Working can also be a joy

By VICKI JAYNE

You could reasonably accuse Ben Renshaw of being a bit of a joy germ. Articulate and engaging, he waxes lyrical on the subject of why agony is not our natural lot.

The London-based author of Successful but Something Missing [Random House, 2000] is a personal and business coach whose catchcry is "work in joy." That means enjoying what you do now, rather than seeing it as a means to some distant (presumably joyful) end.

He believes we do ourselves a disservice by continually postponing a personal sense of happiness and achievement with a series of "if" "but" or "when" conditions.

"If you want to be happy, you have to choose it now. We say happiness waits on your welcome - it's not a time-bound thing."

While it's not always possible or even desirable to change your circumstances, you can choose to change your attitude towards them. The big question is, of course, how? The difference between those who see the same quantity of liquid in a cup as either half full or half empty is often put down to disposition - you are either a born optimist or a chronic pessimist.

In New Zealand recently, Renshaw talked about his own shift from the belief that life was meant to be a struggle.

"I grew up as a violinist in a Yehudi Menuhin school run by my parents. It was an environment full of beauty but also struggle. There was great art but at the same time there was a lack of fun and enjoyment: it was so serious."

He remembers at the time arguing with his parents that greatness could come out of joy, not just out of pain or struggle - "that you didn't actually have to cut an ear off or go mad to be creative, though these were the icons of great art."

Eventually abandoning a musical career to study the area he found most absorbing - people and problems - Renshaw admits to being initially hooked on the problems. Anyone confessing to feeling good must be in denial! However, he became increasingly convinced that people can learn to choose happiness by becoming aware of the self-imposed barriers they erect against it. He is now a personal coach, consultant to leaders in business, health and education, and co-director with Robert Holden of the Happiness Project.

The project grew out of the first Laughter Clinics founded by Holden and financed by the National Health Service in the early 90s. It shot to instant fame with a 1996 BBC documentary that followed three participants through an eight-week "happiness programme." The process worked for them and everybody started wanting a bit of it.

Finding the happy button is not a quick fix, warns Renshaw. There is generally a bit of "unlearning" involved. We are all prone to beating ourselves up about our intolerable inadequacies.

And if the inner judge wasn't already harsh enough, society steps in with a bit more helpful clobbering.

"We have this busy culture which is run by guilt. It doesn't matter what is keeping you busy as long as you are. People who leave work on time are thought of as slackers, so they feel they have to stay on. You get people in the work environment taking to 'presenteeism' - they leave computers on and a jacket on their chair when they are having a break to give the impression they are still here, still busy."

In fact, people work more productively and creatively if they keep hours they are comfortable with. "The aim is to have them work smarter, not harder," says Renshaw.

Removing some of the anxieties around whether your work is adequate or appreciated helps create more space in which to enjoy it.

"Our argument is that a happy workforce is a productive one."

How you get there is a matter of generating a culture that enables people to be involved in work decisions, to be authentic and open, to have fun, to give praise when deserved and show compassion when required. It also involves inspiring by example.

Pursuing other people's paradigms for success - higher positions, more money, more stuff, etc - is another recipe for burying enjoyment under a welter of "if onlys."

"I feel very passionate about being proactive in your life - not waiting until there's some crisis before you decide what your own priorities are."

He makes the distinction between human doing and human being.

"An exercise I often do at the beginning of a seminar is asking people about their waking performance - do they rise and shine, or rise and whine? Do they get caught up in a series of to-do decisions or do they make conscious 'to be' decisions?"

The approach is perhaps flavoured more by Eastern philosophy than it is by Western work ethics of the striving-through-pain-toward-redemption kind. Buddhist concepts of mindful living are part of the plot and Renshaw quotes zen proverbs as well as present-day management gurus in his book.

Though it may sound a bit esoteric, the hunt for happiness is becoming a mainstream business concern.

Renshaw is coaching trainers at the Boots Chemist stores in happiness lifeskills as part of a new holistic health service they are launching.

It is this sort of people-centred approach that will give companies a necessary point of difference in today's market, says Renshaw.

* Vicki Jayne can be contacted at vjayne@iconz.co.nz