Herzliya in...in Israel and his subject is happiness and I've got a real problem

stuff I have a problem with happiness. My mother always said to me "My boy if

all you're looking for his happiness you're gonna be very unhappy". What is this matter?

Yeah...Well...you know...the question is how we understand happiness if we

understand happiness to be a constant high positive emotions non-stop then

your mother is absolutely right...happy... we will not find happiness, however, if

we understand happiness to be also a deep sense of meaning...experience when

we pursue those things that we care about most then we can experience a lot of

happiness not only that we will experience happiness and we will also be

more successful...more generous, our life overall will be better.

Why do you think of your things has been simplified and I'm worried about that because in a

corporate world right we just got more and more complexity. Running a global

business is amazingly complex. How do you tell those?

Alright...so the key one when thinking about simplicity... Simplicity is combining simplicity with complexity.

So...yes...the work of the manager today of the of the average employee is a lot more

complex than it was even fifty years ago and fifty years ago it was complex

There's a lot of complexity now here comes the paradox...the paradox is that

when we introduce more simplicity in two parts of our day so even one or two

hours a day are focusing on one thing reducing multitasking for that one or

two hours that brief period of time will help us be overall more

productive, more creative will increase our levels of job satisfaction.

This one hour to two hours a day will help us better deal with the rising levels of

complexity. It's...it's almost you can think about it like a race car or a race

car every few rounds needs a pit stop... needs to take a break

Simplifying reducing complexity is like that break that enables the race car or

in this case...us as the manager that the employee to do even more in subsequently

Right...I get it but here's the thing you've run one of the most successful courses

and Harvard people want to learn about happiness but the culture or whether

it's the business school or the culture of business is...is no break

it's amazingly intense...it's 24/7....

Yes

and in the middle of the night your BlackBerry is flashing answer that...

Yeah...it's a...it's a very big cultural problem...it's a

very big systemic problem within...within the business world and it's gonna get

worse...it's gonna get worse because things are becoming more complex and

we're becoming more accessible 24/7 and we need to change that and we're seeing

some companies that are realizing that they're realizing that human being is

not a machine...human being does need breaks and what they're realizing and

the reason why they are introducing changes is that when we do give people

the breaks when we do give them the full night sleep...when we do allow them to

switch off they can be on much more effectively during the other hours and

initially, it's the change is going to come slow you know the way change

happens is it's slow, slow, slow and then very fast Why?...because people

need to see that it actually works and it's more an organization's introduced

this kind of approach rather than being marathon runners being interval runners

as more...more organizations see the success of this approach

the industry...the system as a whole will change as well but it will take time.

Is there talking about cultural race? Do you have more of an appeal in this

hemisphere? Do Americans and Canadians get it but Israelis don't or Spaniards

for that matter don't? You know...Is there a thing about this that is rejected by nations?

Um ...You know...on the surface there is more acceptance in North America for

you know...self-help or happiness or well-being however it's just on the

surface...you know...ultimately universally we all want to be happier and what is

different about positive psychology is that science that there is actual

data to back up assertion so it's not just...you know...some people who have had a

good idea perhaps whim or perhaps very charismatic and just promoting an idea

There is a science behind it and when the science clearly shows that taking

more breaks or thinking about your employees and your own well-being

contributes to...to the bottom line when science shows it it's very difficult to

argue with it whether it's in the u.s. Spain or China where a lot of this work

is taking place right now.

Yeah...Have you got specific companies that you would say

are moving that way and are good examples that we should be looking at

and saying then getting it right?

Yeah...there are a couple of them so the most

famous one would be Google and they are that they understand that when you

manage people you're managing a person... a whole person which is...you know...their

their emotions...their...their behaviors their thinking and you need to cater to...

to the different needs of each of these systems...WL Gore another company in

effect your cortex and other companies heralded by many as one of the best

companies in the world to work for extremely innovative organization they

also implement a lot of these ideas. Now the thing about positive psychology is

that it didn't...it doesn't invent the will what he does is it focuses on what

works it learns from what works so it will go to Google it will go to WL Gore

it will go to the and the...the positive elements of specific organizations learned

from that and then spread the word.

It's...but that seems fairly simple...you know...

How do you as somebody has the responsibility of a whole organization?

How do I fit this? This is a complete lifestyle change.

Well...so these ideas are simple...they're common sense in fact but as the French philosopher,

Voltaire once said "Common sense is not that common especially when it comes to

application". The thing about these ideas is that...the proposal is not a

transformation of a life it's not an all-or-nothing proposition it's not that

well...now I need to take very long vacations come home at four o'clock in

the afternoon every day and...and...and when I work just do one thing at a time it's

about introducing very small changes so it's that extra hour of folk or hour of

focusing on one thing during the day... it's the taking five minutes aside after

lunch to just take deep breath...it's the taking a walk now having a meeting but

walking while having that meeting so you know trying to multitask of what I like

to call task multiplying.

Great...well I'm hoping after this interview I'm going to

put some of those into place and I'm going to be happier from now...

and I hope that I leaned as well I will gain a lot from this session.

Thank you very much for coming today

Thank you very much

Thank you.