About 10 years ago I stopped caring about making my team happy. It’s a trap and a game I couldn’t win.
What I do optimize for is professional development and growth. Am I helping people develop and grow? I also hire based on that criteria – does the person want to develop and grow, regardless of what stage they are. Also, what can I learn from that person?
I’m not anti happiness at work and certainly don’t promote building toxic environments, but happiness is a mood, it’s fleeting and entirely subjective.
Being part of a team that is productive, solving hard problems, testing your capabilities and stretching your ability is much more the type of environment I do well in and tend to build.
Do I forget / miss birthday wishes, work anniversaries, milestones of any sort? Absolutely. I’m terrible at that stuff.
Do people call me when they’re really struggling with something (personal or professional), need to work through a situation, want to figure out how to advance their career, elevate their game or make more money. Absolutely. I don’t miss those “events.”
I’m strongly of the opinion that it is not my job nor a company’s job to make someone happy. That’s an inside job. My responsibility is to make people better, myself included. I’m not a great fit for a lot of places or people and I’m perfectly fine with that. But for those people I do fit with, we do good work and push things forward.
Off my “happy soapbox” now. Hope you have a great weekend not trying to make people happy.