The Joy of Economics - Ezhaar Ahmed Qureshi

Researchers have found that time with Friends N Family and favourite job are two of the surest way to become more happy. We must Consider the liking and disliking of the people while making new appointments, when some one gets his favorite job and the company is able to provide him the job satisfaction, it will give him happiness, when people are happy, will have more ability to do their work with maximum potential and involvement and if you can shape their work into a fun then success will be definite.

But due to unfavourite job and bad working environment, When people’s are not happy they lose their normal ability to do work and with the time span their level of tension and stress increases it will start malfunctioning in their work. We should be thinking not just about what is good for putting money in people’s pocket but what is good for putting joy in people’s hearts. “General well being (health, child education and living facilities)”. What makes life worthwhile is our devotion to our work, our country, our wisdom and courage. Today, we need to be as revolutionary to put us back on track to social prosperity, it means recognizing the social, cultural, and moral factors that give true meaning to our lives, in particular focusing on a sustainable environment and building stronger team, it also means to recognize, that quality of life means more than quality of money. Ultimately team happinessrequires us all to play our part, indeed playing our part of being happy that is why we need a revolution in responsi-bility.

Corporate responsibility means businesses taking a proactive role, and taking account of their employee’s lives civic responsibility means giving power back to different level of management, so they can formulate solutions to their problems and by recognizing the personal responsibility every section of management has, we also have the means to enhance it.

Readers of this article will know, how people can be enabled to feel a deep sense of enjoyment in the job they are doing by being involved in the ‘flow experience’.

Truly visionary leaders believe in a goal that benefits others as well as themselves. It is their vision and ‘soul’ that attract loyal employees willing to go above and beyond the call of corporate duty. However, such leaders are rare while some people say they would work even if they didn’t have to, most employees can hardly wait to leave their jobs to get home.

”Flow” is the term which is used to describe the individual’s subjective experience of being fully involved with life. How business leaders, managers, and employees can find their ‘flow’ at work and contribute not only to their own happiness but to a just and evolving society, identifies the factors crucial to the operation of a good business - these include trust , commitment to fostering the personalgrowth of employees, and dedication to produce a product that helps mankind.

Happiness in action: When people feel a deep sense of enjoyment in what they are doing - whether this is a sport, a hobby or a job - they feel carried away by an outside force, a sensation of moving effortlessly with a current. It is called a ‘flow experience’. The task at hand draws one in with its complexity to such an extent that one becomes completely involved in it. There is no distinction between self and environment; the important thing is to execute each move as well as possible. Helping people to achieve flow at work must therefore be the goal of every business leader. If you don’t enjoy your job, you can’t be very good at it.

So how does it feel to be in flow?
1. Goals are clear - the person knows exactly what he or she must accomplish, moment by moment. People often miss the opportunity to enjoy what they are doing, because they focus all their attention on the outcome, rather than savouring the steps along the way.
2. Feedback is immediate - to stay absorbed in any activity, people need timely information about how well they are doing. The sense of total involvement derives largely from knowing that what one does matters and that it has consequences.
3. There is a balance between opportunity and capacity - it is easier to become completely involved in a task if we believe it is doable. If it is beyond our ability, we get anxious; if it is too easy, we become bored. A good flow activity offers challenges at several levels of complexity.
4. Concentration deepens - when involvement passes a certain threshold of intensity, we find ourselves deeply into the activity. We no longer think about what to do, but act spontaneously. The distinction between self and activity disappears.
5. The present is what matters - because the task at hand demands complete attention, everyday worries and problems have no chance to register in the mind. This can produce an ecstatic state, the sensation of being in a different world.
6. Control is no problem - if we respect the challenges involved in a situation and develop the appropriate skills to meet them, we have a good chance of being able to cope. One controls one’s own performance rather than the environment itself.
7. The sense of time is altered - time is experienced differently. It may be perceived as flying by, or it may seem to expand, rather than contract. Rather than chasing the clock and constantly worrying what time it is, we learn that we ourselve s control the subjective experience o f the passage of time.
8. The loss of ego - while immersed in the experience, one forgets not only one’s problems, but one’s very self. The intense focusing of attention means that everything not directly related to the task at hand is pushed out of consciousness. After the event, a person’s self-esteem reappears in a stronger form than before.
It’s concluded that anything can be enjoyable if the elements of flow are present. In that context, doing a seemingly boring job can be a greater source of fulfilment than one ever thought possible.

Flow and growth
A good life, though, must consist of more than just the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a path of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive and social complexity. In a view, complexityis the central feature of personal development. One will grow tired of one’s job if the challenges remain at the same level. We have to find a way to weave opportunities and abilities together in an enjoyable progress towards complexity.

The more a person feels skilled, the more their mood will improve; and the more challenges that are present, the more their concentration will become focused and concentrated. Optimal experience occurs where both challenges and skills are at a high level, when one is both happy and focused. A single experience of flow lifts the spirit momentarily. When experienced over time, it helps make a person unique and indispensable.

To explain how flow works, it is an investment process that we all build ‘psychological capital’ which we invest in different activities in our lives. This capital equates to ‘attention’ which is the brain’s capacity to process information and to direct action. This is the critical resource that we use when we are involved in an enjoyable activity. It is a limited resource because we cannot process more than a few bits of information at any one time. But, unless we allocate some part of this ‘psychic energy’ to the task at hand, no work gets done. In knowledge-intensive businesses, where every manager has to oversee massive amounts of information as well as people, facilitating the use of psychic energy must be a primary concern. Unfortunately, it is a resource that is often wasted as many of the challenging complex activities we must undertake in everyday life are so badly designed that instead of producing flow and joy and learning, they produce
anxiety or boredom, where management can make a real difference by making the workplace more amenable to flow. The first priority is to eliminate the obstacles to flow at all levels of the firm and to substitute policies and practices that are designed to make work enjoyable.

Obstacles to flow anddevelopment: Achieving flow at work is made difficult by obstacles that inhibit the conditions necessary for flow to occur. All too often, the job fails to provide clear goals, adequate feedback, a balance of challenges and skills, a sense of control, and a flexible use of time. Modern culture also presents other obstacles that prevent workers from finding meaning and value in their work. Today’s consumer culture, for example, has devalued work by extolling the virtues of relaxation, material comfort and pleasure. We learn very early that anything labelled ‘work’ is unpleasant and, as a result, no matter how exciting and fulfilling a job may be, we approach it with a generalised bias a g a i n s t w o r k . Th e impermanence of today’s business organisations also makes it difficult to devote a good portion of one’s life to a cause or an entity that may disappear tomorrow. I f management views workers not as valuable, unique individuals, but as tools to be discarded, employees will not invest their psychic energy in the firm.

In September 2003 Gallup released, the results of third annual survey of employee engagement in Singapore. Gallup calculated the percentage with in the total work force for three challenges of employees.

Engaged: Those who are loyal, follow procedures and find their work satisfying
Not engage: Those who are not psychologically committed to their roles.

Actively Dis-engaged
Those who are disenchanted with their workplace. Its pointed out that people grow up with different amounts of psychological capital. Some learn to develop it; some don’t. Some are so brainwashed by the culture that they can’t see a job as anything but a job. They lack the curiosity and perseverance that would make it possible for them to enjoy what they do. One particularly destructive attitude that many workers learn from badly managed jobs (and from the popular wisdom of the culture) is to get away with as little effort as possible. However, people who expend only the minimum effort deprive themselves of the opportunity of finding flow in their work and reduce their chances of advancement - and hence of more challenges. Leaders have to change attitudes toward work by making work conditions more conducive to flow, by clarifying the values that give meaning to work, and by influencing the worker’s attitude in a direction that will make them happy psychologically involved, loyal, satisfied and more productive.

Buildingflow
Top manag e m e n t commitment is vital for creating an environment that will foster flow. Leaders must embrace the idea that, before products, profit and market share, they are primarily responsible for the emotional well-being of their workers. There is an example of ‘visionary leaders’, past and present, who have introduced conditions in their organisations that maximise the likelihood of flow. It is suggested that the following measures (amongst others) will help to build flow in the workplace:

1- Clarify organisational goals - for top leadership themselves, for line managers and for subordinates. Too often we take it for granted that just because we understand a situation, it is clear to everyone else as well. Visionary leaders clarify organizational vision and mission statement as well as policy of the organization.

2 - Encourage people to set their own performance goals. The best way to do this is to let people learn by doing and, if necessary, by failing.

3 - Encourage people, including top leadership, to seek feedback. People need to know how well they are doing - they should therefore develop three sources of feedback:1) from other people,2) from the work itself, 3) from their own personal standards. When giving feedback, it is important to focus on the performance, not the person, as anything that makes people selfconscious will attract their attention at the expense of total involvement with the task.

4 - Match challenges with skills.
It is the manager’s responsibility to provide the opportunities for each worker’s skills to be used and refined to their fullest. So, we should hire people who fit the g o a l s a n d va l u e s o f the organisation. Rather than throwing people in at the deep end (which results in high turnover and premature burnout), we should start them at the least demanding level so we can assess their strengths and weaknesses while permitting them to make mistakes t h a t w i l l n o t h a v e d i r e consequences. We must stay alert to when they are ready to assume the next level of responsibility. We should also understand people’s particular skills and build on their strengths rather than seek to remedy their weaknesses. We also have to monitor, and be prepared to adjust, the balance between individuals’ challenges and skills.

5 - Give people the opportunity to concentrate.
Constant interruptions cause stress and detract from flow. Managers themselves need to set some time aside each day for reflection. They also need to protect their subordinates’ psychic energyfrom being disrupted. Give people more control over their jobs. People should be able to feel they have a choice over how to perform their job and that they are trusted to come up with the best approach that a given situation requires. Whenever a new technology is introduced, we should ask how it will affect people’s enjoyment of the work. We should also consider allowing people to work on a flexible time basis where possible.

6 - Help everyone to experience flow
ideally, we should try to create the conditions for everybody in the firm - including from top to bottom.

7 - The soul of business
If we dig in more deeply into the question of what makes life ultimately meaningful and what the role of leaders may be in addressing this issue; that an enduring vision in both work and life derives its power from ‘soul’ - the energy a person or organisation devotes to purposes beyond itself. It is almost as if, instead of being transient visitors on this planet, these leaders feel they have a permanent place in the cosmos, a personal destiny or calling, that involves specific responsibilities. Because their message appeals to the soul, to the need we all have to connect to a greater purpose, others are willing to follow their lead and find flow in their work.