You might be thinking, “Sure, I’d be extremely happy, too, if nothing bad ever happened to me.” But the book makes it abundantly clear that EHP have their share of sadness and misfortune in life, and in some cases, more than their share. The thing is, while really happy folks allow themselves to feel sad or angry or frustrated, or whatever, they don’t allow those feelings or the incidents themselves to define who they are or to control the rest of their lives.  They deal maturely with adversity. They rebound, grow from the experience, and make a choice to be happy again.

I mentioned last week that through their research, the authors also discovered that leaders who are considered (based on many measures) to be really great leaders make the same nine decisions in their lives that EHP make. Therefore,  extremely great leaders are extremely happy people.

This isn’t a great surprise, is it? Everyone has to deal with loss, tragedies, hardships, disappointments, health issues, relationship problems, and experiences with hurtful people.  And we’re all entitled to our reactions when life is difficult.  But leaders must be balanced, mature, professional and gracious regardless of the circumstances surrounding them at work or at home.  Leaders who lack resilience should get out of the way and let others do the leading. So if you want to be a great leader, make sure that you’re an extremely happy person. And if you’re not—learn how to become one. You won’t regret it.

A group of employees working in a small office told me that they each have a certain number of paid sick days each year, but to discourage their use the company has a policy of paying $50 for every sick day not used at the end of each year. (I don’t necessarily support this policy, but that’s beside the point!)

Most of the employees said they try hard to stay healthy (or at least, not call in sick) throughout the year and like the opportunity to get an extra $250.00 at holiday time. So last month, they were expecting the boss to distribute the sick day checks, as he’d done every year for quite a few years.

Except he didn’t.

At the very moment the employees were anticipating the extra money they’d earned by following company policy, the boss said he couldn’t afford to pay them this year for the unused sick days. No warning. No advance notice. No apology. And no attempt by the boss to limit his description of the Christmas lavish gifts he had purchased for his wife and kids.

We all know that as revenues decline, benefits and perks get cut. We get that. But in this small office with just a handful of employees, the sick pay payout didn’t add up to a large amount (especially compared with the cost of the boss’s holiday vaca). To those employees who had faithfully come to work over the past 12 months, though, the abrupt removal of the benefit-after the benefit had been earned-felt mean and unfair. And you can bet that this boss won’t get it when his employees don’t go an extra mile for him. He’ll be lucky to get an inch or two.

So goodwill is like a savings account. You generate goodwill during the good times, and it helps you out during the tough times.

As it applies to the workplace, allow me to introduce one of my Seven Laws of Employee Morale: The Law of the Jar of Goodwill.  Imagine that there’s an invisible jar on the desk or in the workspace of every employee. All of the positive things the boss and the organization do to provide a good work experience go into the jar, such as being pleasant, treating employees equally, providing challenging work, caring about employees as individuals, listening to their concerns, and so on. You know-the stuff I blog about all the time!

The level of goodwill in those jars must be extremely high at all times. Because it’s goodwill that not only creates high employee morale…it’s what keeps employees loyal and willing to hang in there on the inevitable days when things are not so good. Like when you-the boss-are stressed out about a deadline and pass that stress along to the people who must help you meet it. Or when the network goes down and customers are complaining. When co-workers get irritated with one another or a major client withdraws its business or an employee doesn’t get the promotion she thought she deserved. There’s an endless list of less-than-perfect things that can and do happen in every workplace—because that’s life.

Every time something negative happens on the job, some goodwill comes out of that invisible jar. If it’s something relatively minor, just a little goodwill comes out. When it’s something big—or something minor that won’t go away—larger amounts of goodwill drain out. Probably almost every day, some goodwill comes out of the jar.

So when inadequate quantities of goodwill are generated, the jar will eventually drain completely and you’ll have an unhappy employee (or a whole staff of them) who feels disenchanted, disloyal, disenfranchised, and disappointed.

But keep making deposits into the jar, and your employees will weather the storms, big and small.

That’s the power of goodwill.

We are excited to announce that The Goodwill Blog is now featured in Alltop’s Small Business topic, alongside many other small business blogs. So if you like The Goodwill Blog, be sure to browse through Alltop for more great resources!

This sign sent a negative vibe to me, the customer, because I felt like I wasn’t exclusive enough to be invited to this private party, so now I can’t go there. But it also sends a terrible message to the restaurant staff: we can’t help these people, so just apologize and move on. WRONG. Instead of saying “Sorry for any inconvenience,” why not say, “Visit www.OurWebsite.com to learn how you can reserve the Lounge for your own private party.” That way, the staff is empowered to give a helpful answer, and customers walks away knowing that they too can be part of an exclusive party.

Janet, who has handled grand opening events for Applebee’s and d’Bronx Deli and Pizzeria, has another idea. She suggests that my favorite restaurant could have won me over for good by providing me with a free appetizer coupon for my next visit, or perhaps a $10 gift card. Janet says Applebee’s and d’Bronx used this technique when holding private “friends and family” grand opening events a few days before their restaurants opened to the public. “Uninvited” customers would show up to eat, the restaurant looked open and the parking lot would be full. Instead of turning away potential patrons empty-handed, the hosting staff explained that the cooks and wait staff were practicing on friends and family members. Then they handed out great coupons and to-go menus, and said, “We open on Monday at 11 a.m.—please come back then!”

By providing your employees with the means to handle potentially difficult situations with your customers, you not only ensure a better customer experience, you ensure a better employment experience. Your employees enjoy being able to solve your customers’ problems—empower them with the resources to do so!

• They don’t want to know how their employees really feel, because then they might have a problem (or many problems) to fix.
• They don’t care how their employees really feel, so what difference does it make?
• They don’t know they should know and care about the morale of their employees.
• They work for an organization that discourages management from being kind and caring to the workers because if you are, those employees will just run all over ya and take advantage of ya and productivity will drop and work will just turn into one big circus and the sissy manager who tried to be caring will be ineffective and will have lost the respect of everyone.

Attention, bosses everywhere: You’ve got to find out how your employees feel, and if there are problems, work on fixing them. You don’t want unhappy employees—even if they do a good job for you. You don’t want unengaged employees—even if they are relatively happy. This is what you want: employees who are both happy and feel engaged and connected. Because these are the employees who will truly become ambassadors of your organization. These are the employees who will spread goodwill for your organization. These are the employees who will be assets to your reputation.

Every few days, I’ll write in this blog about reputation, employee morale, and the connection between the two. If you become a regular reader, and I hope you will, I’m warning you now that you’ll get tired of this statement: If you don’t treat your employees like they’re number one…your employees won’t make your customers feel like they’re number one. Employees who feel marginalized care less about quality, meeting deadlines, going the extra mile, and being innovative. They complain to each other—which is normal. But many more of these unhappy/unengaged employees (more of them than you think, and more often than you think) complain to your customers—which is damaging. Anyone who has ever worked pretty much knows the harm that unhappy and/or unengaged employees do to an organization and ultimately, to its reputation.

There are some great leaders and management folks who get it. Unfortunately, there are many more who don’t get it, or don’t believe it, or choose to ignore it. I created the Morale-Based Marketing System to help those that get it get better at it. And to help those that don’t get it, get it.