According to a piece published by the BBC, scientists have found that goats are drawn to humans with happy facial expressions. There was a study done in which researchers showed goats pairs of photos of the same person, one of them featuring an angry expression, and the other a happy one. The goats overwhelmingly went to the picture of the happy face. They also spent more time examining the happy face photo (we social scientists might call that better engagement!).
Notwithstanding whatever application this has to working with goats, all I can say is DUH! Who among us walks into a bar and heads for the person with a scowl on their face when there are smiling people about? My grandmother would call them farbissinas – sour pusses – and it was about the worst thing she ever called anyone.
Happy people are better businesspeople. Happy people tend to be honest, they tend to be nice, they tend to cooperate, and I think they have more emotional intelligence. All of those things make for better team members. They play well in the sandbox with the other kids, which is one of the most important things I used to look for when hiring.
You can’t be happy if you hold on to grudges. By doing that you’re focusing on the past rather than on today. It’s hard to be happy if you worry about every little thing (sweating the small stuff) when you should be focusing on the things that matter and that you can control. There is nothing wrong with being detail-oriented (in fact, it’s a great trait!) but the details should pertain to those big things. Optimists are generally happy, even in the face of bad things happening. People who attack the problems that arise as challenges and not as…well…problems tend to be happy too.
All of those characteristics make up the kind of folks we should want on our teams. Maybe I’m more of an old goat, but I gravitate to happy people. You?
Consult Keith 