文章来源: http://econ.st/2iJuxU0
LORD Percy of Newcastle, Britain's minister of education in 1924-29, was no fan of the fad for happy-clappy “progressive” education that spread among the country's schools on his watch. He declared that it was all nonsense: “a child ought to be brought up to expect unhappiness.” This columnist feels the same suspicion of the fashion for happy-clappy progressive management theory that is rushing through the world's companies and even some governments.
1924年至1929年，英国教育部长纽卡斯尔的珀尔·珀西（Percy）并不喜欢那种快乐的“进步”教育，这种教育在他的国家学校中传播。 他宣称这完全是胡说八道：“一个孩子应该被培养以期待不幸。”这位专栏作家对时尚界的同样怀疑，因为快乐的进步管理理论正冲击着世界各地的公司甚至一些政府。
The leading miscreant is Zappos, an online shoe shop. The firm expects its staff to be in a state of barely controlled delirium when they sell shoes. Pret A Manger, a British food chain, specialises in bubbly good humour as well as sandwiches. Air stewards are trained to sound mellifluous but those at Virgin Atlantic seem on the verge of breaking out into a song-and-dance routine. Google until recently had an in-house “jolly good fellow” to spread mindfulness and empathy.
领先的不法分子是在线鞋店Zappos。 该公司希望其员工在销售鞋子时处于几乎无法控制的谵妄状态。 Pret A Manger是一家英国食品连锁店，专门提供泡泡幽默以及三明治。 空中管家受过训练，听起来很流畅，但维珍大西洋的那些人似乎即将爆发成为一种歌舞的例行公事。 谷歌直到最近还有一个内部“快乐的好人”来传播正念和同理心。
A weird assortment of gurus and consultancies is pushing the cult of happiness. Shawn Achor, who has taught at Harvard University, now makes a living teaching big companies around the world how to turn contentment into a source of competitive advantage. One of his rules is to create “happiness hygiene”. Just as we brush our teeth every day, goes his theory, we should think positive thoughts and write positive e-mails.
各种各样的大师和咨询公司正在推动对幸福的崇拜。 曾在哈佛大学任教的Shawn Achor现在致力于教授世界各地的大公司如何将满足感转化为竞争优势的来源。 他的一条规则是创造“幸福卫生”。 就像我们每天刷牙一样，按照他的理论，我们应该思考积极的想法，写出积极的电子邮件。
Zappos is so happy with its work on joy that it has spun off a consultancy called Delivering Happiness. It has a chief happiness officer (CHO), a global happiness navigator, a happiness hustler, a happiness alchemist and, for philosophically minded customers, a happiness owl. Plasticity Labs, a technology firm which grew out of an earlier startup called the Smile Epidemic, says it is committed to supporting a billion people on their path to happiness in both their personal and professional lives.
Zappos对其快乐的工作非常满意，因此它已经剥离了一项名为“实现幸福”的咨询服务。 它有一位首席幸福官（CHO），一位全球幸福导航员，一位幸福的骗子，一位幸福的炼金术士，以及一位有哲学头脑的顾客，一位幸福的猫头鹰。 Plasticity Labs是一家技术公司，由一家名为Smile Epidemic的早期创业公司发展而来，该公司表示，它致力于支持十亿人在个人生活和职业生涯中走向幸福之路。
The trend is not confined to the private sector. Several governments, including those of America, Britain, France and Australia, now publish for the benefit of their citizens regular reports on levels of national well-being. Bhutan has long measured its gross national happiness, and the United Arab Emirates boasts a brand-new Ministry of Happiness.
这一趋势不仅限于私营部门。 包括美国，英国，法国和澳大利亚在内的一些政府现在为其公民的利益出版了关于国家福祉水平的定期报告。 不丹长期以来一直衡量其国民幸福总值，阿拉伯联合酋长国拥有一个全新的幸福部。
Business people have long known there is money to be made in the field. Dale Carnegie, a leadership guru, said the best way to win friends and influence people was to seem upbeat. Disneyland is still “the happiest place on Earth”. American firms regularly bid their customers to “have a nice day”. One of the sharpest books published on the phenomenon is “The Managed Heart” from 1983, in which Arlie Hochs child, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, noted that many employers demanded “emotional labour” from workers in the form of smiles and other expressions of “positive emotion”. Firms are keen to extract still more happiness from their employees as the service sector plays an ever greater role in the economy. Run-of-the-mill service firms are fighting for their lives against discounters. As customers, most people prefer their service with a smile rather than a snarl.
商界人士早就知道在这个领域有钱可赚。 领导力大师Dale Carnegie表示，赢得朋友和影响人们的最佳方式似乎是乐观。 迪斯尼乐园仍然是“地球上最幸福的地方”。 美国公司经常让客户“度过美好的一天”。 关于这一现象的最敏捷的书籍之一是1983年的“管理之心”，其中加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的社会学家Arlie Hochs的孩子指出，许多雇主以微笑的形式要求工人“情绪化劳动” 和其他表达的“积极情绪”。 随着服务业在经济中发挥越来越大的作用，企业渴望从员工中获得更多的快乐。 普通的服务公司正在为折扣店争取生命。 作为客户，大多数人更喜欢微笑而不是咆哮。
Some firms are trying to create some wellbeing, too, showering their employees with mindfulness courses, yoga lessons and anything else that proves that managers are interested in “the whole person”. Only happy fools would take that at face value. Management theorists note that a big threat to corporate performance is widespread disengagement among workers. Happy people are more engaged and productive, say psychologists. Gallup claimed in 2013 that the “unhappiness” of employees costs the American economy $500 billion a year in lost productivity.
一些公司也在努力创造一些幸福，为员工提供正念课程，瑜伽课程以及证明经理对“整个人”感兴趣的任何其他事情。 只有幸福的傻瓜才能从表面上看待这一点。 管理理论家指出，对企业绩效的巨大威胁是工人普遍脱离接触。 心理学家说，快乐的人更有参与度和工作效率。 盖洛普在2013年声称，员工的“不幸”使美国经济每年损失5000亿美元的生产力。
One problem with tracking happiness is that it is such a vague metric: it is difficult to prove or disprove Gallup's numbers since it is not entirely clear what is being measured. Companies would be much better off forgetting wishy-washy goals like encouraging contentment. They should concentrate on eliminating specific annoyances, such as time-wasting meetings and pointless memos. Instead, they are likely to develop ever more sophisticated ways of measuring the emotional state of their employees. Academics are already busy creating smartphone apps that help people keep track of their moods, such as Track Your Happiness and Mood scope. It may not belong before human-resource departments start measuring work-place euphoria via apps, cameras and voice recorders.
跟踪幸福感的一个问题是它是一个模糊的指标：很难证明或反驳盖洛普的数字，因为它并不完全清楚被测量的是什么。 如果忘记鼓励满足的愚蠢目标，公司会好得多。 他们应该集中精力消除特定的烦恼，例如浪费时间的会议和毫无意义的备忘录。 相反，他们可能会开发出更复杂的方法来衡量员工的情绪状态。 学术界已经忙于创建智能手机应用程序，帮助人们跟踪他们的情绪，例如追踪你的幸福和情绪范围。 它可能不属于人力资源部门开始通过应用程序，相机和录音机测量工作场所的兴奋。
Be miserable. It'll make you feel better.
很痛苦。 它会让你感觉更好。
The idea of companies employing jolly good fellows and “happiness alchemists” may be cringe-making, but is there anything else really wrong with it? Various academic studies suggest that “emotional labour” can bring significant costs. The more employees are obliged to fix their faces with a rictus smile or express joy at a customer's choice of shoes, the more likely they are to suffer problems of burnout. And the contradiction between companies demanding more displays of contentment from workers, even as they put them on miserably short-term contracts and turn them into self-employed “partners”, is becoming more stark.
雇用快乐的好伙伴和“幸福炼金术士”的公司的想法可能是令人畏缩的，但是还有其他什么问题吗？ 各种学术研究表明，“情绪劳动”会带来巨大的成本。 越多的员工不得不面带微笑或对客户选择的鞋子表示喜悦，他们就越有可能遭遇倦怠问题。 要求工人更多地表达满足感的公司之间的矛盾正在变得更加明显，即使他们将这些东西置于悲惨的短期合同上并将其转变为自雇的“合作伙伴”。
But the biggest problem with the cult of happiness is that it is an unacceptable invasion of individual liberty. Many companies are already overstepping the mark. A large American health-care provider, Ochsner Health System, introduced a rule that workers must make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within ten feet of another person in the hospital. Pret A Manger sends in mystery shoppers to visit every outlet regularly to see if they are greeted with the requisite degree of joy. Pass the test and the entire staff gets a bonus — a powerful incentive for workers to turn themselves into happiness police. Companies have a right to ask their employees to be polite when they deal with members of the public. They do not have a right to try to regulate their workers' psychological states and turn happiness into an instrument of corporate control.
但幸福崇拜的最大问题是，这是对个人自由的无法接受的入侵。 许多公司已经超越了这个标志。 美国一家大型医疗保健提供商奥克斯纳健康系统（Ochsner Health System）提出了一项规则，即工人必须在距离医院另一个人10英尺的范围内行走时才能进行目光接触和微笑。 Pret A Manger派出神秘购物者定期访问每个商店，看看他们是否受到了必要的喜悦。 通过测试，全体员工获得奖金 - 这是工人将自己变成幸福警察的强大动力。 公司有权在与公众交往时要求员工保持礼貌。 他们没有权利试图规范其工人的心理状态，并将幸福转化为公司控制的工具。