest authentic organizations seem to be places where people are presented with opportunity and encouraged to find balance in their work; social fitness is valued and openly encouraged.

Happy People

So, would travel retail be a happier place if us humans were more focused on eudaimonia and building meaningful relationships? I wonder if the two could be one in the same. I wonder if relationships could be our human legacy, the place where we find meaning and purpose still within the industry we know and love? If social fitness was prioritized amongst colleagues through a culture that encouraged genuine connection, mentoring (being and doing), allyship and coaching? After-all there is nowhere quite like the workplace for finding a diverse range of people to forge connections with. Yet, loneliness is sweeping our communities and becoming a public health challenge across the globe. Research tells us, people are feeling more isolated than they want to be and it’s having an impact on their health, well-being, and happiness. You can feel lonely in the busiest of offices and crowded spaces. It’s not just about volume of connections, or being in the same physical space, it’s about quality of interaction. Waldinger & Schultz say, “Simply put, living in the midst of warm relationships is protective of both mind and body”. Life is hard, work is hard, sometimes both are hard at the same time, and you feel bombarded. Warm connections, being seen, heard, understood, and cared for can be a protective shield - a huge part of personal resilience and perhaps an underestimated part of organizational resilience. This is not a rally to get everyone back into the physical office either. I believe we are smarter than that and can flex our connectivity with our hybrid working patterns – if we want to, if we see the value, and if there is genuine intention. “If you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need”, also a Stone’s lyric, the other side of the same coin.

Connection Takes Time

What pressures might take us away from this most needed connection and relationships aside from pounding the hedonic treadmill. Relationships are hard, messy, and awkward. They take time and energy. Perhaps time is the problem? Well, time is the great leveler, we all only have 24 hours in a day, right?  I just read that in 2023 the average time we humans spend on social media is 151 minutes per day, that’s 38 days per year equivalent. Think about someone in your team or organisation who you value. You might only make the time to sit with them specifically, feel connected to them and them to you, for the equivalent one hour per month or even less. Think about how much time you have coming your way as dedicated to you, feeling you are connected, heard, seen, and really known by others. Sixty minutes per month is half a day per year, 60 minutes per week is 2 days per year.  I imagine time is not the issue. It’s more likely to be that pesky faulty ‘affect forecasting’. We predict that reaching out and connecting is too hard, saying how we feel is too much, we imagine it’s ‘soft’ and unproductive, perhaps indulgent. Asking for what we want is very hard for us, it comes with lots of inhibitions and defenses. Asking for connection is uncomfortable and we tend to forecast it probably won’t be worth it. Research shows us this is faulty thinking; the initial discomfort is totally worth it, in the long term, the very definition of delayed gratification - eudaimonia.

Where is your time spent? Who is it spent with? Waldinger & Schultz research findings show spending time on forging genuine relationships and connections makes us happier and when we are happier, we are more productive across our whole lives. The research findings are in and they’re unambiguous.

I imagine it’s simply that we are stuck on the treadmill. Caught in the hedonic conditioning of more is more, deals, immediate results, comparing, winning, striving, surviving, providing, proving, avoiding, status, stress, pressure, too busy… Perhaps we haven’t really thought of happiness as well-being and haven’t stopped to consider the value of genuine connection on our own happiness and the happiness of others. Perhaps we think we know ourselves, what’s best for us and our business and we’re just not connecty-relationshippy-kinda people or organizations. Perhaps we’re waiting for neurobiological evolution to catch up with us and our busy lives over here.

Perhaps we are swept away, like fish in water.

Is it too late?  Too late to become connecty-relationshippy-kinda people? This is a definitive no! It’s never too late. It’s never too late to be a human being, you’re hard wired for genuine authentic connection with other humans. Bronnie Ware, in her book Regrets of The Dying, lists the top 5 regrets she sees, as people wishing they had:

The courage to be authentic and true to themselves.

Not worked so hard and spent time with those that matter.

Shown their true feelings.

Stayed connected with friends.

and this one comes with a punch, they wish they’d allowed themselves to be happier.

Happiness and being happier is a choice. Yours's and your organizations ways of being in this world are not written in stone. Whilst you may not be able to change the entire organizational culture single handedly, personal meaningful change and investing in you being happier is possible.

Take in the water; what do you notice? What does your team, your people and you need? What’s missing? Ask them. Share with them. Connect with them. Being part of something meaningful, bigger than yourself, and happier is not about commercial and personal accolades – it’s about connecting to what we really mean to ourselves and connecting with those around us.

It’s literally never too late or simpler to make a difference in someone else's life and well-being, to impact theirs's and your own happiness and it’s highly contagious. As you are pounding the treadmill ponder your relationships and connection to others, what’s missing? What would give you more? What more can you give. You might choose to step off the treadmill, walk over, make a call, reach out. Connect. You won’t feel it right away but happier could start right now, in this very moment.

About Me, Gill Caleary

I’ve been around Travel Retail for 17 years, in leadership teams in airports and on the other side of the table as a consultant and BoD for businesses operating retail in airports. Laterally, after some deep personal work which inspired me to go back to uni, I proudly gained a Masters in Coaching with Distinction. Hands down the most fulfilling move I’ve made in my career, the most important act of self-appreciation and self-affirmation. A gift to myself; I found my purpose wrapped up my story. The MA was a pracademic deep dive into psychology, coaching psychology, practice, philosophy, organizational/systemic coaching, adult development, and ethics. It allowed me to bring my experience in life and leadership to others in a different way. In my coaching room @gillcalearycoaching.co.uk I marry executive and life coaching, guiding clients in their own challenges in work and life – humans who sit as my equal, sharing feelings, sensations, thoughts, imaginings, stories, beliefs, ambitions. Their successful self, sitting with their anxieties and fears searching for their best self, hoping to find their authentic self, and daring to let the real them out to play. Good news, this isn’t a far and wide search, you don’t need binoculars; a mirror is more useful. It’s really about unlearning, uncovering, and recovering.

Resources

Kets de Vries, M. F. R. (2001). “Creating Authentizotic Organizations: Well-functioning Individuals in Vibrant Companies,” Human Relations, 54 (1), 101-111.

Pennock, S. F. (2019, February 11) “The Hedonic Treadmill – Are We Forever Chasing Rainbows?” PositivePsychology. https://positivepsychology.com/hedonic-treadmill/

Vinney, C. (2021, December 6). What's the Difference Between Eudaimonic and Hedonic Happiness? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/eudaimonic-and-hedonic-happiness-4783750

Waldinger, R., & Schulz, M. (2023). The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Simon and Schuster.

Ware, B. (2022). The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (Marathi). Manjul Publishing.

WHO (2021), Promoting Well-being  https://www.who.int/activities/promoting-well-being. https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/9789240038349

“David Foster Wallace on Life and Work,” Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2008.

https://www.greatplacetowork.com/best-workplaces/100-best/2023

https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/

https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Work-LST_KQ0,19.htm