Healthy & Happy Workplace Cultures

People simply feeling good at work isn’t a sign of a healthy culture. Feelings are fickle and often the so-called '“happy ones” are the only ones we give credit to. If everyone is happy all the time, we must be doing our job well right?

But when we’re deeply engaged with something we care about and understand the potential impact of what we’re doing (how our work connects us more deeply with other people and ourselves), we dive deep into the emotional well.

All the projects I look back on with pride were accompanied by a process riddled with pain, frustration, anxiety, and fear. This isn’t to say I don’t enjoy the creative process, I do, but that enjoyment is a multidimensional thing. Sometimes we feel good while we’re creating and sometimes we don’t. The good news is our feelings don’t dictate our impact and don’t have the power to derail our process unless we give them that power.

A culture that focuses only on feeling good is less healthy and will ultimately be less effective in executing its mission than a culture that helps people acknowledge and embrace the entire range of emotions that come with doing something that matters.