{"id":2850,"date":"2015-06-10t10:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-06-10t10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/?p=2850"},"modified":"2015-06-10t10:00:24","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10t10:00:24","slug":"how-being-named-the-happiest-company-made-me-less-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/how-being-named-the-happiest-company-made-me-less-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"how being named the happiest company made me less happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

earlier this year, we were named the happiest company in education<\/a> by tinypulse. every 4 weeks, tinypulse sends out an anonymous survey to all employees asking \u201con a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you at work?\u201d. we averaged about an 8.7, which was the highest average in 2014 of all the education companies using tinypulse.<\/p>\n

at first, i was stoked. it felt like all the hard work we put into our culture and values was paying off. people truly enjoyed coming work and felt great about the work they did. but over time, my excitement about the award has waned. every 4 weeks, i get an email where i\u2019m asked to rate my own happiness. and while i enjoy what i do and why i do it, i do have rough days. we all do. but i\u2019m hesitant to be honest because we have an image to preserve\u2014we\u2019re the \u201chappiest company in education\u201d and if we start being less happy that means something is wrong, right?<\/p>\n

because of this mindset, i started realizing that i may rate my happiness at a 9 instead of a 7 (with 7 being how i might truly feel on a given day.) i\u2019m letting the award and the image of happiness get in the way of how i\u2019m truly feeling, and that\u2019s not okay. i also started to wonder, \u201cis something wrong with me if i\u2019m the ceo and am rating my happiness at my company as a 7 out of 10?\u201d when i see other anonymous ratings that are lower than usual, i\u2019d also wonder if we were on a downward trajectory, going from the happiest company to just another company (as if that\u2019s a bad thing).<\/p>\n

reflecting, i\u2019ve realized that i\u2019m never going to be satisfied: not with our happiness, not with our growth, not with any aspect of the business. we\u2019re doing well as a company, but we can always do better. the happiest company award created the sense that we\u2019ve arrived. but we haven\u2019t. we\u2019ll never arrive. but we are constantly moving forward.<\/b><\/p>\n

ben horowitz, partner at vc firm a16z and the author of the hard things about hard things<\/a>, wrote about how the most difficult skill of a ceo is managing your own psychology<\/a>. i think the first step to that is being honest with myself.<\/p>\n

i\u2019m now pushing myself to embrace my feelings. when i\u2019m at a 7, i rate myself at a 7 and then figure out how i can improve that number rather than avoiding it. when it comes to culture and happiness, we should be using tinypulse to get honest feedback and to fix our \u201cbroken windows<\/a>.\u201d we should not be using tinypulse to win the award of happiest company.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot-app.tinypulse.com<\/a><\/p>\n

last week tinypulse asked us the happiness question again. i saw a 6 (several actually), and i\u2019m embracing it. a 6 doesn\u2019t mean that the company has serious problems. it\u2019s reminder that there\u2019s room for improvement, which is actually a good thing. things will never be perfect\u2014we\u2019re always a work in progress, and that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

learn why magoosh isn’t just satisfied with being named happiest company and what steps we’re taking to continue to improve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[496],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nhow being named the happiest company made me less happy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"living up to an image kept me from telling the truth about my happiness. here's how i'm learning to be honest with myself to grow personally and improve magoosh.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/how-being-named-the-happiest-company-made-me-less-happy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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