A Magic of Happiness Accounting, a new measure to - “Improve your performance, Your Organization, Your Life and Gross National Happiness (GNH) of India”

 A Magic of Happiness Accounting, a new measure to - “Improve your performance, Your Organization, Your Life and Gross National Happiness (GNH) of India”

Do we feel like we worry too much about every little thing that happens in our life? Are we so concerned that our worries won’t allow us to live our life to the fullest?

The happiest people take a long-term view of life rather than allowing themselves to be caught up in the turmoil and details of each day.

They take things one day at a time. They teach themselves how to stop worrying by practicing a greater degree of detachment and thereby keep themselves calm and relaxed in the face of life’s little ups and downs. We make an effort to be happy and cultivate great relationships all the days of our life. This is perhaps more important than anything else in life and this tells us why living a good life, full of great relationships is more important than anything else.

Happiness research can be broadly classified into the two schools of hedonism or eudemonism; although there is considerable overlap between these philosophical views regarding what happiness is and how it should be measured.

Hedonism: The hedonic view is that happiness is about feeling pleasure and avoiding pain equating happiness with a continuous (hedonic) flow of pleasure or pain experiences. Measures of subjective well-being require respondents to evaluate their life satisfaction. E.g. A better-paid job may give a momentary rise in happiness but after a few months the effect wears off.

Eudemonism: Eudemonics well-being is concerned with the realization of human potential, which can be achieved by living a virtuous moral life the path to happiness is to lead a good life.

Om Sarve BhavantuSukhinah,Sarve Santu Nir-Aamayaah |

Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu,Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet |

Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

    Translation: May everyone is happy, May everyone is free from all diseases, May everyone sees               goodness and auspiciousness in everything, May none be unhappy or distressed Om peace, peace,            peace!

 Since what we measure matters a lot for performance, it is important to measure what matters. Though     happiness is the ultimate goal of life and research shows a positive impact of happiness on performance,     there is a lack of the inclusion of happiness in the performance measurement systems. It is time to include   happiness in the performance management systems and to start Happiness accounting.

Happiness as Goal of Life: Aims or purposes ultimately point towards happiness. For example, it’s very common that people may say, they want to have a good education, to get a good job to be happy and enjoy life and many more things can be counted on. Or another way around, they will be happy when they have a good education and a good job or when they get a good job and a good promotion, and so on. 

Measuring Happiness in Economics: Happiness economics attempts to evaluate a wider range of factors affecting well-being, quality of life, and self-reported levels of happiness. 

There are now several measures of happiness for many countries, such as Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) or (GNH) Gross National Happiness for Bhutan, France, and the UK. They have started using ‘happiness indexes’ in measuring economic performance. Instead of just Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the measurement of GDH is also taking place now for years. 

      It started with the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) in Bhutan, first coined by the 4th King of Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wang chuck, in 1972 when he declared, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product.” From this inspiration, the UN General Assembly recommended that governments make happiness and well-being a focus of public policy, hence 20th March was declared as “World Happiness Day”.

      In India, also “India Happiness Report” started in 2020. The high population of India will make it difficult but not impossible to raise GNH every year. It is thus, our individual as well as organizational responsibility to spread happiness around.

The positive impact of Happiness on Performance: There is a lot of research happening on the various impacts of happiness. Research in happiness shows the positive impact of happiness on employee productivity and other benefits. It is a scientifically proven fact that happiness matters for performance.

       It’s time to measure Happiness: Though happiness is one of the goals of life, the measurement of happiness at national levels has already started, we have not yet included happiness in what we measure in the corporate sector. 

 The current accounting system in use was developed centuries ago and is still rooted in the old mindset. It doesn’t include happiness in its measurement. Other measures of performance such as the Balanced Scorecards also don't include happiness as a measure of performance. What we measure matters a lot. People are guided by performance on the parameters that are measured. It is high time we start adding happiness to what we measure in the corporate sector. It’s time we shall start including Happiness Accounting in the corporate sector.

Performance and happiness go hand in hand in making an organization successful. With both an appropriate performance management system and a positive approach towards influencing people that increases happiness and an organization’s key results can more likely be achieved and sustained.

      A very small action call expected from this article is, happiness matters a lot for raising the performance of people in an organization and factors like income, quality of work, leisure, the welfare of family members, and a healthy environment to work.

      Organizational GNH index can be one of the objectives of each organization as happiness shall be the inclusion of performance measurement systems. Knowing is not enough. What matters is acting on what we know. It is time for an action call. The right action is to start doing it, start including happiness in the measurement system. And the right time is NOW! Ashoka Education Foundation has become a pioneer in highlighting  this importance to students with the  program  “Magic of Happiness”.