Don’t worry, be happy? 3 ways to help employees find fulfillment

I can’t quite get Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 song out of my head (by the way, I added the question mark for reasons I will get to in a minute) since reading a May 12, 2022, article in the Wall Street Journal, “Confessions of Your Company’s Chief Happiness Officer” by Callum Borchers. Let my opinion be clear at the outset: Workplace happiness is a well-intentioned idea but often poorly framed, executed, and delivered.

Ancient Greeks had other ideas

“Be Happy.” As lawyers like to remark, the song title as written “assumes facts not in evidence.” In other words, the admonition presupposes happiness is a desirable state, one to which we should all aspire and, by extension, that employers should assist their employees in reaching.

Not so. In Ancient Greece, there was no word for “happiness.” Not even close. Socrates or Aristotle would have given you a quizzical look if you tried to explain it to them. Not a concept simply lost in translation, but truly an untranslatable idea.

What did the ancient Greeks know that we have now forgotten? Fulfillment. By this, they meant we should use our talents for the greatest good possible—for ourselves and for others. Happiness fluctuates, it comes and it goes. Fulfillment is steady, arriving and taking hold.