Chief Misery Officer

Delivering Happiness via Oblique Strategies.

"A story is told that in 1806 a man goes to visit a doctor who is acclaimed for his ability to treat melancholia. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep,” says the man. “I feel constantly miserable. Please help me, doctor.”
“Laughter is the best medicine, my friend,” says the doctor. “Take yourself off to Covent Garden Theatre where you will find The Great Grimaldi performing in Harlequin and Mother Goose; or the Golden Egg. It is exquisitely funny and will cure you of all your ills without any pills or potions from my cabinet.”
The man looks at the doctor for a moment. “Ah,” he says. “That won’t help.”
“Why not, sir?”
The man shrugs. “I am Grimaldi”

There is One Simple Trick That Acting Coaches Hate. Sorry I’ve been writing a lot of internet banner ads recently. Let me try that again in human. If you do acting training and you want to be miserable on stage, the standard advice is to try to be happy and fail. Human beings are always trying to hide how they really feel.

I was talking with M’Learned Friend Johnnie Moore about Chief Happiness Officers and how they seem to actually be less happy than they want to appear. And I was reminded of the tragic tale of Tony Hsieh. Hsieh founded Zappos - an online shoe retailer which he sold to Amazon for a staggering amount of money. He was also concerned with happiness. He wrote a book called Delivering Happiness. He styled himself “Chief Happiness Officer”. He invested in downtown Las Vegas and seemed to genuinely care for those around him.

Nothing mattered more to Hsieh than happiness. So of course he succumbed to substance abuse and dangerously co-dependent relationships. Of course he died at 46 in a house fire if not caused, then definitely exacerbated by these other destructive elements in his life. Of course, he was ultimately miserable.

Coincidentally (or maybe not), I came across this quote from Roger Martin today: “To paraphrase Aristotle, one doesn’t achieve happiness by attempting to be happy. Happiness arises indirectly out of living a virtuous life.”

What Martin is referring to here has been explored in more detail not just by Aristotle (whom I have stolen from prolifically for the last 20 years) but also John Kay in his concept of obliquity.

“Strange as it may seem, overcoming geographic obstacles, winning decisive battles or meeting global business targets are the type of goals often best achieved when pursued indirectly. This is the idea of Obliquity. Oblique approaches are most effective in difficult terrain, or where outcomes depend on interactions with other people.”

It may also remind some of you of this.

With all this in mind, it seems like a Chief Happiness Officer is… not a good idea. Most organizations would benefit from simply trying to reduce the misery that they inflict on employees, customers, and suppliers. Much as a Chief Risk Officer exists to manage and reduce risks, so a Chief Misery Officer would exist to manage and reduce misery. But even that is probably too much. Someone is bound to misunderstand the role.

Some ideas to get you started:

• Don’t force people to join in corporate “fun” activities. If it’s compulsory then it isn’t fun.

• Remove the stuff that gets in people’s way - obsolete rules, crappy technology.

• Tell people that their work matters and why.

• Listen to them.

Now these simple things will be too much for most organizations. But if you can’t even do these then why do you think you can “deliver happiness”. We’ve just had the package returned with the message that the destination on the label doesn’t actually exist and the contents of the box are not what was ordered anyway.

Return to sender. Address Unknown. No such number. No such zone.

Elvis was obviously not getting the message (dude, does she need to take out a court order). But maybe we can.